Police Ride Along!

I was reminded of this today, it gave me a good laugh and I thought I would share. During Winter Semester 2007, I took an Intro to Journalism class. I got elective credit for it and thought I would refine my writing skills, hoping to one day write a book, what about, I don't know. One of the assignments for my class was to do a police ride along. We wrote down when we were available, and our contact information. A few days later we were given our assignments and told to contact the officer if we were not contacted. I called the department, and spoke with the officer I was assigned to ride with. I was really excited, I had always wanted to do this, but as the day came closer, I got scared. It just so happened that my roommates seemed to watch a lot more cop shows, and the day of the ride we talked about some pretty crazy photojournalism stories, all involving cops. Needless to say, as the hours quickly came and went I became scared. In my defense, I grew up in Phoenix, AZ, it is a pretty big city, and there is a pretty high crime rate. What I thought was going to happen in little Rexburg, Idaho, I don't know, but I was scared.

When I got to the station the temp said it was -2 degrees, pretty cold! The officer walked me around the station introduced me to the captain, then we got in the car. He checked in with his radio and told the operator that he had a ride along. We drove around Rexburg for awhile, he would call in plate numbers to check the status, but who steals a car here?! Time went by, nothing. He said for a Tuesday night, the streets were empty even for Rexburg, that was when I realized it was the season premiere of American Idol! No wonder the streets were almost completely empty in a college town!

Finally something! We were driving and saw a car pulled over. The cop immediately recognized the car as a someone he had dealt with from time to time. He talked to them, nothing, so we kept driving. It is a small town and in 30 minutes we had driven the whole town with another hour and a half left! Finally a call came in about an abandon car in town. We got to the scene, there were 3 other cop cars there and the K-9 unit! There are only ever 4 cars on duty at the most in town, they take their abandon cars seriously! After awhile the cop got in the car, we were parked facing away from the show, so until he got in I had no idea what was going on. A teen was driving his parents car, it broke down, he walked to the gas station to call them, when he got back there were 5 cops and a dog searching the car! My immediate reaction, "what a lame town I live in!" As it was drawing closer for the trip to be over the cop said I needed a ride in the car with the sirens on. We pulled into a parking lot at an intersection with a 4 way stop sign, by Little Caesars for those of you here as a warning! We were waiting for someone to roll through. The car was hidden, so people weren't driving as cautiously. Finally after about 5 minutes someone rolled thorough. The cop turned on the lights and sirens and pulled them over quick. He called in the plate number then went and talked to the person. I quickly realized this car looked a lot like the car of a guy I dated a few years before. Unfortunately, it wasn't, that would have been good revenge! I just felt bad for the poor kid, even though he only got a warning, he only got pulled over because I was in the car! The cop then dropped me off at my apartment, that got me a lot of looks!

Here is where I laughed today. We were driving home from the store and saw a car leaving a cop after being pulled over, as we passed I noticed a rider in the car, definitely a journalism student. I laughed so hard, I knew that cop just wanted to pull someone over because he had a rider. The poor person that got pulled over would have been fine if the cop wasn't trying to give someone "the siren" experience! So, if you are in Rexburg and get pulled over, look in your mirror, it might just be because they have a rider!