Police Academy Ride Along for 'Cadets'

Officer Matt Butcher — that’s who Lt. Paul Canfield gave me for a ride-along one recent evening as part of the course I have taken along with 19 other residents of “our fair city.” 

So far, the academy’s been mostly scratching down lectures on my KPD provided legal-size yellow note pad in the ancient, fluorescent-lit, temperature-challenged upstairs conference room (actually the old city council room) of the police department. With my new assignment, I thought maybe I’ll get to hear the click and clack of handcuffs being applied and see justice in action.

I was not disappointed.

Butcher, almost 38, has been on the force four years after serving seven years with Brimfield’s thin blue line. Prior to that there was an enlistment in the Marine Corps where he was trained in security to guard “special” weapons in Virginia (boring! boring!) followed by a final year or more in a regular infantry assignment. I suspected that the military security training was sufficient for the police departments, but he still went through each department’s academy training and intake procedure.

I shot (bet that woke you up) the breeze briefly with dispatchers Megan Lafferty and Kirk Weitz. Both are full-time, although Weitz started as a part-timer. Megan went on break and Kirk told me that his most harried multi-tasking time was coordinating calls around involving someone who was identified but had fled the scene. , as expected, is another time when his aging CentraComm Series 2 board gets lookin’ like Christmas. This vital piece of equipment is no longer made and must be repaired with parts acquired from other police departments that have long ago replaced those outdated boards. Kirk said he has followed the watchwords of the now-retired dispatcher whom he trained with: never take the job home with you.

On the way to the old Crown Vic patrol car I noticed a new Chevy Tahoe SUV and officer Butcher then pointed to a new Chevy Caprice cruiser awaiting an MDT (mobile data terminal) and single piece back seat. The snarling bulldog/cow catcher at the front (it probably has a fancy name like Vehicle Tactical Engagement Force Projector) is now beefed up and has powerful built-in mini lights as do the new vehicle’s front and rear side panels. Festooned now with ample lights for greater visibility on call, the new cars will also have 100 more horsepower than the old Ford. Officer Butcher and I shared a badass moment as we admired the Caprice’s new look. Butcher noted that new stuff has a downside, though. Be the first officer to scratch it or crumple a fender and you’ll probably hear about it.

Now, all you tea-baggin’ right wingers out there listen up! Where would the KPD be if GM had been allowed to go down as you wished? No badass moment, that’s what. And I’m here to tell you the cops are gonna vote no on Issue 2. So there!

First came a report of a bicyclist who had fallen over in East Main Street traffic and needed to be checked out. No sign of that, so we commenced to tooling around Matt’s assigned southwest Kent quadrant while officer J. P. Gormsen patrolled the northwest. Radio traffic registered police calls from surrounding communities while the MDT constantly updated messages from dispatch and also allowed contact with other police and fire entities with a touch to the screen. We stopped a car with what sounded like a dragging tailpipe and a “Stow Band” decal enhanced by a Stow Bulldogs footprint on the rear window. Some really nervous 16-year-old boys had their first police interaction. Officer Matt had their photographs on his MDT while he checked each passenger’s license. As it turned out, something loose in a wheel well was being vibrated by the tire. Better have a look at that.

As we rolled slowly through housing developments and neighborhoods, and prowled behind businesses, car lots, factories and even bike trails, Matt explained the sixth sense cops develop which tells when something isn’t right or is about to happen. It’s called "Spidey Sense" (as in Spider Man) and helps an officer stay alert for a furtive movement in the shadows or an open door or window which shouldn’t be so. We met up with Gormsen while looking for a motorist, whom they knew, who was reportedly driving erratically and possibly inebriated. Our “spidey senses” needed fuel, so after a stop at Subway to secure sandwiches we headed back to the station for a lunch break.

Interesting magazines up there in the roll call room — especially the glossy publication dedicated to SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) which is the specialty of Lt. Paul Canfield. I always thought the police were rather military and the mag’s lead editorial started with the salutation, “Troops!” I guess that confirms my impression, at least as far as SWAT goes. Nothing is wrong with that because my military service makes me comfortable with such efficient organization, but when questioned about this Lt. Canfield wants to distance the KPD from the military side of police work.

Incidentally, the KPD — with grant money and clever shopping – has found a good used ultimate SWAT-mobile ($250,000 new), the Lenco Bearcat. Kent will soon have it for local use and to contribute to the regional SWAT effort. I want a ride-along in that set of #*$@% wheels!

Back on the road dispatch communicated a Streetsboro report of an errant driver leaving their city limits three minutes ago. We were already headed up North Mantua Street, so officer Butcher pulled off the road at the city limits and waited. Within a minute there was a line of traffic behind a driver who slowly pulled off the road. After a pause the vehicle continued weaving south on S.R. 43 into Kent as we pulled in a few cars behind. Using the license plate fed into his MDT Butcher soon had the owner's name, local address, driving record and size. He was 6 feet 2 inches, 38 years old and well over 200 lbs.

Officer Nicole Lipscey arrived for back up and positioned her cruiser behind ours to divert traffic away from this OVI stop. Butcher got him out of the car for the traditional field sobriety tests in front of the cruiser’s video camera. From my vantage point I could not see the first and most important test, the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN). This requires the suspect to follow the officer’s fingertip with his eyes as it moves back and forth laterally. The officer looks for jerking eye movements, dilation of the pupils, up and down fluttering and the inability to hold the eye in place at the extremes of lateral movement. Impairment from drugs or alcohol will result in poor eye muscle control. Butcher later confirmed that he saw several problems with the suspect’s eye control. Interestingly, during this test he has the suspect place both palms on either side of the face so the officer, while concentrating on the suspect’s eye movement, will know instantly where the hands are in case the situation turns combative.

Next came the frontal-foot-elevation and walk-the-imaginary-straight-line tests which the suspect clearly failed. At that point Butcher placed him under arrest using two linked handcuffs because of his size. At every step of the way Butcher was firm but very fair and tried to relax the suspect by avoiding saying or doing anything which would frame the event in strictly adversarial terms. To be fair, the suspect (let’s call him Rocky – all suspect names have been changed to protect the guilty) had no prior driving or arrest record and was cooperative. When squeezed into the cruiser’s back seat Butcher came to the back window and told "Rocky" that because he had no prior arrest record he could probably go home without having to post a cash bond; the ticket and court date would suffice if things went smoothly. He also went out of his way to establish a human bond with "Rocky," telling him that with no prior record he had obviously made a bad choice and to call him by his first name. “Hey, we’re both the same age and I can understand what you are going through," Butcher said. "Sit tight, cooperate and we’ll get this taken care of as soon as possible. It will take about an hour back at the station.”

On the way back to the station "Rocky" related some of his problems with 17 consecutive overtime work weekends and that he really feared his nurse’s aide wife finding out about this. “Now she’s gonna leave me for a doctor,” he bemoaned. “This sucks. Life sucks.”

We pulled into the garage at the back of the police station next to a door which opens into the cramped, miniscule booking room. The holding area and three cells are in the next room. Jill Herman, the booking officer, and Butcher both strived to stay on Rocky’s good side and played along when he tried to make a joke or sympathized when he spoke of his problems. He appeared to be essentially a decent person who was in a pickle of a situation aggravated by a night of too much alcohol. Each one of us was asked if we could take him home so that somehow, his wife would not find out. His emotions were not far from the surface because he broke down crying after Jill called a family member, his sister, to come for him. “My sister’s gonna really give it to me!” “Hey Rocky, that’s what sisters are for, it's OK,” everybody reassured.

I felt like an intruder into someone’s life and tried to make myself as quiet and invisible as possible.

Matt and Jill continued to coddle him through the paperwork, breathalyzer test, digital fingerprinting and booking photography. The mood gradually lightened and he got through it. Afterward, he shook Matt’s hand for reading him his rights in a certain declarative way. "Rocky" also realized the irony of having been arrested “by a Butcher. Is that your real name, man?”

Jill jokingly wrestled with his hand a bit because he was trying to help too much rolling his finger across the digital fingerprint scanner. At each little turn or task they tried to prevent the situation from becoming difficult.

Now I began to realize how easily this could have gotten out of control, and I saw that Jill and especially officer Butcher were consummate experts. At this OVI stop’s inception officer Butcher, finding "Rocky" cooperative, framed the event on the personal level. He told me later if the guy just sees his badge he will likely have more problems than if he can make that personal contact and establish a rapport. Jill continued this approach at the station. However, at any point, given the alcohol and Rocky’s emotional condition, if he had been disrespected or humiliated the outcome could have been very ugly. When asked, officer Butcher said that most of his arrests are like this because of his efforts at a friendly approach.

Place all of this in the context of a very substandard facility, which is in violation of minimum state standards for a police station. Kent’s old building and jail are “grandfathered” — given an exception to state requirements because of age — but imagine how difficult the above scenario becomes when several arrests occur at once. Kent already has one of the highest arrest rates in Ohio, but its facility is perhaps the very worst. What is wrong with this picture in the context of Kent’s current welcome building craze from the new fire station to the , , , and now ?

As for "Rocky," he’s lucky they got him off the road before causing an accident. His crime is a first-degree misdemeanor with a $1,000 fine and as much as 30 days in jail. The lack of prior offenses will help, but his breathalyzer score was .202, about two and one-half times the Ohio maximum blood alcohol content of .08. That high of a level will probably result in the judge giving him three days of jail time. Because he finally agreed to take the breathalyzer test his suspension of driving privileges is 90 days. With refusal, the suspension jumps to one year.

And can you guess the old blood alcohol standard? It was .15 as recently as the 1970s, which means people drove around completely ripped without sanction. So much for the good old days.