A ride along with the Hagerstown Police Department

HPD's Officer Morris assisting a partner on a traffic stop near the Police Department headquarters.

UPDATE OCT 12, 2022: I spent my second day riding along with HPD in the same beat zone. The shift was a little busier and I rode with Officer Dailey, a one-year veteran. I once again enjoyed observing the patrol work done by the HPD officers. The report queue certainly do build up on officers as they go from call to call, even if not all calls generate reports. In fact, my ride-along ended about three hours early due to Officer Dailey having to complete reports before ending her shift. 

I spent the evening with the Hagerstown Police Department (HPD), after my own tour of duty at the Hagerstown Community College Police Department (HCCPD), as part of a two-day ride along. Both agencies are in Maryland. To educate myself more about police work, I decide to ride along with that agency.

This evening, I rode with Officer Morris, an 8-year veteran of the force. He was assigned to the West End part of the city. It was rather a slow shift with just three calls (domestic disputes and a traffic accident) and a traffic stop assist. However, Hagerstown, population 43500, is a busy and often difficult city to police. It's also referred to as "Little Baltimore," a clear acknowledgment to Baltimore located about 75 miles away, which was once notorious for its high crime rate -- and still is to some extent. I never thought I'd give HPD a thought. It's a broken department with a high turnover rate. Half of my police academy class has left the department. There are also a few others, not affiliated with my police academy class, who departed, often leaving for smaller departments. I'm being told due to the call volume, people end up burning out. Among other things.

But I liked what I experienced on the shift. Officer Morris stated a fact I already knew: the grass is not always greener on the other side. Officer Morris acknowledged HPD has its flaws, but any other agency has them as well. He stated that a downside for HPD was the lack of a take home program for patrol officers (officers assigned to special units enjoy that benefit). 

I'm spending another evening tomorrow, Tuesday, October 11, with HPD. 

Do police officers have a duty to "protect and serve?" It's not as obvious of an answer as you think

This week-end, a friend of mine asked me out of the blue what is the role of a police officer, what is our job description. After briefly hesitating as I got caught off guard, I started saying that we, as law enforcement officers, wear many hats. We play the role of social workers, advisers, maybe sometimes lawyers, etc. Then I stated the obvious, that we also protect and serve, which is the cliche often given in the description of a police officer's job.

My friend was apparently waiting for me to say those words. He then had me listen to a podcast produced by NPR affiliate WNYC called "Radiolab." I was asked to listen to the episode called "No Special Duty," which was initially broadcast in November 2021. 

I learned something interesting listening to the program. The United States Supreme Court has ruled back in 2005 that law enforcement officers have no duty or obligation to protect and serve despite that motto being widely used across jurisdictions (you see it on our police vehicles). This was actually a case law, Town of Castle Rock v Gonzales. 

Here are the facts of the case from Oyez.org: 

"Jessica Gonzales requested a restraining order against her estranged husband. A state trial court issued the order, which prohibited the husband from seeing Gonzales or their three daughters except during pre-arranged visits. A month later, Gonzales's husband abducted the three children. Gonzales repeatedly urged the police to search for and arrest her husband, but the police told her to wait until later that evening and see if her husband brought the children back. During the night Gonzales's husband murdered all three children and then opened fire inside a police station, where police returned fire and killed him. Gonzales brought a complaint in federal District Court, alleging that the Castle Rock police had violated her rights under the Due Process Clause of the Constitution by willfully or negligently refusing to enforce her restraining order. The Due Process Clause states: "No state shall...deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." The District Court dismissed the complaint, ruling that no principle of substantive or procedural due process allowed Gonzales to sue a local government for its failure to enforce a restraining order. On appeal, however, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit found that Gonzales had a legitimate procedural due process claim. A rehearing by the full appeals court agreed, ruling that Gonzales had a "protected property interest in the enforcement of the terms of her restraining order," which the police had violated."

This escalated to the US Surpreme Court with a central question: can the holder of a restraining order bring a procedural due process claim against a local government for its failure to actively enforce the order and protect the holder from violence? Surprisingly, the Supreme Court sided with the Castle Rock Police Department. Again, from Oyez.org:

"In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled that Gonzales had no constitutionally-protected property interest in the enforcement of the restraining order, and therefore could not claim that the police had violated her right to due process. In order to have a "property interest" in a benefit as abstract as enforcement of a restraining order, the Court ruled, Gonzales would have needed a "legitimate claim of entitlement" to the benefit. The opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia found that state law did not entitle the holder of a restraining order to any specific mandatory action by the police. Instead, restraining orders only provide grounds for arresting the subject of the order. The specific action to be taken is up to the discretion of the police. The Court stated that "This is not the sort of 'entitlement' out of which a property interest is created." The Court concluded that since "Colorado has not created such an entitlement," Gonzales had no property interest and the Due Process Clause was therefore inapplicable." 

The episode I listened to cited another incident involving NYPD officers who delayed helping a man getting stabbed on a subway platform, even as they saw the suspect with the knife. The victim in that case sued the Police Department but also lost the case on the same grounds, that police officers do not have a duty to protect and serve.

The Radiolab presenter stated that she interviewed lawyers about those cases and that said lawyers stated even though they disagreed with the ruling, that it actually made sense. If police officers were forced to protect and serve, that the country would suddenly become a police state where anyone committing a crime, no matter how insignificant the infraction, would be arrested without any discretion used. 

This is not to say that an officer can ignore a call for service without any consequence. I know for a fact that in Washington County, Maryland, it is well understood that officers in the various law enforcement agencies in the county do respond to calls for service, especially with violation of protective order calls. Although this Supreme Court case essentially means prosecuting an officer for failing to act would be a challenge, disciplinary action is almost certain for an officer who choose not to respond to such a call in this county. Washington County tends to have well run agencies that are progressive. I'm not using the word "progressive" in a political way, but rather meaning those agencies tend to keep up with social trends affecting the way police operate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJtCZMIcj4I&t=331s

Deputy Coly is now Officer Coly

 I have started my new role as a police officer with the Hagerstown Community College Police Department (HCCPD) earlier this month. In fact, I completed my 80 hours field training program (FTO) today (May 14, 2022), which means I'll be on my own starting May 16, 2022. 

I love being back in police uniform and have been excited waking up at 0530 hours to prepare for a 0700-1500 shift. That said, the workload is extremely slow with dispatch pretty much giving us no calls so far as there are no crimes on campus. But I've been training a lot, doing a lot of reading related to case laws, laws of arrests and other study materials. 

I believe I will like the position in the long run, despite a drastic change of pace. I still hear the calls dispatched to Washington County Sheriff's patrol deputies, triggering happy memories but also reminding me of the challenge some of those calls can cause. I do not miss much the Detention Division. I do not fully know what my long term plans will be (staying put vs applying somewhere else) but expect to at least work two years at the college. 

Starting in less than a week as a campus police officer

After a one-year ordeal, I'm leaving the Washington County Sheriff's Office to go back to policing with Hagerstown Community College (HCC) as a police officer. It's been a very difficult journey for me to try to go back to street policing. I started as a patrol deputy with the Sheriff's Office but transferred to the Detention Division (which doesn't perform law enforcement functions) at the start of a difficult divorce, in April 2021. 

On Monday, May 2, I'm starting my new position with the HCC Police Department, a smaller agency focused on campus security. The agency is led by Chief Eric Byers, a 19-year veteran of the Frederick County Sheriff's Office in Maryland. The assistant chief of police is Lt Johnny Murray. He is a 29-year veteran of the Hagerstown Police Department and has taught at the Washington County Police Academy in 2019-2020 when I was hired by the Sheriff's Office Patrol Division. Lt Murray recruited me while I was attending the Hagerstown Regional Corrections Academy last month at the same college. Initially offered a part time position, the Sheriff's Office declined to allow me to work, citing conflict and potential policy violation. So Lt Murray offered me a full time position which I applied for. The hiring process was rather speedy as I did most of it while trying to juggle my responsibilities as a class leader in the corrections academy. 

My last day as a deputy sheriff assigned to the Detention Division will be on May 1, 2022, but I've currently been on vacation since April 20 until April 30. 

I'm leaving Washington County with a past I can't forget but believe I will be a much better police officer in a low risk, low stress environment.