A Ride-Along with Spokane Police Department | Crime

I spent my Friday morning with Officer Daniel Waters as we patrolled East, North and West Spokane. We even took a small excursion to Davenport for an agency assist to pick up a Lincoln County detainee. We also assisted with a SpokAnimal search warrant for animal cruelty.

During the six and a half hours, we responded to two agency assists and one domestic violence.

Below is a time line of events as they happened. To read the tweets as they happened, read our Storify for "Tweet-Cap: A Ride-Along with Spokane Police Department".

6:00 a.m. - Roll call begins for the day shift. Officers sit in their according regions - the North Patrol and the South Patrol. The patrol region is separated by the Spokane River. These meetings are done in an informal fashion with the shift Sgt. leading the meeting.

This morning they refreshed their first aid skills - learning the basics in treating burns, drownings, hypothermia, heat strokes, diabetics and gun shot wounds. They had the opportunity for hands-on education by practicing CPR on squishy dummies.

6:53 a.m. - We finally got done with roll call. We headed out to the parking lot to pick up Officer Waters’ patrol vehicle. We got called out to Lincoln County for an agency assist. We drove on icy roads through freezing fog to the Spring Creek Grange via Highway 2.

7:48 a.m. - The foggy fields brought cinematic images of shady deals, but it was a short and sweet trade off of a detainee. The detainee faced charges for domestic violence assault in the City of Spokane - she’s a Wilbur resident. The detainee skipped her court hearing, so she was picked up by Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office to be transferred to Spokane County Jail.

8:06 a.m. - We spotted a disabled vehicle on the side of the road on Highway 2. A man was seen waving on the side of it. We called Washington State Patrol to respond to the situation. With a detainee in the back, there’s not much to be done.

8:30 a.m. - Detainee was booked into Spokane County Jail.

8:40 a.m. - We head back on patrol. Meanwhile, other officers are responding to two separate incidents. One is with a woman in the 1000 block of North Washington. A drug kit was being called in for a woman who allegedly had heroin.

Two officers were responding to a vehicle accident at 7th & Cannon near Sacred Heart Hospital involving a vehicle versus parked car. The roads were slick on roads through out the city.

8:42 a.m. - There are no open calls available, so we begin our patrol to search for stolen vehicles. Officer Waters' patrol vehicle is one of the few Spokane Police Department cars that have cameras that read license plates and compare them to a nation-wide database of stolen cars. It can scan on average up to 5,000 plates per day - spotting zero possible stolen cars to sometimes ten in a single day.

9:00 a.m. - Bathroom break.

9:37 a.m. - A man was spotted flipping off cars on North Division near Francis. We planned on responding but had to make a detour to a domestic violence call near College and Lindeke St. It turned out to be nothing.

10:22 a.m. - We continued patrolling in search of stolen vehicles. We headed to the Walmart parking lot to see if any vehicles had been left for multiple days and over night. A stray shopping cart was seen lurking in the middle of the right lane behind the store on Holland.

10:45 a.m. - We met up with multiple officers to prep verbally for a SpokAnimal search warrant. A woman was being searched for possible animal cruelty. In September, 17 cats were seized from her North Spokane home.

11:00 a.m. - We drove to SpokAnimal to speak with animal control enforcement officers who prepared Spokane Police on the details behind the woman and her cats.

11:45 a.m. - Officers arrived to the search warrant location on the 2000 block of East Empire. Police knocked on the woman’s door to ask her to step out while SpokAnimal searched the vicinity.

12:05 p.m. - She finally complied with officers by exiting her home so the search warrant could be executed. Officer Waters spotted about five cats inside the home. She later asked law enforcement to leave after SpokAnimal explained they would take her cats away.

“You’ll have to kick open my door,” she said.

Enforcement action was not taken. The cats were not removed. Officer Waters explained that they did not want to force a confrontation.

12:30 p.m. - End ride-along.

Photo Gallery: Photos taken during the ride-along including one of Spokane Police officers practicing CPR.