Police Ride Along

-Matt Mckinney

The following is a true story from a police ride-along I did for my journalism class. I bleeped out the names for confidentiality purposes.

Officer **** ****** was driving fast, really fast. He soared over a particularly ominous looking set of railroad tracks at nearly 70mph, making the tires on his Crown Victoria look all but invincible. As a 12-year veteran of the force and a lifelong resident of Galesburg, ****** has become an expert at traveling over the railroad tracks at rapid speeds.

It was Saturday, October 2, and he was responding to his second call of the evening, this one dispatching him to the housing projects on the 1500 block of McKnight Street. A black male in his early to mid-30s had fallen unconscious in the home of his girlfriend of three years.

In Galesburg, despite a lack of medical training, firefighters and police officers are often expected to arrive at the scenes of medical crises such as this.

****** worked quickly, but with care. He was the first one on the scene.

“What’s this? His grill?” he asked, as he crouched inches from the man’s foaming mouth. “Does it come out?”

“How the hell should I know? I don’t think it does, but I can’t say for sure,” the man’s girlfriend said frantically, breathing heavily as she removed a crumpled pile of cash from the side pocket in his jeans.

There is an unequivocal distrust of the police department in some pockets of Galesburg, backed by repeated instances of wrongdoing within the force.

In November of 2008, a former lieutenant, David W. Hendricks, pleaded guilty to misconduct, after it was discovered he had stolen drugs from the evidence locker. In March of this year, former lieutenant and third-shift manager, Anthony Reilly, was also placed under arrest for alleged theft while on the job. Even Officer ****** has dealt with his share of scrutiny. He was placed on administrative leave in August of 2009, while the Illinois State Police investigated a potential “domestic dispute.”

“There’s this two-year old girl over on Pine Street (another low-income area) who yells ‘Run, Po-Lice!’ every time we drive by,” said Officer Jason Paulsgrove. “I think firefighters tend to have a much better reputation.”

A suspicious public certainly doesn’t make ******’s job any easier. In a situation like this, obtaining precise details are crucial to the man’s survival. Without accurate information, proving the best treatment could prove difficult.

****** asked the man’s girlfriend if he had been taking any drugs. She threw her arms in the air with disgust.

“No, [he] don’t take any drugs. Only cigarettes and alcohol,” the girlfriend said. “He’s real sickly, though.”

The man had arrived in Galesburg by train only a few hours earlier and began sweating and slurring his speech. He was traveling from his home in Waukegan, IL. His mother --also a Chicago-land resident—who was reached by telephone, said the he was on medication for diabetes, but had also suffered heart problems since he was a youth. The man had several abdominal scars from apparent gunshot wounds.

Many lower-income Chicagoans relocate to Galesburg because of the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program. The program stipulates that individuals with a voucher are able to select an approved property and pay only a portion of the cost, based on their income. ****** attributed much of the crime to this.

Within minutes, paramedics arrived on the scene. By then, the man was still unresponsive, while his breathing had become even fainter. He was placed on oxygen and intravenous fluids. His girlfriend’s lit cigarette hung from her mouth above the flowing oxygen, as the emergency workers seemed not to notice.

The man’s blood pressure was at 300/140 mmHg, which was by far the highest reading the paramedics had ever seen.

“Our instruments only go up to 300. And his blood pressure was still rising pretty fast,” one paramedic said. “It was remarkable he still had a pulse.”

The man arrived at the emergency room of the OSF St. Mary’s Medical Center shortly after 8:30pm, still unconscious. The attending physician performed a standard examination and diagnosed the man with a probable cocaine overdose.

“That guy probably isn’t going to make it,” the same paramedic said.

It is unclear whether or not the man survived, but that’s the nature of ******’s job. Many times he leaves unsure whether victims survive. It was clear that the nature of the job had left the attending Physician, paramedics and ****** calloused toward the entire process. After leaving the hospital, ****** explained how after spending more than a decade on the force, his attitudes toward people had changed.

“I used to have this theory that this kind of stuff was based on how you were raised. You could take people from whatever area and you could put them somewhere else and educate them and so on,” ****** said. “I’ve since given that idea up.”

But maybe that’s what makes them good at it. The cruel, unforgiving nature of the emergency work requires swiftness and stoicism. The vision of a nearly lifeless body fading on the floor of a housing project is enough to make even the most emotionally durable person crack. For **** ******, it’s just another day at the office.