I did my police ride along with the Tipp City Police Department on May 16, 2008. I attempted to procure a ride along for an overnight shift, but all that was available was an afternoon shift. I rode with Officer Stephanie Black from three o’clock to eight o’clock. Although we kept busy during the entire shift, nothing major happened. This disappointed me, but it was still an enlightening experience, and I did hear many stories of exciting events that have happened in TippCity.
When I arrived at the police station, Officer Back was not yet prepared for her shift, so I spent my time taking a look at the various police displays around the station. There were various pictures of the Tipp City Police dating back to the early 1900’s along with newspaper articles covering their larger cases and busts. I also viewed the various vintage police weapons and equipment that was on display. After around ten minutes Officer Black was ready. I expected a larger young man to walk through the door to the lobby, but to my surprise I found a young woman was the officer with who I would be riding along. The first thing I did was to fill out the waiver form reliving police department of responsibility if I were harmed or killed during the ride along. Before we took off, she showed me around the station. I had no clue that it was that big. There were all sorts of backrooms. There was garage, an evidence room, four interrogation rooms, offices, lunch room, workout room, weapons and ammunition room, holding cell, and the drunk tank. Among the more interesting things I saw was the fingerprint data base, the weapon discharging device, and a display of police badges from around the world, which contained my personal favorite—the patch with the pig on it!
Once the tour of the station was completed, Officer Black took me to her cruiser so we could begin the ride along. She gave me an in depth tour of her cruiser, and showed me that in the trunk she kept a carbine, a shot gun, first aid kit, cones and road flares. She also showed me the in-car computer which could find the owner of any car based on the license plate number or find the criminal record of any person through their name or social security number.
Following the tour of the car Officer Black informed me that if any major were to happen to us during the ride along I would have to be immediate drooped of wherever I was at, or if anything was to happen to her on a stop I would have to use the radio in the car to call for backup. After that, we were off. The first call of the night was on a stray dog on Main Street. The dog was running in and out of traffic and barking at pedestrians. We soon found the dog, and saw that it had tags, so Officer Black and I walked the dog back to its home, and she gave the owner a warning. Following our first encounter with a dog for the evening we began driving her route around town. She was responsible for the north side of town that evening. We drove around for a few minutes without much action. Occasionally she would run a license plate number of a car she felt looked out of place, or had a suspicious looking driver. We found nothing doing that. She soon decided to look for speeders near an area where it is s major problem. Within thirty seconds, we had a driver doing 55 in a 35. Officer Black turned on hr lights and we were off. The driver pulled over, and Officer Black instructed me to watch the in car screen and listen to the microphone she had on her. The driver was very agreeable, and admitted to her violation. After she had come back to the car and checked to see if the driver had any outstanding warrants, she gave her a ticket. We soon drove off and Officer Black pulled the cruiser over, and said she had to check her radar. I found how she did this to be really cool. In order check the radar, each cruiser is equipped with tuning forks which read the mile per hour rating that should be picked up by the radar when they are placed in front of it. She hit the 35 mile per hour fork on the dash and put it in front of the radar. It read 35. She repeated with the 55, and we were off, back to the station to file the paper work on the ticket. She had to file both a paper and computerized form on the ticket and we were soon back off in the cruiser. Not much longer later, we received yet another call on dogs. This time it was two neighbors bickering, or as they said, were in a pissing contest over their barking dogs. They pretty much called in every other day complaining about the noise their dogs were making. Officer Black told them more or less that if they did not stop the pissing contest, they would both be cited for allowing their dogs to violate the noise ordinance.
After this stop, the rest of the night was very uneventful. During that time I was able to talk to Officer Black about some of the more interesting events that have happened while she was a member of the Tipp City Police Department. Most of these seemed to be related to the fact that Interstate 75 runs through TippCity. She told me of several drug busts including one were over 100 pounds of marijuana was captured. Her favorite moment on the force was when she was able to use the stop sticks on a speeder on I-75. She said it was a really huge rush. She did a good job too, taking out three of the drivers four tires.
So, in conclusion, I wish the night was more action packed, but I did learn a lot about the police force in TippCity. I also learned that a whole lot of work goes into being a police officer, and through the ride along, I gained a whole new respect for the police force in Tipp City.