The Police Ride Along: Part One

This past Thursday was a beautiful day and I got to enjoy it sitting in the front seat of an APD cruiser during a civilian ride along. A lot happened in those 6 1/2 hours and I've had to wrap my brain around a lot of information.

Part One of Three.

12pm, Roll call: Officer Sylvia listed all the criminal activity currently going on in the city: burglaries, stolen GPS, gang bangers on the loose. But what caught my attention was the 21-year old white female with a gun shot wound to her chest. According to Sylvia, the woman and a man were fighting in front of the house and then the woman ended up being shot on the porch. The woman was in the hospital but didn't die. The perpetrator was charged with felonious assault. That's all the information given. I couldn't find any news coverage of this either and I wondered why such a crime wasn't reported?

I was introduced to Officer Ed , who I was assigned to ride with. So we made our introductory greetings and stepped out on the street. As we walked outside, I ran into someone I knew and proudly stated I was going on a ride-a-long. I said "maybe we'll get to go on a DV." Another officer walking by overheard and said "DV....That's everyday." Officer Ed warned me that today would likely be busy.  He said after there have been days of bad weather and then there's a nice day, typically, those are busy days.

It didn't start out busy though so I probed Officer Ed about his perspective about domestic violence. We definately had two very different perspectives on domestic violence. He didn't feel a slap, which someone can be arrested for, was equivalent to going up to a neighbor and assaulting them. I responded that there was probably several things that led up to that slap, days of being emotionally terrorized and that should be considered as well. He agreed, but feels that the domestic violence law is "misguiding" and he doesn't believe a victim's statement is probable cause for making an arrest.

I realized that law enforcement officers have a tough job. They are limited in their abilities to stop interpersonal violence. After the fact, they take a victim's impact statement and can make an arrest, but they are not there for "long-term problem solving," like Officer Ed said. The police may have responded countless times to that 21-year old female and man fighting before the GSW but it didn't matter the day she was shot. Or, no one ever called the police and we'll never know if APD's presence would have detered felonious assault from happening.