Episode #54: The Day I Rode With A Highway Patrol Trooper

 I met my Highway Patrol Trooper neighbor a couple of years ago when he arrived at my house to investigate an accident. As it turns out, a guy was driving his car and had a heart attack and died behind the wheel. As his car proceeded down the hill just east of my place it maintains its position on the roadway for a quarter mile or so and then drifts across the centerline to the left, leaves the road, travels a short way down the bar ditch and comes to a stop when it strikes my front pipe fence.

A guy driving the opposite direction witnesses the car as it leaves the roadway and sees it hit my fence. He stops in my driveway and and goes to the other vehicle. The engine is still running, the doors on the small car are locked and the driver is non-responsive.

He runs to my front door and rings the doorbell multiple times and by the time I get there, no one is at the front door. I step out on the front porch and see him running back to my driveway and yell at him asking what he needs. He tells me what he just saw. I asked him if he had called 911 and he had.

I go out to the car with him with a prybar from my shop in hand to pry open or bust the glass to unlock the door when Patrick drives up in his DPS vehicle. At this point he finishes what I was just starting and we get the guy out and start chest compressions when EMS arrives about 3 minutes later.

I had visited with him several times over the next year or so and told him when I retire that I would like to do a "citizen ride along" and that opportunity came last month over the Memorial Day weekend.

His shift was going to run from 3:00pm until 1:00am so I could get several hours of day time and night time duty with him. By the end of the shift which did not end until about 2:15am there were 3 arrests made and booked into the county jail, 2 trips to the hospital for DWI blood draws for confirmation of failed field sobriety tests, one motor vehicle accident and he wrote several speeding tickets. They were all very interesting.

The first arrest was made within 15 minutes of shift start about 6 miles from my home. When we got up on the state highway driving 10 mph below the speed limit he noticed a car driving probably in excess of the speed limit slow down quickly and turn into a private driveway. He ran the plates and saw that this car was registered in Dallas county. 

We catch the next median turn around and go back to see if he was still sitting there. As it turns out we meet him as we are returning to the spot where he had stopped. In very short order we turn around and quickly catch him, light him up and he turns north on a county road. We pull up behind him and he gets out of the car.

Patrick gets out of his SUV and asks him if he is lost, which he claims he was. They have conversation and he gets his driver's license and walks back to the car and the driver is standing in front of the DPS vehicle claiming he won't find any violations or warrants.

When the computer returns the information, I know something is about to happen when he drops the license in the cup holder, gets out of the car without saying a word, walks toward him telling him to 'turn around, put your hands behind your back, you are under arrest'.

Long story short, the guy has moved to Dallas from California. He had drug related warrants in Tarrant county for manufacturing and distribution and out of Dallas county for repeated sexual assaults. This was our first trip to the county jail during that shift. Fortunately, this guy was cooperative and civil throughout the process because he was a big guy. I saw on the arrest record that he was 6'7".

There were drugs in his car and they were confiscated as evidence and we delivered them to the DPS office for safe keeping until the following week for disposition.  

Next we spend some time patrolling the area and he stops a few cars, writes a few tickets and we stop for lunch and meet up with the other DPS trooper on duty. We eat and chat for a while then return to work. As an interesting note, while visiting during our meal, I find out that while I was in high school I knew and even dated the other trooper's current mother in law. It is such a small world!

We are soon called to a single vehicle accident in the rural part of the county. The guy involved hit a bridge rail causing not only damage to the rail but it also totals out his car but is up walking around when we arrive. After interviewing the driver about the accident, he apparently had been drinking and refuses the PBT (preliminary breath test) so he conducts field sobriety tests, which he fails to pass. 

We are now on our first trip to NTMC for a consent blood draw, then to our second trip to the county jail. One of the blessings of living in a small community for almost 60 years can also be a curse, that being I know a lot of people in the area. While I did not know this guy, I do know his uncle.

Over the next few hours we pull over and site a few speeders, wrong way drivers and it getting close to midnight. While patrolling south of the college on 51 and see a car over speeding by about 10 mph north so we turn around and follow. Just as we are getting to I35, we notice a vehicle speeding about 25 mph over the limit so we turn around, follow and light him up and he pulls over.

As it turns out the driver is intoxicated and so is the passenger so she cannot drive the vehicle away so she awaits there for a ride from a friend. This driver also refuses the PBT and is arrested and taken to NTMC for a blood draw. The other DPS trooper on duty arrives just before the driver is taken to the hospital and I am asked to take an accident call with him, so I hop in his SUV and we are off to check it out. I find out a little later, that the guy that was just arrested is the son of a former local politician and understandably they want to keep it as low key as possible as a courtesy to him.

It was a very interesting day and night shift and would like to do this again soon.