The C-PACT Blotter

First of a series on a ride-along with the Cheverly Police Department. 

My night started with a walk to the police station to meet my ride. It was a beautiful evening, and I enjoyed the easy stroll across town. I had spoken to Chief Robshaw, Sgt. Cathcart, the patrol supervisor, and Detective Ed Gizinski with whom I'd be riding. The plan was to meet Ed at the station at 8:00pm.

Ed and his partner Detective Earl Stone pulled up right on time. They had been doing some work related to arrests earlier that afternoon in the District, in which two juvenile suspects wanted for Takoma Park and Cheverly thefts were apprehended. The two also had outstanding warrants for a Montgomery Co. carjacking. Score one for the good guys after a crazy chase.

By 8:15 we had met up with the rest of the task force in the lot of the Cheverly Food Mart on Landover Rd., across from the Giant and CVS. Sergeant Cathcart outlined the plan for the first part of the shift, which put part of the task force on foot while others remained in the patrol cars. Detectives Gizinski and Stone stayed in their vehicle and by 8:23 were rolling in support of the foot patrols.

One of the first tasks the officers did was to sweep through the apartments' unsecured vacant basements and lower level stairwells where drug users and vagrants tend to congregate. These spaces are ill lit and confined in places. The officers allowed me to tag along as they cleared the rooms with flashlights and guns drawn. It was quite an introduction.

Once back in the car, after a few minutes of circulating through the apartment complex, the radio crackled with more urgency than usual. Officers Daughty and Jones had approached a group of young men who appeared to be making some sort of hand-to-hand transaction. As the officers drew nearer, the men scattered, one in particular running into a nearby apartment building despite warnings to stop. The officers gave chase.

At this point Det. Gizinski flipped on the lights and siren and we were off at at an unbelievable pace. Ed made that Impala do things that put Dale Jr. to shame. I felt like a kid at the carnival on the Tilt-a-Whirl. It was an amazing ride.

By the time we arrived, the suspect had locked himself in a first floor apartment unit. Through the door, Officer Daughty heard a toilet flush. At this point he threatened to kick the door in. Now there are a lot of good sized guys on the force, but Sean is the biggest, only slightly smaller than a Winnebago, in fact. The suspect's sister realized the smarter course of action and opened up the apartment. The suspect was then taken into custody and searched. Nothing was found. The man was issued a summons in lieu of arrest for failure to heed police instructions.

Meanwhile, the detectives had detained two other young men leaving the scene. While their was no physical evidence of a crime on either of them, officers took Polaroid portraits of each and filled out Field Observation forms with their names, addresses, physical descriptions, and explanations of why they had been detained. Then they were free to go.

The primary suspect's parents had arrived from Bowie at this point, and Det. Gizinski spent a long time listening patiently to their concerns and assuring the mother that things would be fine. By the time everything was buttoned up at the scene, it was 8:55 before we were back in the car.

After the first sixty minutes, weapons had been deployed, we'd gone Code 3 to a call, had three suspects proned out and handcuffed, and the night was only beginning...

Second in a series on a ride-along with the Cheverly Police Department.

Between 9:00 and 10:00 we cruised around town, ultimately heading back to the station for some supplies and a ticket book. Things got busier as we entered the third hour of the shift.

As we were leaving the station just before 10:00, we heard a call for a woman stuck in her apartment. It was reassigned to the fire department, and as we arrived back at the apartments, we saw Kentland pulling away, having solved the problem. It would not be the last time we saw Company 33 that night.

At 10:14, we cruised by Champagne Liquors further up Landover Road past the Exxon and Howard Johnsons. We found a woman and man loitering in separate locations outside the store. The man was a large, gregarious fellow with whom the police had frequent dealings. He was inebriated but cogent, calmly and happily drinking from his brown bag. He too was photographed and documented, but not arrested. Instead he was encouraged to head to his home just down the hill and enjoy his alcohol inside his residence. He cheerfully complied.

The woman was in much worse shape. Her front teeth were rotted away, which the officers said was a telltale sign of crack cocaine use. She was extremely confused AND confusing, offering nonsensical answers to simple questions. Ultimately though, she was not stumbling or otherwise in danger of hurting herself, and so after a warrants check, a Polaroid portrait, and a warning, she was allowed to go into the store, purchase her miniature Paul Masson wine bottle, and go on her way.  

As we cruised back towards Cheverly Avenue, we turned into the Exxon at 10:31pm where Sgt. Cathcart, Officer Webb and other task force members had detained five young men for loitering. As the teens were checked for warrants and photographed, Sgt. Cathcart explained that CPD was serious about a zero-tolerance policy for loitering. "If they're walking along, that's fine, but sitting down, hanging out, it just leads to bigger problems," he said.

During this stop, Det. Gizinksi did some Grade-A community relations work. The kids were talking about how they liked the understated black and white paint scheme of the Cheverly cars because they "were like L.A. cop cars." But ultimately consensus was that Gizinski's all black Impala was the nicest. At that point, Ed slipped in the hillbilly teeth that he sometimes wears when approaching a stopped speeder and did a short routine we can safely call, "Officer Cletus asks for ID." The kids were in stitches. As they left, they shook his hand saying, "You're a cool cop, man."

By 11:09 we'd driven back down Cheverly Ave., across Route 50, and swung through the Metro lot. As we were driving past Boyd Park, the detectives noticed that the men's room door was ajar. We swung around and parked, and crossed the park in the dark. The two investigators drew their duty weapons as they approached the building. Slicing the pie, they cleared both bathrooms. Both were vacant. They reholstered, secured the doors, and we headed back to the car.

Things were about to get hairy.

Third in a series on a ride along with the Cheverly Police Department.

As we returned to the car after checking the restrooms at Boyd Park, we got notice at that an incoherent man back at the apartments had dialed 911 with an unspecified complaint. Concerned for his health, the dispatcher sent the fire department as well.

If Ed had proven before that he was a demon on a slalom course, he now showed that he was no slouch in a straight line either. As we broke 90mph on Route 50 and then peaked around 110mph, I was delighted that the Impala had brakes good enough to scrub us back down to something reasonable for the hairpin exit ramp up to Landover Road.

En route we had learned that the call was from a known belligerent alcoholic who had been a problem many times before. Once on scene at 11:13pm we waited a moment for Officers Lamb and Montoya; the experienced officers wanted the rookie to be the lead on this call, gaining valuable experience in dealing with difficult complainants. We climbed up to the unit, and Officer Montoya spoke to the man and entered with Detective Gizinzki. The rest of us followed.

The apartment was stuffy and overheated, and the man was upright but profoundly intoxicated. As it turned out, he had called 911 and we had driven at high speed to get to him because his apartment was too hot. Yup. There ought to be a law against excessive warmth. Officer Montoya advised him to open a window, Officer Lamb told the Kentland crew that had arrived they could head back to the barn, and we all got back in our cars.

We then left the apartments and motored up to the Howard Johnson's parking lot to see if anything was going on there. All was quiet, and we descended the steep drive back to 202. It was now 11:33.

The radio came to life once again. This time a neighbor at the apartments had looked across the parking lot to see four or five young men entering a unit in which they did not live through a sliding patio door. The lights and siren came on again, and we were off in true NASCAR style.

As we screeched to a halt, Detective Gizinski ran to the trunk and pulled a 12 gauge Mossberg out of a zippered case. (It was about now I noticed I was the only guy without Kevlar underwear.) While other members of the task force entered the building to access the unit via the front door, we ran to the back and took up positions by the sliding door. Officers were on either side of the patio and outside the windows. Ed was crouched between two parked cars, the chute formed by the cars' bodies providing a field of fire that covered the whole back of the unit in question. I was crouched behind him, trying to be smaller than usual.

At that point Detective Stone looked through a window and said, "They're watching TV. You don't break into a place to watch TV..." Almost immediately the sliding door was opened by Officer Webb. He and others had gained entry through the front door. The police quickly determined that, contrary to the witness account, at least one of the young men lived in the unit. A multiple suspect break-in had turned into a group of boys coming in the backdoor to watch the tube. Once again the adrenal roller coaster of police work had given us a dandy ride. It wasn't done yet.

Last in a series on a ride-along with the Cheverly Police Department.

After leaving the break-in that wasn't, we checked in with Sergeant Cathcart and Officer Webb who had made a trespassing arrest in another section of the apartments. They were taking the suspect in to be processed through booking. This was a person who had eluded them a few times before, but like the Mounties, the CPD always gets their man!

The radio soon came alive again with word that the Hyattsville City police were in a high-speed pursuit. It sounded as if the suspect vehicle was going to come south on the BW Parkway towards DC. We sped to the on-ramp off of 202 by the Exxon station and parked on the grassy median, waiting for the chase to develop. Tension mounted as we scanned the road above and followed the pursuit on the radio. After a silence, word came at 12:36am that the HCPD had lost them. We waited a few moments longer to see if a suspicious vehicle might whiz by, but there was nothing of the sort. Drat.

Then we headed back southeast on 202 and set up with the radar gun by Old Landover Road. Almost immediately, a car came along doing 51mph in the 35mph zone. The motorist pulled over quickly after seeing the lights, and all was in order with his license and registration. He said he had set his cruise control thinking that the speed limit was higher. The detectives let him go with a warning. It was 12:45am.

After we made a u-turn at 202 and Cheverly Avenue and were approaching the light at 62nd Pl/Ave, Detective Stone pointed and said, "E-R-O. Taillight." Detective Gizinski got behind the car in question, flipped on the lights, and pulled the sedan over. It was 12:58am. "E-R-O," it turns out, stands for "Equipment Repair Order" (short for SERO) and one was issued to the operator of the car in question, after the officers straightened out some confusion over the vehicle's registration. The owner then had ten days to make the necessary repair and have the fix verified on the form by the mechanic or a police officer. She had thirty days to send the form back to the DMV. Check those bulbs, people!

We then started to head back to the station, but got word that a car was driving erratically on Cheverly Avenue. It was a suspected DUI. The time was 1:28am. We headed to the scene, but ultimately learned it was an out-of-towner who was tired, lost, or some combination of both and not watching the road carefully. The officers got it sorted out (no field sobriety test needed) and he was on his way.

After that Detectives Gizinski and Stone kindly dropped me at my door.

In sum, the ride along was a terrific experience. I can't wait to do it again and encourage any readers to go too. It's an amazing look at a difficult job and the officers of the Cheverly Police Department who do it with professionalism and care. Thanks again to Chief Robshaw, Detectives Gizinski and Stone, Sergeant Cathcart and all the members of the force patrolling on the night of Friday, May 30, 2008. See you out there soon.