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In the middle of June, I joined the dayshift squad in 2^nd Precinct, covering southwest Mobile. I rode in 2^nd Precinct while in the Citizens Police Academy the previous year, so it was a return visit for me though with a different squad. Right away, the comradery of the officers was evident. From seasoned veterans to the newest members, jokes and laughter before and after roll call were plentiful, though they kept a certain amount of decorum during the business side of things.

I was assigned to ride with Officer “Vegas.” At the first call, which was waiting when we got to his Tahoe, Vegas wrote a false alarm ticket for a business in Theodore. It was the second alarm from the business that morning and a repeating issue at that location. And it checked off the obligatory false building alarm for the day (see the Part 1 article for more on that.)

After the business alarm check, we stopped by a retail theft call on Three Notch Road to make sure the responding officers didn’t need help before patrolling Vegas’s regular beat. Mid-morning, a 9-1-1 hang-up call came through—another regular event. Vegas did inform me he has gone to hang up calls that were for people in actual need. Fortunately that day the property owners were safe.

Fueling for officers in 2^nd can be tricky as there are no city fuel pumps in their area. It’s one of the largest zones, with officers driving over a hundred miles on their daily beat. A trip outside of the precinct is needed to fill their vehicles. The officers call dispatch to communicate that they are headed to fuel (and therefore will be out of the area.) They then alert dispatch when they return to the precinct boundaries.

Amid neighbor disputes, traffic incidents, and malfunctioning alarms, the two most notable calls of the day both involved homeless individuals. Vegas was support for the officers in the Azalea Road area when a call came over the radio about a man who allegedly harassed customers verbally and with a tool before breaking a door on the way out of the store. The officers caught up with the suspect on the other side of Azalea Road, near the dumpsters of a different business. I was able to witness the exchange, including his verbal and physical belligerence which turned to combative tactics when handcuffed. The suspect tried to bite one officer and then began spitting, which earned him a mesh hood to protect the MPD officers from further contamination.

The other seemingly out of the ordinary event—at least in my mind, though I was assured things like it happen often—was a call about a woman walking on the shoulder of I-10 West between I-65 and the Rangeline Road exit. During the blistering noon hour, she was collecting scrap metal and pieces of tires from the roadside. Based on the call information, we were expecting her to be on the right shoulder but spotted her on the center medium to the left. Blue lights and sirens were needed to change lanes amid the heavy summer traffic, though most drivers did not slow down or move out of the way. By the time Vegas was able to pull to the left shoulder, he was a good bit beyond her and she had climbed over the wall onto the eastbound side. Vegas backed up as far as he could, then watched her dash across four lanes of interstate traffic to the far-right shoulder.

Vegas advised dispatch to alert his backing officer and the responding MFRD units that the woman was now on the eastbound side. The fire truck that had pulled up behind us was able to move over and get to the Rangeline Road exit, but even with lights on, interstate drivers did not move over for the MPD vehicle. We had to travel to an exit further and get on I-10 East from Highway 90, which resulted in the backing officer and MFRD trucks getting to the woman before Vegas. She was assessed and agreed to go to the hospital. You’ll see from the photograph below that Vegas’s parking choice wasn’t ideal for observation. It was chosen for safety because first responder vehicles are often struck when they are assisting with roadside incidents. That is why they stagger them and seem to take up more space than they need. It could save a life.

Traffic accidents and driving concerns happened throughout the day beginning with a red-light runner on Highway 90 who blew through the intersection right in front of the precinct parking lot. Vegas also pulled over a driver on Highway 90 near Knollwood Drive who kept drifting from the far left of the lane to the right shoulder of the road because he was holding/using his phone—which is against the law.

Rain and thunderstorms rolled in mid-afternoon, around the time Vegas responded to a hit and run at Highway 90 and Bellingrath Road. Hit-and-runs require twice the reporting than typical traffic accidents. As soon as that paperwork was filed and we started to patrol, we were routed to a wreck on Theodore-Dawes Road which needed a tow truck for one of the vehicles. In case you didn’t know, the Mobile Police Department has an online request form for ordering copies of traffic accident reports, saving you a trip during a time you might have limited availability to a vehicle.

The twelve-hour shifts in summer can be extra brutal, not only because of the weather, but because a climate of unrest seems to boil extra hot. People are cranky, overheated, and quick to anger. Please keep in mind that MPD officers and other first responders are working selflessly under extreme heat and other dangers. Be alert, slow down, and move over so the men and women serving our community can do their job as easily as possible and everyone can make it home at the end of the day.