During my first observation I went on a ride along with an officer from the Boise Police Department (BPD).As we started out on patrol we soon got a call for a shop lifter at a local Wal-Mart. We drove there and met the loss prevention supervisor at the front door who then lead us the office that the offender was being held in. The officer talked to the supervisor separately from the offender to get her side of the story and also to review the security tapes. He didn’t really ask a lot of questions just got the information. Next he talked to the offender to get her side of the story. After the offender finished her side of the story and saying that she just forgot to pay and walked out by mistake the officer asked her a lot of question. He asked everything from the kind of car he drove to the type of things she was shopping for and how much money she had with her. He also asked about any addiction that she may have or if she is in a lot of debt. He finished with where she works and what type of work is it. At the end he read her her rights and arrested her and put her in the back of his squad car. On the way to jail she got really emotional and apologized many times but stood by her story that it was all a misunderstanding but the officer wasn’t buying it. As we pulled up to the jail she finally confessed that she always had the intention of steeling and the officer booked her into the jail on the charge of felony robbery. As he took her into the jail I had to wait outside because I wasn’t allowed to go into the jail for safety reasons. Also for safety the officer had to remove any all things on his person that is or could be used as a weapon.
After that was all done the officer and I got back into the car and went back on patrol. I heard a lot of different codes and direction for other officers over the radio in the car that police use to communicate with each other and with dispatch. We drove through the Boise bench are just looking and waiting for something to do. We then stopped in a parking lot to talk with another officer. The 2 officers talked about a drug case that they are working on together and the progress that they are making in this case. I was asked not to write anything down during this period of time in order to preserve the integrity and privacy of the case.
The last thing we did and I observed in the 2 hours I was with this officer was as he drove me back to the station was the reaction of the other drivers on the road when we passed them All the other drivers seemed to be driving extra carefully in fear of getting pulled over. I found it funny but I could tell that the officer was annoyed by this. I asked him why and I was surprised by his response. He said that it annoys him because he rarely writes tickets and it bugs him when everyone around him is all paranoid for no reason at all. He works the swing shift and lets the cops that work the day shift to be the ticket writers.