Ride Along With The MPD

Back in the day when the city was known as Murderapolis, I went for a ride-along with the Minneapolis Police Department.

It's not like COPS. For one, you don't get to flip the channel or hit pause when things get dicey. For another, you don't get to choose who to ride with (you will be able to do this with your remote next season on COPS).

If given the choice, I would ask that all the cops in the precinct be lined up from left to right according to size, so I could pick the guy farthest to the left.

Which is kind of the way it worked, but not quite. They did line everyone up from left to right according to size but instead of getting the guy on the left, I was assigned to ride with gal on the far right, a cop so petite that a chickadee with an attitude could shoo her off a bird-bath.

She introduced herself as Officer Jane and went over the basic rules for a ride-along. She explained to me that my role was as an observer and under no circumstance should I try to involve myself in the events of the evening.

For the first two hours, nothing out of the ordinary happened.

Someone reported a burglar in his apartment. It turned out to be his wife's boyfriend. A home owner reported kids in his garage huffing gas out of a lawn mower. Someone called in a domestic, something about a wife's boyfriend. A home owner reported his lawn-mower stolen by kids huffing gas in the garage and so on and so on.

Officer Jane responded to each of these calls with complete tact and courage, working off a screen mounted on her dash where an endless list of calls scrolled through the drama of urban life.

It might seem like the evening was full of such drama but most of the reality of policing has all the drama of pizza delivery.

Shortly after our first break, one of the calls pulsed red and popped to the top of the queue - something about a fight at a hockey arena.

She flipped on her lights and siren.

"Let me get this straight," I asked, "we are going to break up a fight at a hockey game?"

"A fight is a fight," she explained.

"But IT'S HOCKEY!?" I said, thinking what next? A panicked call about loud music at a rock concert?

She tapped a few keys to drill down into the description of the call. It was a pee-wee hockey game and the parents were fighting.

Still, I thought, it's hockey.

Then about two blocks from the arena, I felt it.  

A big Jurassic Park - THUMP.

A moment later, another - this time harder.

We pulled into the arena parking lot and curbed the squad. I got out my side, she got out hers and as she sheathed her nightstick, another THUMP coming from inside the area rocked us against the car.

It didn't bother her at all. She strode confidently down the sidewalk, through the glass doors, across the rubber mats and out onto the sheet of ice.

Sure enough, there inside the blue center circle was two big beef eaters with fists the size of wrecking balls thumping on each other. A crowd of mite-sized kids had formed a ring to egg them on. Each time one of these guys landed a blow, the shockwave bounced the kids a good foot into the air.

THUMP!!

I've seen concrete truck collide with less force than what these guys delivered.

WUMP!!

A seismic wave rolled across the ice and broke into a spray of ice crystals against the shattered sideboards.

THUD!!

The steel joints in the ceiling groaned and crackled.

WHALLUP!!

The walls skittered sideways, shuddering on their footings.

I was getting a little concerned.

"Shouldn't we call for back-up or something?", I asked.

"Naw", she said, "You are all the back-up I need. Now, back up over there."

She strode into the combat zone and stood between two pee-wee players quietly watching the fight.

After a few moments, she raised a finger in the air to interrupt.

"Excuse me boys, but do we have a problem here?"

The two titans slowly swiveled their heads in unison, looking dazed and confused.

Their eyes rolled around their sockets searching for the source of the question, then as their focus settled on Officer Jane, their big somewhat bruised jaws dropped and thick tongues lolled over bottom lips in surprise.

Time slipped its gears for a full minute while everyone sucked wind wondering what was going to happen next.

Then in a series of tremors, the guys began to chuckle.

The sight of this little cop, half the size of a humming bird, asking if there was a problem so filled them with mirth that they collapsed into each others arms.

They hugged each other and sobbed themselves blind, then toppled onto the ice and rolled about guffawing. The kids laughed too. They laughed so hard they couldn't stand upright on their skates. They slipped and stuttered on their blades, arms pin-wheeling as they flopped like puppies into a pile.

Soon the parents, the kids and the whole crowd was falling all over themselves with laughter.

Officer Jane didn't seem bothered at all. She watched the crowd hoot and howl until she was convinced that the aggression had waned, then dusting a few shards of ice off her uniform, remarked, "Guess I did my job" and headed out the door.

You can't argue with that logic.

© Greg Schiller, 2008
Author: Greg Schiller