Pre-Departure
For the most part my wardrobe is decided by comfort, but the ride-along form expressly categorizes jeans and T-shirts as What Not to Wear, which means I now need to give it some thought. We’re supposed to look … authoritative. I’ve killer three-inch heeled boots that might do it, but what if, say, there’s a foot chase or else I have to deliver a roundhouse kick to a bad guy? I settle for black sneakers. And charcoal trousers. And a hot pink (1) polo shirt. There’s no sun to justify a pair of aviators, oh well. I’m ready.

The Deputy
At the Police station I’m escorted through the building into the back parking lot where I’m introduced to Deputy Gabriel Gonzales. He opens the side door for me and I sit while he gets the car ready, checking lights and checking equipment. Loading the car with the engine running somehow feels a bit like saddling a horse. I check out the computer screen, which features an Open Patrol Log and a curious list of “Equipment/Qualifications” including: cell phone, evidence bags, rip hobble, crime scene tape, care bear … care bear?

Gonzales gets into the drivers seat and promptly offers an explanation for his haircut (2). “Sorry about my hair—it’s still growing back from when I got it shaved for the Explorers. It’s usually neat and everything.” There isn’t enough for it not to be neat, but judging by the way he gestured at “neat,” I imagine he misses his former coif. He calls his current ‘do “Chia Pet hair,” but until recently, his shaved head was part of the look for directing (and yelling at) the Explorers in their Academy. “The kids really like getting into it,” he says.
Gonzales is from Ventura, worked in the jail for four and a half years, and has been in Fillmore for a year now. And he likes it out here. “I think it’s the best job ever. Every since I can remember I’ve wanted to be a cop,” he enthuses. I ask him about the care bear, and he explains that it’s an actual stuffed animal for young victims or traumatized children. Can I see it? He hops out to fish for it in the trunk. Check the body bag, I suggest. It’s not without considerable difficulty that he pulls out a small, extremely worn plastic package from under a load of equipment. “You can open it,” he says. I extricate a small, new teddy bear wearing an indecently short T-shirt featuring an insurance advertisement. Although his outfit is a uniform infraction in my book, I invite him into the patrol car. Gonzales is also a bit mystified by this fellow. “They’re usually neon blue. And different material—nylon—so it’s easy to clean.” Maybe the bear faded for lack of love and attention in the depths of the trunk.

As we leave the lot, Gonzales demonstrates how patrol officers can pull up information by entering his own license plate number into the computer. There’s not much in the way of scandal, but we can tell the plate should go with a four-door (check.) and there’s been no plate changes on this vehicle. And he’s been making his payments on time.

The First Request For Help
Even before we’re fully out the gate, a woman with her two young sons in tow approach. She asks if she can make a stolen bike report. Her older son gives a description, “It’s a Huffy and it’s red.” Gonzales steps out to take the report. The boys occasionally glance at me, probably wondering what I did wrong to be sitting in a patrol car.

The First Dispatch Call: Burglary Alarm
Gonzales returns at a pace, “We got a call.” The dispatch notification says a silent alarm went off on a residential property. The deputy remains calm. “It could be an accident. As a cop you learn to not take anything at face value. But you’ve got to be ready for the worst.” We arrive at Catalano Ct. at about the same time as two other officers. I stay by the car and watch them approach and inspect the exterior of an empty-looking house. The neighborhood is mostly quiet. Finally one goes to the door, and a man answers it as children’s voices from inside the house reach me all the way at the corner of the street. Apparently the man had accidentally set off the alarm. The cops check his ID, and we’re off.

We Drive Around
I hear yelling—but it’s just a group of men playing soccer. I can’t believe I’m feeling this nervous sitting in a patrol car. Something of the pitchfork-laden mob hasn’t left my imagination. Gonzales tells me his focus is on gangs; “I like to focus on drugs—they usually go hand-in-hand.” He asks me if I’ve seen “LBZ” written anywhere around town. Negative. In any case, it stands for “Little Boyz,” a local gang. I’m sure my mental image of lederhosen-clad children isn’t accurate, so I ask how old the members are. “Anywhere from 13 to … I’ve seen some guys in their 40s.” Sounds pretty inclusive for a fraternity.

I ask about the rumor I’ve heard about North Fillmore, that there are places cops don’t go at night. “That’s not true,” Gonzales immediately responds. “It shouldn’t be true. Whatever people say, I want to break that mold. I want to help make the world a better place, and you start with making neighborhoods safe.” He says he’ll be sure to take me to North Fillmore. At night.

On Superheroes
As he steers with one hand, Gonzales fidgets with a snap on his utility belt. “Oh, sorry, it’s a habit,” he says. I compare it to Batman’s utility belt. So why is Gonzales’ favorite superhero Iron Man? “He’s just full of himself,” he laughs. I only have the Ironing Man spoof trailer to go on, but we both agree that Batman is coolest for not having superpowers, and for having the sweetest ride. We roll around the North Fillmore Storefront, winding down Lemon Way and snaking down backstreets before heading back to the highway.

We Pull Over a Truck
Gonzales explains the different responsibilities of the county and city patrol cars on duty while we wait in ambush on Mountain View, looking for equipment violations. In the dark, the easiest to spot are dead lights. I spot a guilty Vista bus. How about that one? “Technically we can, but then we’d delay the passengers…” I’m not convinced carpooling excuses a violation. Has the deputy been pulled over before? “Yeah. Lots of times!” We then spot, follow, and pull over a gray truck with faulty lights. Are the flashing lights on—it’d look dramatic. Gonzales laughs and instructs me to watch the bed of the truck. We turn a corner off of the 126, and as the lights are reflected on the truck bed, suddenly the police siren goes off, “Oops, wrong switch.” Running its plate number, we find that the driver has recently had a cell phone citation in the same company car. This time the driver gets off with a warning.

We Find a Dude
Back on the residential streets, the dispatcher’s voice comes through: “B Street bike path: male Hispanic, white T-shirt, long shorts, loitering on bike path.” Gonzales suddenly makes a right turn in front of La Unica Mini Market, and directly in front of us in the headlights a tattooed man in long shorts puts down a large dark glass bottle. While Gonzales talks to him, another deputy shows up. Gonzales searches the man and fishes out papers from the man’s shorts pockets. When Gonzales comes back at the car to grab his clipboard, I tell him the man seemed compliant and friendly enough. Gonzales looks uncharacteristically grim. “No. He lied. He said he wasn’t on parole.” This cop has a long memory for the people who have run from him, and lying doesn’t go over with him well, either. In the end, the smiling man rolls away a shiny souped-up bike with deep handlebars that rise up near his head. Gonzales says they didn’t have the terms to arrest him, and shows me the 40-oz. bottle he’d taken from the man. It’d been nearly empty before he dumped out the remaining contents. And it’s a clear bottle; it was just wrapped in a black plastic bag.

The Near-Brush with Meth
Gonzales announces that we’re going to do a probation check on a known meth user. “When the house is secure, you can come in, but you’ve got to stick—” he slaps his bicep. As though I were likely to wander around a meth lab or whatever might be going on. We pull up in the neighborhood and the deputy pulls up the man’s profile on the computer screen. There are eight different names listed under “AKA,” and it’s clear he’s on probation … he’s been more than a few times. Gonzales scrolls down the page. Can I read this while you’re in there, I ask. “Sure, enjoy yourself.” There’s quite a bit of reading material; one probation went into effect 11/15/2007 and is slated to tend 01/12/2011, but there are other listings that overlap this timeframe.

The sergeant on duty, Sgt. Jim Aguirre, arrives, and he and Gonzales at once head over towards a loud eruption of angry voices behind some nearby buildings. They soon return; apparently it was just a guy who had been wondering where his girlfriend had been (3). How strange.

The two invite me out of the car, so I step out. Sgt. Aguirre asks, “Wanna be a guinea pig?” From his patrol car he fetches a small box that looks like a Breathalyzer kit, but instead pulls out a long black plastic brick that takes a while to start up. It’s the station’s latest acquisition, a Cogent Systems Mobile Ident thingy that scans fingerprints and has a built-in camera for mugshots that doesn’t work well in the dark, we discover. I tell him my fingerprints won’t pull up anything exciting in the database, and it’s true—or at least, we can’t quite figure out the machine. It runs slowly, giving me time to admire the starry, starry sky.

Gonzales finishes a phone call and wonders aloud what’s keeping the deputy who organized the probation check in the first place. Apparently there’s a massive vehicle stop on the highway: “It’d better be the story of the shift,” he says. We wait some more, but finally decide to call off the operation, as the probation search cutoff time is 10 pm. I point out there’s nearly 20 minutes left, but I’m told it takes more time than that.
We drive off into the night.

Part III to come.

footnotes:
(1) The color of justice, as suggested by movies such as Legally Blonde and Miss Congeniality.
(2) Why is it that people who don’t need to apologize for their hair are the only ones who ever do?
(3) ?!