Whatcha gonna do when she comes for you?

in first person

I sat anxiously in a police car for the first time on Nov 15. A burly, uniformed police officer stepped inside. But instead of slapping freezing, metal handcuffs on my wrists, he handed me an ice-cold Coca-Cola.

Lucky for me, I was in the car as part of the Takoma Park Police Ride-Along Program, which gives the public and the media a taste of life behind the badge.

The Mueller files

I first rode with Private Eric Mueller, a confident officer who has worked on the force for a year and a half. When we began to drive in his "sector," Mueller opened the laptop between our two seats.

Besides allowing officers to run license plate numbers and talk to the dispatcher from the car, the computers house the inter-police instant messenger program. Each officer can type to his partners in almost three regions. That night, Mueller began by writing to his sergeant with a teenagerly, "Hey." "Wazzzzzuuuuupppp," came the reply.

We then traveled to Langley Park, a part of Takoma Park infamous for drug deals and robbery, according to Mueller. While our searchlight peered past trash cans and into dark corners, I wondered aloud what keeps cops busy on a rainy night like this. "We receive a lot of calls from people who have locked their keys in their car," Mueller explained.

I sighed, accepting that this was probably not going to be anything like NYPD Blue or Law & Order wherein exciting and gruesome crimes happen all the time. Right as I was beginning to get disappointed, however, Mueller spotted something and turned on the lights on top of the cruiser.

Before I knew it, we were speeding up and closely following the car in front of us. My mind flashed to such shows as COPS and America's Wildest Police Chases.

No such luck. The man in the car pulled over willingly. I noticed his taillight was out. Mueller began speaking into his walkie-talkie, stepped out of the car and wrote out the appropriate ticket, demanding that the driver repair his light within 15 days.

TPPD Blues

The time was quickly approaching 8:00 p.m. and the end of Mueller's shift. At the Takoma Park Police Department (TPPD), which employs a total of 41 officers and 11 civilians, officers work 12-hour days. The long shifts are due to a shortage of officers. Before my ride-along, Sergeant Dan Firshkorn admitted that in the 16 years he has worked with the TPPD, the force has been up to full strength only once. Nevertheless, the department has one of the fastest response times in Montgomery County.

I was then placed in the conference room with Squad Four. After careful deliberation on how to pronounce my name, Officer Paula Gaskin asked if I lived on Poplar Ave. I said I lived on Sycamore. She smiled. "You live in the red-and-white house with a tower, right?" she asked. That is exactly where I live. Now I was really alarmed.

Tricks of the trade

One shift later, I was assigned to Corporal Richard Bowers. His first words concerned the annoyance of the rain hats police officers have to wear. We got into his squad car and started en route to his sector. By then I had gotten the hang of what constitutes a normal patrol, but Bowers broke it down for me. "We basically drive around and wait for the calls to come in on a night like this," he explained.

Bowers was a little more cynical than Mueller. Fifteen years on the force have taught him the fine points of policing. "You could basically sit in your car, read the newspaper and answer your calls, and you would be fine," he explained. "That's what is great about this job: You are your own boss."

After an hour of sports and television talk, Bowers and I finally saw some action. We arrived on the scene of an attempted automobile robbery near Takoma Park Middle School. The criminal had attempted to steal a car when the owner happened to look out the window and spotted him. Although the car doors were unlocked, the man was unable to steal the car and was arrested a few blocks down. We brought the witness to identify the man who was later confirmed as the perpetrator.

An hour later, just as I began to doubt my ability to hold off going to the bathroom, the ride-along was coming to an end. A night of random license plate checks and Police Chief Wiggum jokes was almost over.

At 11:30 p.m. I bade farewell to Bowers, who now knows my address by memory (I should probably keep that in mind when having my next party).

The attempted carjacking was interesting but nothing like what fires me up on NYPD Blue. I had acquired a skewed image of police work from TV. On television shows, 11.4 percent of the characters are cops, according to Entertainment Weekly. Only 0.9 percent of Americans are actually police officers.

I will forever remember Bowers' advice about being a cop. His number-one rule is not to get wet on duty. "The first drop of water that falls on you is God's fault," he said. "The second is yours."