Web Site Allows Citizens to Keep Tabs on Crime
3/26/2010
Sheriff: "Safe Ride" Proves to be Success1/6/2010
"Quiet" Night for New Year Patrol1/1/2010
Safe Rides in Rensselaer and Bennington Counties12/30/2009
Deputies to Offer Rides on New Year’s Eve12/11/2009
Schmidt making an impression Sheriff balances job, politics10/30/2009
Schmidt Sworn in as Sheriff9/30/2009
"Quiet" Night for New Year Patrol
BENNINGTON - By the time I had finished my New Year’s ride with Deputy Joel Howard of the Bennington County Sheriff’s Department, I realized that we had differing opinions on the term "quiet evening."
Howard is a member of the Bennington County DUI Task Force Team. On what one would expect to be a busy night in terms of drunk drivers, he spent a lot of time assisting other police officers with traffic stops and situations on foot.
Near the end of the shift, Howard was commenting on how there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the roads, drunk or otherwise, which he suspected was because of the Safe Ride Program, which started this year and offers fee rides home to inebriated drivers.
Around 2 a.m., members of the Bennington Police Department sent out a message over the radio requesting a vehicle with a strong back seat cage. I could hear what sounded like a woman shrieking over the speaker and realized I was about to hear it up close when Howard began to accelerate, headed toward a motel on Main Street.
The woman was outside in the snow with two BPD officers. She was screaming and shouting various expletives while trying to kick the officers. From the sound of the conversation, she seemed to have succeeded and it took the two BPD officers and Howard to load her into his back seat.
Once she was in, I saw the benefits of Howard’s set up. The woman was unable to break any of the windows, and while I could feel my seat get bumped, she was unable to cause me or Howard any problems as she was driven to the police station.
Prior to that, the night was quieter. I began my ride with Howard at 11:30 p.m. The inside of his cruiser is decked out with communications equipment. Some of it is standard issue, like a laptop computer that has information on incidents relayed by dispatchers and checks the status of people’s licenses and registrations.
Other items are unique to Howard’s vehicle, like a GPS unit that provides him street names in case he enters an area he isn’t familiar with. While I’ve never ridden in the Batmobile, I can now imagine what it might be like.
The first place Howard was dispatched to was Northside Drive to assist with a traffic stop. When we arrived, there were four teenagers, three males and a female, standing out in the snow looking chilly.
While none of them blew above a .08 percent on a breathalyzer test -- the threshold for DUI charges -- none were 21 years old, either. That presented a problem for one of the males, as he had been ticketed for underage drinking once before and was now likely to be arrested.
"Are you a reporter?" one of them asked me.
Howard explained to them that I was just tagging along and that none of their names would be used, which seemed to cheer them up a bit.
Four hours on patrol
Once Howard was done, we were out on patrol again. Howard had been on since 4 p.m. and told me that he doesn’t like to sit still while working. While he can cover the entire county, Howard said he goes where the traffic happens to be and looks for vehicles that have run red lights, failed to use a turn signal, or have a broken light.
All in all, between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m., Howard didn’t make any suspected DUI stops. At one point, he was called to the east edge of town to assist another deputy with a sobriety check. It was a young woman who seemed cold, but otherwise sober. She had been pulled over for speeding, and while her eyes didn’t track, she could walk straight and her blood-alcohol level was below .08 percent.
We were four minutes into 2010 when dispatch informed us of a 911 call about a domestic disturbance off School Street.
Howard said that DUI patrol is his main duty and he is certified to detect drug use, but he’ll respond to any incident he’s needed at. When we arrived at School Street, BPD cars were in the area and there was a woman talking about how she had seen another female being hit by a male and that the two had disappeared. Howard left the scene when the BPD located the home they were looking for.
Howard said he likes to drive around with his window cracked so he can hear sounds from the street. He said that sometimes the sound of screaming or other loud noises will draw him to where he needs to be. Other times, shouts of "pig!" are heard, accompanied by expletives. Howard said his main complaint about the "pig" comment is that it’s overused and unoriginal.
Driving past a bar on River Street, a bouncer asked Howard to calm an argument occurring outside between a male and a number of females. A little while later, near the same bar, Howard and BPD officers were looking for a car that someone reported had blood in it. After a search, the car was found in a different lot with an apparently intoxicated woman who appeared to have fallen and given herself a bloody nose.
While I was with him, Howard put 60 miles on his patrol car with no DUIs to be found. He said that last year, he had put 11 miles on his vehicle and came up with four DUI arrests.
Howard said that between the stop itself and the paperwork, a DUI charge can take between one and four hours to process, depending on how cooperative the subject is.
Our night ended when Howard drove past a man and a woman attempting to walk back to their home in Applegate Apartments from Benmont Avenue. We stopped and the two looked nervous at first, but Howard offered them a ride home, as the woman had apparently lost her shoes.
On Friday afternoon, county Sheriff Chad Schmidt released information that corroborated our observations. Schmidt said in an e-mail that the Safe Ride Program had 138 calls and transported nearly 300 people.
There was just one DUI arrest in Bennington County, Schmidt said, adding that the first-year program could have used more phone lines and vans.
By: Keith Whitcomb Featured in The The Bennigton Banner on 1/1/2010
