Policeawesomenessridealong

So Saturday night I did something that I've wanted to do since I was like 8 years old.


I went on a ride-along with my Brother-in-law Nick.


It. Was. Awesome.


We saw some drunk people who were WAY over the .08 legal limit (they both blew about a .21), and a third drunk guy who was passed out on the railroad tracks underneath a highway overpass at the end of a Union Pacific train yard. Nobody has any idea how he got there, except maybe to have driven off the highway overpass and down the 60 or 65 degree embankment to the tracks. I didn't get to see exactly where he was but we drove down a weird access road to try to get there and it was pretty close to where he was and we could almost see him and it was CRAZY! Dispatch had to call Union Pacific and get all the trains stopped and everything. He ended up being a 22 yo. Mexican from really close to my mission (Michoacan, where I served in a city for about 5 mos), and Nick translated for the cops at the station when they were reading rights and asking him about the night and taking the Breathalyzer. It was fun cause I got to listen to him speak and got to kind of relive parts of my mission. 


West Valley had a shootout during the night that they borrowed three cops from Murray for. I didn't get to go on that one (which was a bummer cause it would have been like a 100+ mph run down the belt route and arresting a ton of people, but we were at the jail booking a DUI at the time.


I got to see a Salt Lake City drug unit car (it was an unmarked, super undercover, very nice black charger) at the jail. Apparently they refused the inmate because his blood pressure was too high from the drugs he was on.


I also got to hear lots of cool police chatter about the fights and DUIs and everything that were going on.


The coolest thing I got to see were the roadside DUI tests. They were so funny. People were stumbling all over and forgetting instructions and their eyes would NOT follow the stupid pen! They were jumpin all over. One lady was supposed to do the "9-step walk and turn" and she took 11 steps one way and 12 the other and would have kept going probably but she ran into her car. It was great. Both cars, ironically, were brand new, and the owners still had the 30-day tags on.


Anyway, if you want to hear more detailed stories you can ask me next time we talk.