Ride-along is a real-life education

MARISA O’NEIL

Everyone who watches the movies or cop shows on television has his or

her own idea of what police work is like.

It’s the thrill of the chase; hunting down the bad guys;

handcuffing a dangerous suspect; interrogating arrestees in a moodily

lit room, while supervisors watch on the other side of a two-way

mirror.

But in real life, it doesn’t usually work that way.

More often than not, police work involves mediating family

disputes, calming angry neighbors or helping someone find his way

home -- if he has a home. And last Friday night, as I tagged along

for part of Newport Beach Police Officer James Rocker’s shift, I got

to witness a perfect example of the real-life situations and dilemmas

police face every day.

Police ride-alongs are hit-and-miss propositions. One night, you

can ride through a quiet ghost town of a city; another night, you

might witness officers, guns drawn, make felony car stops. But the

officers always offer their particular insights on the city and make

even the slowest night -- dare I say -- a fun learning experience.

Friday’s ride-along started uneventfully enough -- a couple of

traffic stops, watching people parade down Newport Boulevard in their

costumes on their way to the bars, a quick stop for a bite to eat. As

we pulled up to the police station for a brief stop just after 10

p.m., a call came over the radio.

An elderly man, who was riding an Orange County Transit Authority

bus, was lost and disoriented. An OCTA supervisor, unable to find out

where the man was headed, dropped him off at the police station, so

officers could help him.

Lt. Tom Gazsi, watch commander for the night, set to work in the

department’s lobby immediately, talking to the disheveled man and

trying to glean any information that could help him find his way. The

man was hard of hearing and somewhat incoherent, making communication

a challenge.

Finally, the man produced a Veterans Affairs identification card,

giving them a name and an age. For our purposes, we’ll call him Ed.

Gazsi offered Ed a drink, which he was reluctant to accept.

“Oh, I don’t want you to go to any trouble,” he said.

But Gazsi kindly insisted and told Ed to take a seat, while he

made him a cup of tea. Ed complied and lifted a dusty pant leg to

scratch his swollen, scaly shin.

Gazsi returned with the tea, which Ed graciously accepted.

“Am I being arrested?” Ed asked. “Because I haven’t been arrested

before.”

Gazsi assured Ed he wasn’t being arrested.

“We’re going to try to find a place for you to stay tonight,” he

said, nice and loud so Ed could hear. “Would you like something to

eat?”

Ed said he didn’t, but Gazsi brought a meal up from the jail for

him anyway and left a few candy bars with Rocker, just in case.

In the meantime, Rocker went through the papers Gazsi had taken

out of Ed’s pockets. None had an address.

Ed sat silently in the lobby as Rocker started calling through a

list of local homeless shelters. Late on a Friday night, most didn’t

answer the phone, and those that did were already full.

“Do you know when they’re going to release me?” Ed asked me, as

Rocker left a message at yet another shelter.

I explained that he was free to go; they were just trying to find

a place for him to stay. Ed shook his head and apologized because a

constant ringing in his ears kept him from hearing me very well.

His hearing had never been the same since the war, he said.

He’d fought in World War II, he told me, in the Battle of the

Bulge.

“A lot of the men there froze to death,” he told me. “Most people

don’t know that.”

He had enlisted in the Army when he was 18, because the country

needed more young men as the war dragged on, he told me. He served in

the 82nd Airborne and had jumped right into Germany at the end of the

war, he said.

“You know what they did when we landed?” he asked me -- then

raised his hands in a mock surrender.

Rocker finally tracked down the name and address of a man in a

nearby city who he figured could be Ed’s son. He called the police

department in that city to ask if the address rang a bell.

It turns out other police departments in the area had called them

in the past with the same dilemma. Rocker called the house and left a

message and the other police department dispatched an officer to see

if anyone was home.

They called Rocker back to tell him no one had answered the door.

“Things aren’t looking good,” he sighed. “And he can’t stay here

in the lobby all night.”

Rocker, who earned his bachelor’s degree in social work, searched

the Internet for any other alternatives for Ed. In the meantime, Ed

again told me about jumping into Germany.

I spotted the unopened jailhouse meal on the lobby’s counter and

urged him to eat something. I offered him the candy bars, and he

finally took them.

He opened a Baby Ruth and slowly set about gumming it down, one

small piece at a time, with the few teeth he had left.

After more than two hours of calling and searching, Rocker

couldn’t find anyplace to take Ed. The last chance was to drop him

off in front of a soup kitchen to wait until it opened.

Rocker gathered the man’s papers and took out a blank

field-interview card. On it, he wrote down all the information he’d

been able to find -- Ed’s name, his son’s phone number and where we’d

found him.

Then he stuffed it into Ed’s pocket for the next officer who might

find Ed wandering.

* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4618 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.