Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
My Ride-Along, Part Two
It’s almost 8:30 and I’ve been hanging out with the Asheville Police Department for more than two hours. I’ve been on a ride-along with APD in the person of Officer Doug Sheehan and I’m beginning to wonder if there’s going to be more to it than a lot of good intentions.
We stop at what Doug said used to be a decent breakfast diner at the crest of a hill along Patton Avenue across from Groce Funeral Home. Homeless people have broken into the place in recent weeks, so he wants to check it out. He radios in and we get out.
Doug’s flashlight hits the windows and doors as he walks around the place. He keeps walking, but there’s a hitch as he listens to his radio. There’s been a shooting in Erskine, he tells me matter-of-factly. That would be Erskine Street Apartments, one of Asheville’s public housing projects. My adrenaline starts to flow.
Feeling my excitment, Doug picks up his pace to get back to the car. He checks his laptop for the latest info. A young man says his brother has been shot. Police should be on the lookout for a champagne-colored Lincoln Town Car. Doug says there’s no need for us to drive out of the west district he patrols. We’ll just be on alert.
Asheville is split up into three districts. On any given night, there are five or six cops on patrol in each district. Doug gives me the boundaries of the west district, but I don’t really comprehend it. I just know it’s a lot of territory to cover – from Bingham Heights in the Emma Community out to where Asbury Road intersects Smokey Park Highway (the “Enka red light” as we used to know it) to Pisgah View and Deaverview and down along Brevard Road.
There’s more information now from dispatch. The brother who reported the shooting at Erskine did so from a house in West Asheville. Doug knows the street. He radios in. We’re on our way.
We pull up to the house, just off Haywood Road, and there in front of us sits a champagne-colored Lincoln Town Car. There’s an Ingle’s bag covering the right rear window. I spot a bullet hole in the fender. Doug radios in, then walks up to knock on the front door.
Mom answers the door. Inside, I can see a young man sprawled out on a couch. He’s holding a video game controller in his hands. He doesn’t seem to pay much mind to Doug, who’s trying to figure out what the hell’s going on.
Suddenly a 20-something with a do-rag on his head bounds down the street and up the stairs into the dingy living room. “What’s going on? Who the fuck was that? Is he out already?” Do-rag is hyped up, talking to his brother, yelling at his mother about calling the police.
Doug radios in, telling dispatch that the young man reported to have been shot had, in fact, not been shot and is standing before him. He’s got three conversations going at once, trying to figure out what’s real.
Doug tries to talk to Do-rag. “Fuck you. Y’all lame ass cops. I’m the one who got shot at. I’m not telling you shit. We’re keeping this street!” Doug has tried to calm the guy down, but it’s no use.
Out on the porch, Doug tries to talk to Mom. He asks who owns the car. It’s a third brother, the oldest. Does the owner of the vehicle want to file a report? Mom checks back inside. No. No report. One note here – I recognize the last name of the brothers. It’s the name of trouble. The oldest brother, some 10 years ago or so, was reportedly one of the biggest drug king-pins of Western North Carolina. Now I’m wishing for some more of that boring drive time.
Doug is back down on the street looking over the Town Car one more time and two more officers have arrived as back-up. Do-rag has continued his rant against the police, but it’s died off some. Meantime, one of the newly arrived officers and the oldest brother are having a low-level argument. Something about how DA Ron Moore is out to get them. The other newly arrived officer, a short-haired man, has heard Do-rag’s ranting and not taken a liking to it. Do-rag is telling the police to go fuck themselves, in so many words.
“What’s that? Don’t talk to me like that, boy,” the short-haired officer says, whipping his flashlight up to the front door. He drawls “boy” in his best Buford Pusser. This does not go unnoticed by Do-rag, who starts up with a new string of invective.
It’s on. Doug and his two back-ups rush up the stairs to the front door, which has been slammed in their face. They yell for the door to open and briefly discuss kicking it down. Then it opens, the officers are in and Do-rag is in hand-cuffs.
“Don’t put no charges on me, man,” Do-rag complains. “I’m a student at A-and-T. Damn, man, I knew I shouldn’t a come up here this weekend. I’m the one that got shot at. Why you arresting me? This ain’t no type of justice.”
Doug informs Do-rag that he’ll be going to jail on a charge of cussing in a public street. On the drive to the jail, I can’t help myself. I ask Do-rag about the guy who shot at him, a guy whose name he mentioned in his initial rant. “Fuck you” is the response I get to my two questions.
Doug laughs. He says this is the first time he’s ever had a ride-along get cussed. Welcome to the club.
At the jail intake, Do-rag begs and pleads for Doug not to hit him with “charges.” Then he starts to cry. Then he gets quiet. Doug explains what happened to the magistrate, who also listens to Do-rag’s version. The magistrate sets a $200 secured bond. Can’t it be unsecured? No, the magistrate tells Do-rag.
On the drive back to West Asheville, I tell Doug straight up I didn’t like the way the whole situation was handled. The whole “don’t talk to me like that, boy” was inflammatory. Unnecessary. It smacked of a derogatory put-down. Close to the n-word, I told Doug.
Doug said he didn’t see it like that. He said the arrest was made to keep Do-rag off the street because the guy was clearly going to look for trouble later. But I said you guys didn’t seem to think that at the time – you were all on the street and pretty much ready to move on until the situation blew up.
Doug told me the arrest was good, wasn’t a bullshit charge. (As a sideline, Doug notes that he couldn’t have charged Do-rag with cussing in a public street if the same thing happened in either Swain or Pitt county. That’s all Doug says. But I know that’s because former state Sen. Herbert Hyde of Buncombe County famously argued years ago that a man had to have someplace to go to let out a bad word. Hyde got the two-county exception added into state law.)
I understand the situation, sorta, but I didn’t like it. It seems fucked up. But I’m glad I’m not the cop having to deal.
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To be continued…
Great job, Ash. I picked a small bone with you over at your friend’s place, Scrutiny Hooligans. So I figure it’s only courteous to post it on yours. They asked for suggestions about where their blog should go…
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Why yes, since you asked. Here are a few modest suggestions for Improving the Blog.
1. Intervention with Gordon. Someone needs to tell the boy how unbelievably irritating his high school polemics are. No, I don’t mean his girlish "Hiya’s" and "Christy!’s" or his spelling lessons for dummies. That probably isn’t fixable. It’s his smug, obsessive pouncing on anyone and everyone that walks by your website (and anyone else’s!). Like a teenager who just discovered debating skills and is now incessantly torturing his parents… or a deranged guy whose sole obsession is getting you engaged in a conversation. It’s embarrassing enough to a lot of us lurkers to be so hard-up for local debate that we post at all… don’t make it even more embarrassing than it has to be.
2. Broaden the Party Platform. Let me give you just one example. How about you sit down and say, "Wow, it looks like we have ONE black woman who contributes to the site. She’s pretty smart and not like a neoconservative we have to hate or anything. She keeps trying to tell us we have a whitebread agenda, that we ought to pay some attention to poor people. We’ve kind of been ignoring her, and well, we ARE looking pretty White and Nerdy. Let’s do like Ash and go on a ride-along or something to keep it real." This would Improve the Blog. And no, drinking beers for Obama doesn’t make you blue-eyed soul brothers.
3. Speaking of Ash… since you’re almost an honorary "Hooligan," snap out of it! Ever since you came out of the closet you’ve been sucking up to these kids. Enabler!
4. Enough with the Ferrets! Since your entire clique seems to consist of two or three dozen people… and your contributors are far less, why in the HELL would you obsessively run around huffing and puffing in an effort to ferret out anonymous posters and "sockpuppets." It doesn’t take a CIA expert in textual analysis to figure out that the "No More Fake Progressive" guy, John S., Not Thomas Wolfe, Bree and the other half dozen new kids in school are not the same person. And don’t you see? They don’t WANT to give you their names and numbers (see #6, below). Gordon (see #1, above) actually goes over to the AC-T message board and tries to ferret out the imposters there! Hahahahah lol, lmao, rotfl! (Hey, even if all those people are all the SAME guy sitting in Matt Hebb’s coffee shop, let’s pretend they are different people! It will break things up and Improve the Blog.)
5. The contributor that’s all over Patrick McHenry? Now that’s good, original content that might actually change something. Keep that kind of thing up, it Improves the Blog!
6. Get a grip. One of you needs to clue the others in about your relative importance in the universe. It’s really not as grandiose as some of you crazy Hooligans seem to think. Not that there’s anything WRONG with that. But you need to watch the overt declarations of self-importance… the Sheriff of Blogville swaggering, for example. It will Improve the Blog.
7. Keep the In-Crowd Stuff to a Minimum. Not sure how to say this, so I’ll just give it a whirl. You know when you constantly share about how you all know each other and read each other’s diaries and get together in the real world? Well, it kind of freaks us out. It spoils the cyber-illusion that you are bigger than, well, a college dorm suite. Makes the grown up readers of your blog feel kind of like they really need to get a life and stop lurking outside the, uh, dorm.
8. Speaking of grown ups… Melissa! Hiya! Listen, if there is a God in heaven, if there is hope for any kind of intellectual life in Asheville, if you have an ounce of selflessness… start your own Blog! We’ll send cash anywhere you say. Just do it, please don’t make us beg… Think how cool it would be to have an old-fashioned progressive create a forum where Asheville can discuss real issues. Draft Melissa! Draft Melissa!
Well, that’s about all I got.
Discuss.
You can get arrested for swearing in/on a public street in Asheville? I did not know that. Of course, in a town where people can get arrested for standing on a sidewalk holding a protest sign, I’m not too terribly surprised.
See, every time I visit this place, I learn something new and useful.
Ash:This post was EXCELLENT when I read it last night….(AVL Election Eve)…and better today…(VOTE!)….with added BLOGIFICATION.
Here is a subject which I know something about…and will (sort of) try..to be PITHY about.
I have been on several ‘ride-a-longs’…..and it is all too true…many of our law enforcement officers are UNDER PAID, OVER WORKED & at times…WAAAAAAY OVER STRESSED.
With age comes….AGE…but mostly…time has a way of giving us perspective. I responded..several times..to the AC-T article about the ’22 Arrests at the Wide Spread Panic’ story over the last few days. I wasn’t ‘gonna go there’..but DID..because I was amused by the ‘arrest report’. (Many drugs…..a pack of rolling papers..and a Honda Accord.)
It was ‘FUN’ to LOG IN & BLOG OFF….but it also led to my accusing a UNC student of being ‘beyond his depth’ while criticising the ‘offenders’….but I eventually exchanged thoughtful posts with him…and found out he almost lost a friend who was suicidal after a ‘bad trip’. And….I posted a fairly complete report on my own illicit drug usage…mostly in the 1970’s….which is always a good ‘self help therapy’ kind of thing to do. (I am too ‘4th estate-y’ to run for public office anyway.)
All the while…I thought about how ABSOLUTELY …100% and without question….I SUPPORT OUR Law Enforcement Community as they deal with D.U.I. idiots…and distracted drivers who ‘CELL AWAY’ without regard for turn signal usage….OR the lives of precious children & animals….and other drivers.
Your post ..and my fellow bloggers short but sweet comments…help illuminate the fact that….although many officers need better training and leadership…and there may be laws WHICH WE THE PEOPLE have written the we don’t particularly like….the day to day…and night to night world of the ‘beat cop’ or SOLO NCHP or local officer…can be one where …in an instant….lives are truly in the balance…and, on occasion, ..the U.S. Constitution becomes, momentarily, secondary ….to public safety and survival.
Thanx again Ash…for your INSPIRATION!
Now…about WLOS’s ‘chiron’ tonight….think there’s ANY CHANCE..they’ll finally SHOW ALL THE CANDIDATES ON ONE…freakin’ PAGE..?????
Oops…the’OFF TOPIC’ light just flashed on my MacBook. sorry…. :-I
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Thank you for covering a part of Asheville that most commenters never see or care to notice. If the man arrested was age 18 or older, the officer should be disciplined for calling him "boy." Officers could save arrests and court time if they are taught to diffuse a situation rather than inflame it. The case against this man will waste public money and a lot of people’s time. Of course he should not curse an officer, but the officer provoked it with a racist insult.
Until you have experienced a ride along – you have no idea what it is like. One minute your adrenaline is rushing as the lights are flashing off of the buildings as you fly down the street, the next your heart is wrenching for the sob story that the wife of a domestic or drug call is giving. There is nothing like it. As individuals in our normal life, we can affect who is around us and choose who we wish to interact with. As a police officer, they are forced to interact with all life has to give – and then go home after a twelve hour shift and hug their wife and kids.
I am really glad that you experienced this.
thanks Chall!
zen, yes, i cant wait to hear your thoughts on what you see from your point of view.
Yeah, man! Good writin’ and good observin’ Very pithy, all of it and good of you to question the officer to see what motivates him. I couldn’t understand being a cop, and suppose i’m going to see for myself from a Buddhist point of view, heh!
Great post. One of the best ones I’ve seen on your blog.
-cg