IT'S NOT ALL SIRENS AND FLASHING LIGHTS

As part of the Citizens Academy of the Yuma, AZ, Police Department I had the opportunity to ride along with Officer Jared Keeney on part of his afternoon shift. It was nothing like you see on TV. It was a lesson in caring and diplomacy. None of the incidents he was dispatched to would make the news.

    First he was dispatched to Yuma Regional Medical Center, along with another officer, to make sure that a patient admitted with a drug overdose was transported safely to a psychiatric facility. The other officer actually transported the woman to the other location.

   Next stop was the Yuma Palms Regional Center where a young lady who worked in one of the stores had called police about her fear that a man she did not know was stalking her. He had been in her store numerous times during the day and made her feel uneasy. She was concerned that he might be the same person who had followed her home last year. She had filed a report on that incident as well. The solution, Officer Keeney said, was to have the store manager ban this particular person from the store. If he appeared again he could be arrested for trespass. Officer Keeney also assured the woman that he would attempt to make regular passes in the area of her store.

    The third call involved a man who had outstanding warrants for misdemeanors. The man’s ex-wife had called telling police about where he could be located which was at her house where he was not supposed to be. Officer Keeney and another officer talked to the man for awhile to keep him from getting disturbed and arrested him. It was a peaceful arrest. The other officer took the man to a detention center. An interesting sidelight to the arrest was that the man’s ex-wife was currently a Border Patrol agent and he was  former agent.

    The next call involved a dispute among neighbors. One neighbor was upset because he said a neighbor had damaged his trash can. Again, because people were upset, two officers were dispatched. One of the families involved had limited English and officers were fortunate to have a friend interpret in Spanish. The solution was to give them the phone number of the city trash service assuring them the trash can could be repaired or replaced. The other neighbor involved was not at home. The other party was advised to avoid confrontation with the man and to call again should things escalate. It was an exercise in good community relations which is needed in many of the police calls.

    Final incident during the five-hour ride was in an area called “Okie Town” for the gang involved there. Again, because of the possibility of violence, two officers were dispatched. The complainant was an older man who said his son was yelling at him. Turns out that the two had been living together in the same house and that tempers had flared. The man wanted the son arrested. Officer Keeney explained the law to the complainant telling him what he could do. Under Arizona law a person becomes a legal residents of a house if they had lived there for at least three weeks, which the son had. The only way the man could get his son out of the house would be to take legal action to evict him or to seek and order of protection to keep him away. Temporarily the officers stood by while the son retrieved some of his possessions from the house. Another experience in domestic relations.

   To many people this would have seemed a boring and mundane afternoon. But I learned much about both the technology available to officers today and, more importantly, the people skills required of them. As Officer Keeney pointed out: “If it’s a problem for anyone in the city, it is a problem for us.”