Steven Mattson
Dr. Lee Vigilant
SOC 352
25 February 2010
“The Beat Sounds Good In My Police Car^:” Ride Along with
Maplewood Police Department (MN)
Introduction
Maplewood, MN is a suburb to St. Paul on the northern and eastern sides in an L-shape.
It has a diverse population of roughly 35,000 people with a police department that has 55 sworn
officers. The majority of the population is white people but there are also a lot of black and
Asian people who make up the population as well. I chose to ride along with this particular
police department because I wanted to see how the police interacted with its citizens and how the
citizens interacted with the police department.
Research Objective, Methodology, and Ethics
The method I used to gather my data was unobtrusive observations. Regarding citizens, I
felt as though I was a complete observer because I was only looking at the situation without
actually saying or doing anything to contribute to the situation. Regarding the police, I felt like a
participant as observer because we would have conversations regarding what had just happened
so that I could ask questions and learn from it. Since I worked alone on this assignment, there
was only theory triangulation between me and the police officer I was riding with, which raises a
couple of ethical concerns. First, by working alone, I am setting up the possibility of
misinterpreting what I have observed. This may lead to inaccurate findings and results in my
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conclusions since there is not a second observer working with me to compare ideas with. Second,
having conversations with the police officer about what I observed could also lead to
misinterpretations in the results. One other possible ethical concern was the possibility of me
observing someone that I knew during the course of my research. I have spent the last 16 years
growing up in Maplewood and the first 5 years of my life in St. Paul. There is always that chance
that someone I know will see me observing and then come over and ask me what I am doing
which will interfere with being unobtrusive.
Results
This ride along with the Maplewood Police Department began on Saturday, February 13,
2010 at 5:00 p.m. and ended on Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 3:30 a.m. I chose for a weekend
day because there is usually a lot of activity during the daytime and nighttime hours and I wanted
to observe both day and night interactions between the police and the public.
The evening started off with me getting into Sgt. Kevin Johnson’s Ford Explorer police
cruiser and immediately there was a medical call at the Ramsey County Workhouse facility
about 8 miles across town from the police station. Johnson is a white male, approximately 35
years old, 6’2”, 200 pounds, which is the description of an average police officer. Once inside,
we started with lights and sirens down the streets. The streets we took had posted speed limits of
35 to 40 miles per hour and traffic for this time of day on a Saturday was light which allowed for
us to travel at speeds of 65 to 70 miles per hour safely. Johnson was very cautious at major
intersections though and slowed down to make sure other vehicles were not coming through the
intersection at the same time. Since traffic was light, we were able to get to the destination within
10 to 15 minutes. The county workhouse is located in Maplewood’s southern side and is on a
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large plot of land surrounded by 4 foot high wire fences. On arrival, there were two ambulances
that had already beaten us to the scene. Apparently, there was an elderly man who was suffering
from chest pains and believed that he was having a heart attack. Since the ambulances were
already there, the paramedics were already inside taking care of the situation so we were cleared.
Next we continued with a random patrol of this portion of the city. It was mostly
neighborhoods containing single family homes that were either rambler type houses or two story
houses which are characteristics of a middle class neighborhood. On the busier roads, there were
cars for sale at the end of driveways. These cars were roughly anywhere between 10 and 20 years
old and were in decent looking condition. No major dents or glass broken or rust. We drove to a
small town that neighbors Maplewood called Landfall. Landfall has a population of about 700
people and that city contracts with Maplewood Police Department for police services. This town
is very small and a large portion of it contains a trailer park, which signifies a lower class
neighborhood. While driving through these streets, there were several things that were notable.
The maintenance of these mobile homes was sub-par. Instead of replacing broken windows,
pieces of plywood were nailed over them. Many screen doors had large rips in the screen. The
vehicles parked near most of these places were not in good condition. A lot had some dings and
dents. A few had severe damage and looked as if they had been parked there for extended
periods of time. All of these things reinforce a neighborhood with low socioeconomic status. As
we were approaching a car that two Hispanic men were working on, they stopped what they were
doing to talk to us. Both were wearing blue jeans with various oil and grease stains on them and
were wearing heavy winter jackets. Both had a look of concern on their faces when they
approached the police cruiser. Johnson initiated a conversation asking how things were going
and what they were up to in a friendly manner. The look of concern switched to a look of
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excitement and they were happy to explain how they were and that they were replacing a fuel
line on their car. After this conversation we continued on and returned to Maplewood.
We continued a random patrol of Maplewood and were heading a little more north this
time. This particular neighborhood had some local businesses in it and traffic was a little heavier
than what we had experienced. Most of the cars that were being driven in this area were roughly
5 or 6 years old and most of the drivers were white male and females. The types of cars that were
most common were SUV’s and 4 door sedans.
Eventually, we were called to a domestic disturbance located about a half a mile from the
police department which was roughly 6 miles from our current location. Johnson activated the
lights and sirens in the cruiser and we proceeded across town. Along the way, cars were quick to
pull to the side of the road and stop to yield to his vehicle. Johnson was still very cautious when
passing through every major intersection looking for cars before going through. This proved to
be a great precaution because about a quarter of a mile from the destination, a white male driver
of an extended cab pickup truck almost ran a stop sign. As we were approaching the intersection
from the east, he was approaching the intersection from the north. He did not look to the east
right away but looked to the west first and then started to pull into the intersection. He slammed
on the brakes after a quick look to the east and saw us coming with lights on. He looked shocked
as we drove through the intersection. We finally reached the residence of the domestic
disturbance and we approached the front of the house from the street. In front of the house, there
was a group of 5 people, all were white, there was 3 males and 2 females. Immediately I
recognized two of the people as the parents of a high school classmate of mine, although they did
not recognize me. All were dressed in casual clothing and were not wearing any jackets. They
were wearing blue jeans and either long sleeve shirts or sweatshirts. There was also a dog
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wandering around the property and came up to greet us as we approached the group of people.
Each of the 5 people was engaged in an argument with one another and the issue was apparently
the dog. No one was physically touching each other but they were raising their voices at each
other and making hand gestures such as pointing. Johnson took charge of the situation and had
everybody calm down. At this time, back up had arrived which consisted of one squad car with
two officers. The two officers were younger than Johnson, one was a white male and about the
same weight and height as Johnson and the other was an Asian male and was a little bit shorter
and appeared to be lighter than the other officer. Johnson took 2 of the family members aside
while the other two officers talked to the 3 other family members to figure out what the situation
was. Between the two groups, the raising of the voices had stopped and they were now speaking
in a calm matter about the situation. After a few minutes of talking in separate groups, the
officers formed their own group again to discuss the situation. The problem was that one of the
family members had brought the dog home as a stray which had upset more than one of the other
family members. What caused the disturbance was that the dog pooped on the living room
carpet, which further upset the family members that were already upset that the dog was there to
begin with. Eventually, an agreement was made about the dog and we were able to leave the
scene without any incidents.
We drove away from the domestic and noticed that cars were still pulling over as we
were driving. Johnson noticed that he had forgotten to shut off the overhead lights. It was nice to
see that people were still yielding to emergency vehicles. Other things I noticed while riding
around was that we were never passed by another vehicle. Cars were obeying the speed limit and
seemed to be extra cautious while around the cruiser. I noticed that white drivers would try and
make eye contact with me and with Johnson while drivers of Asian descent and black drivers did
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not actively try to make eye contact. Maybe this is a cultural difference between white people
and Asians/blacks. With white people, there is not the generalized fear of the police that exists
among black people and Asians. Avoiding eye contact may be a sign of fear of an authority
figure.
We continued patrol of Maplewood. We patrolled the parking lots of the Maplewood
Mall, which is a large mall similar in size to that of West Acres Mall in Fargo, ND. While
driving through these lots, there was a call at a bar that was across the street from our current
location. The call was of a guy who was refusing to leave the bar and the owner wanted him to
be trespassed. When we got there, I stayed in the car for my safety and Johnson called for backup
before going inside. While he was inside, backup arrived which consisted of two additional
patrol cars, one of which was at the domestic disturbance, and the other which consisted of one
officer who was another white male in his 40’s average build. While they were exiting their
vehicles, Johnson exited the bar with two people, one was the bar owner who was a white male
in his 50’s below average size who appeared to be upset. The second was the person refusing to
leave who was a black man who was approximately 6’4” and was very muscular and could easily
weigh close to 300 pounds. He was dressed very nice and was wearing a lot of jewelry
symbolizing middle or upper class status. Once the black man saw the additional police officers
heading towards his location, he became very cooperative with both the owner and Johnson.
While this situation was coming to a close, I, along with Johnson and the other officers
noticed a white male in his 20’s wearing casual clothes bolt from the entrance of the bar into the
parking lot being chased by a bouncer who was a white male also in his 20’s but slightly larger
than the man he was chasing. The white male who was running from the bouncer immediately
stopped running once he saw the 4 police officers and 3 police cars already in the parking lot.
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Johnson left the black man with the other 3 officers and let them handle him while he figured out
what was going on with the other man who was running. Apparently, he tried to buy alcohol with
a fake 100 dollar bill and ran when the bouncers questioned him about it. This guy ended up
getting arrested and I helped Johnson search this guy’s vehicle for additional 100 dollar bills and
also inventory what was in there for the towing. The car was a rusting mid 1990’s Chevrolet
Lumina that had a lot of junk in the car. No more 100 dollar bills were found in the car but a
small amount of marijuana and a pipe was found in the glove box. Johnson took the pipe, threw
it on the ground, and smashed it into tiny pieces with his boots and confiscated the marijuana. In
the trunk, there were a lot of tools related to the trade of an electrician along with a lot of
pornographic material including magazines and movies.
Now it was time for a dinner break. We, along with the two officers who helped us out on
the domestic call, went to a pizza place not too far from my house. When we went inside, there
was approximately 25 tables in the place and about 12 of them were occupied. We sat down next
to a table with a party of 4 white females in their 50’s who looked absolutely shocked to see so
many police officers at once. The restaurant had many white people in it but also had a mix of
Asians, Hispanics, and blacks as well. After we were done eating, we paid and headed to the
door. I glanced around at the tables and noticed that only the tables with white people were the
ones looking at us walking out.
Right away we got a non-priority call to check out a local motel on the northwestern side
of town. The complaint was that prostitution was taking place in a room there. We drove to the
location of the motel which was not in a neighborhood but was in an area surrounded by many
car dealerships. Once there, we talked with the manager of the place, who was a male of Middleeastern descent who spoke English not so well but well enough to help us. Whoever had made
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the complaint had also specified which room it was and the manager had said that a couple with
a child had checked it out earlier that afternoon. We proceeded to the room and Johnson
unscrewed the light bulb over the entrance to the room to enhance his safety. He knocked and
announced his presence and within 15 seconds a black male answered the door, looking
surprised to see the police. In the background, I could see a white female on the bed wearing a
hooded sweatshirt and sweat pants taking care of a small child. The black male was very
cooperative and answered questions honestly and explained that they were just passing through
and needed a place to sleep for the night—no prostitution was taking place here. Johnson
thanked him for his time, screwed the light bulb back in, and we left.
We drove back across town to that small town of Landfall to do another patrol of the
area. The trailer park was rather quiet and most of the lights were still on at this time (11:30pm).
The two Hispanic males who were working on their car earlier appeared to be done for the day.
We stopped at the little police substation because Johnson needed to grab something from inside.
As he went into his office, I stayed in the lobby area and took a look at the various things posted
on the wall. There were a lot of crayon drawings that appeared to have been done by the work of
young children and in the pictures, it showed police officers and children working together doing
various things. Some had pictures of police officers showing children how to fish; others
depicted officers and children picking up litter in the community; others showed officers
teaching children in a classroom setting with the words “personal and home safety” written on
the white board. This shows a police department with a strong sense of community oriented
policing.
We continued patrol of Maplewood and headed back north towards the mall area. There
were fewer cars out at this time of night but the cars that were out were very different than the
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ones during the early evening. The types of cars out at night were older, about 15 to 20 years old
and the drivers were much younger as well. Most were in their 20’s and there were some high
school age drivers here and there. There seemed to be fewer white drivers and significantly more
Asian drivers and more black drivers which shows that there are different demographics at night.
We got a call of shots fired in a park within a neighborhood near the Maplewood Mall so
we responded to it. Johnson drove his Explorer into the park on the paved walkway and activated
his spotlight and searched all around for any movement. As we drove through the entire park,
which consisted of tennis courts, basketball courts, and soccer fields, we saw nobody.
After giving up search for the source of the shots fired, we drove around that
neighborhood on patrol. The houses in these areas looked as if they had been built in the 1960’s
and 1970’s and most were two stories and gave the feel of a middle to upper class neighborhood.
The cars parked in the driveways were also very nice as the majority of them were no more than
3 or 4 years old and were in decent looking condition.
Johnson decided to try to show me the process of a Driving Under the Influence (DUI)
stop, so we parked on a side street off of a main road near the mall. He explained to me some
easy signs of an impaired driver which included driving with no lights on because drunk’s
perception of light is off when they are impaired, and obviously speeding, swerving, and
frequent lane changes without signaling. We sat there for about 15 minutes or so and not even a
single car was speeding until one went by doing 50 in a 40. Johnson pulled out behind the car,
which was a mid-1990’s Honda Civic that had looked like it was in an accident at one point
because it had multiple fenders that were different colors, and I noted that the lights on the
vehicle were on. Even after we pulled out behind the car and caught up to it, it did not slow down
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and continued doing 50. Johnson typed in the license plate on his computer and it came back
registered to an Asian male, 23 years old, 5’6”, 150 pounds with no outstanding warrants. In the
car, we could see just one person in the car and this description looked like the driver. Johnson
then put on his lights and after about one block the driver noticed them and pulled over and
stopped. Johnson approached the car on the driver’s side and I approached from the passenger
side. Johnson initiated the conversation asking how the driver was doing and the driver
responded with “good.” Johnson asked if he knew why he was being pulled over and the driver
said that he did not know why. After explaining that he was speeding, he claimed that he did not
realize the speed limit was only 40. I, along with Johnson, noticed that his words were being
slurred a little bit and that he was shaking a little bit possibly due to being nervous with the
shaking but possibly intoxicated with the slurring. Johnson wanted to do a Field Sobriety Test
before giving a Preliminary Breath Test (PBT). Johnson did two tests; the first one was standing
on one foot and having the driver touch his nose and the second one was a Horizontal Gaze
Nystagmus Test (HGNT). In the first test, the driver was able to stand one foot alright but when
he went to touch his nose, the knee of the leg his was standing on buckled and he brought down
his other leg. In the HGNT, Johnson held a pen approximately 12 inches from the driver’s face
and had him stare at it while Johnson moved it back and forth. The driver did so and as he did,
his eyes did not move in a smooth motion (as an unimpaired driver would move smoothly) but in
a choppy motion as he tried to keep up with the pen (as an impaired driver would).
At this point, Johnson wanted to do a PBT to determine if this driver was over the limit.
He had the driver blow into the device for a short amount of time and it came up showing .09,
which indeed was over the legal limit of .08. Once the driver saw the results he instantly became
upset with himself and was very apologetic towards Johnson. Johnson tried to be as sympathetic
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as possible but also explained the next steps of the process which involved arrest and taking him
back to the police station. Johnson called for an officer to come over and wait for the tow truck
while we drove back to the police station.
At the police station, which was also connected with Maplewood City Hall, we processed
the DUI. We entered through a back door that was close to 4 holding cells, 2 interrogation
rooms, and another small room where the big breathalyzer machine was located. Before we
brought the driver into the DUI room, Johnson showed me the 4 holding cells and the 2
interrogation rooms. The cells were small and had cement walls, ceilings, and floors. There was
a metal bed with a mattress, blankets, and a pillow on each one. Each room had its own toilet and
sink as well. The door was all metal except for a small window with bars on it to see what was
going on inside. The feeling I picked up from the cells was cold and lonely. It did provide
enough lighting and there was a good sense of privacy. The interrogation rooms were small and
had a single table with 3 chairs around it. One wall had panes of glass with the classic mirror tint
to it so I could see the reflection of the room inside the room and on the other side I could see
into the room. He also pointed to the clock on the wall and said that in the center there was a
camera that recorded everything that happened and also recorded everything that was said.
The room with the breathalyzer machine was similar to the interrogation room but was
much smaller, about half the size. Unlike the walls in the interrogation rooms, this room had
various posters all over the wall related to drinking and driving. Most showed statistics of drunk
driving crashes and stories of families who had lost loved ones in crashes.
The breathalyzer machine was rather large and took up most of the table. Johnson set it
all up and had the driver blow into it for a short period of time until it beeped and then he
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stopped. The driver was still feeling bad about the whole situation and continued to appear to be
upset. The machine took about 5 minutes to come out with the results so in the mean time,
Johnson had a conversation with the driver about what was going to happen next. If the test
confirmed that he was still over the limit, he would be brought to the Law Enforcement Center in
St. Paul for further processing. If he was under, he would be let go. Johnson tried to give the
driver some hope saying that since he only blew .09 on the preliminary test which was not
always accurate and that it may have gone down since then because a period of about 45 minutes
to an hour had passed. Finally, the results came out and it confirmed that he was over the limit
with a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) of .09. There was no change in his attitude as he was still
upset with himself. Johnson arranged for another officer to take him to the LEC in St. Paul since
he was the sergeant in charge and could not really leave the area for a long period of time
because processing there takes about an hour or two depending upon how many other DUI’s are
there to be processed.
It was now nearing the end of Johnson’s shift (2:30am) and he gave me a tour of the rest
of the police department along with his office. The rest of the police department had a lot of
rooms in it for various uses. Some were rooms for roll call and briefings; some were offices for
officers who were not there; some were locker rooms; and there was a large room that looked
like it was in the process of remodeling. Johnson explained that this is where dispatch used to be
and that they had now moved to the LEC in St. Paul. Johnson showed me his office, which was a
cubicle in a room full of offices of other sergeants in the police department. On his desk, he had
a lot of pictures of his family, which consisted of himself and his wife along with two young
boys who looked like they were about 4 and 6 years old. There was a large calendar planner on
the desktop with various meetings with times written down on different dates. His desk was very
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neat and organized. To me, this is someone with very good managerial skills that stays on top of
things.
He showed me what he has to do as a supervisor at the end of his shifts. Using the
computer, he reviews incident reports of other officers on duty to make sure that they included
everything in their reports and to make sure there are no errors. He had about 15 to go through
and showed me all elements of each report. He only sent back 2 or 3 reports because they forgot
to fill out someone’s name in one of them and a couple had forgotten to put down times in their
reports. By the time he had finished this, it was the end of his shift and the end of the ride along.
I could not have asked for a better ride along. I learned quite a bit through this experience
related to procedures of law enforcement in specific situations. There were a few things that I
noticed about people that I would like to reiterate here.
During the day, the drivers on the road seemed to be older (40’s to 50’s) and the majority
was white. They were also driving newer cars (3 to 5 years old) and were in good condition
(signs of middle to upper class people). At night, however, the average age of people seemed to
be in the mid to high 20’s and the age of vehicles out there was more like 10 to 20 years old in
okay to bad condition (signs of lower to middle class people). There also seemed to be less white
people out and more minorities out, specifically Asian and black people. What I understood from
these observations was that the demographics of drivers change depending on the time of day or
night.
Another interesting observation I made was the behaviors of drivers, day and night. It did
not matter if it was day or night but white people would always look over into the windows of
the police car to make eye contact with me or Sgt. Johnson. Minorities, however, did not actively
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look over to make eye contact with either of us. On a couple of occasions, they looked left and
right to look for traffic and made eye contact but never while driving on the road would they
look over. There must be some unspoken rule of body language and communication here that I
am not familiar with. I noticed this even with the Asian driver that we pulled over for a DUI stop
that whenever he was talking to Johnson, he did not make eye contact all the time but would
glance at him every once in a while. When Johnson was talking to him he never looked at him
while listening. It could be that he knew he was too intoxicated to be driving and did not want
Johnson to see the redness in his eyes, which is a sign of intoxication. Another possible
explanation could be that some Asian people have a fear of authority figures. It must be noted
that the St. Paul/Maplewood area in Minnesota has the highest Hmong population in the United
States. There are a lot of refugees who come from Southeast Asian countries were they are used
to authority figures who are very oppressive. One thing that I realized about the police
department that I thought was very important was that there was at least one Asian officer on
duty at all times. The majority of the Asian population in this area can speak some English but
not always and so it is important to have someone on duty that can speak and understand the
language so that there is not a language barrier and no miscommunication between this
community and the police. Again, maybe it is a cultural difference when it comes to
communication, but this is one thing that I had never noticed before this assignment.
This experience has also furthered my interest in serving the public as a law enforcement
officer. I have confidence that once I learn how to do the job and become socialized into the role
of a police officer, I can be very successful.
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Discussion, Conclusion, and Validity
The problem with unobtrusive observations is that you cannot get participant feedback
which I feel is a very effective form of validity. Since you are observing people and trying to
figure why they do things the way they do, they should be able to provide answers for their
actions, or be able to comment on the accuracy of your interpretations. Also mentioned earlier
regarding misinterpretations was the fact that I was working alone for this assignment and that I
only discussed what I observed with the police officer.
If I were to have done this assignment again under the same requirements, I would have
had a co-investigator ride along with another officer in the department on the same night as me
so that we could use investigator triangulation to have stronger validity in this research. Using
two investigators in this assignment allows for discussion of what each person saw. Maybe one
person saw something that the other person did not and maybe they both saw the same thing
occurring in different parts of the city. This would lead to stronger findings and results from the
investigation.
^The Title of this paper comes from Charles Schillings and Pompon F. song “Police Funk” from their album “It’s About…”
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