In the passenger seat: Riding beneath the red and blue light

Editor's note: The following is part of a ride-a-long series depicting the perspective from the passenger's seat.

WASHINGTON - All day I had been looking forward to my ride-a-long with the Washington Police Department. I had never been in a police car before and was pretty keen on keeping up that streak. However, I'll do what it takes to get the story.

At 5 p.m. on Wednesday I arrived at the department and walked into Lt. Lyle Hansen's office. He was having some issues with his phone and asked if I knew anything about Androids. I didn't. I have an iPhone and I'm a millenial that knows nothing about technology.

Next he asked if I wanted a vest and while I wanted to say ‘no thanks that looks uncomfortable' I decided I should get the full experience while I had the chance. So I said yes. Plus, I decided if an officer with 34 years of experience offers you extra protection, he probably knows something you don't.

Before we left he said, 'Me and Gretchen are going to tear it up,” to another officer. I didn't know what that meant, but it sounded OK to me.

Once in the car, he laid out some ground rules for me: cameras and mics are in the car so be aware you're always being recorded and if something happened to him, don't get out of the car. Easy enough.

Hansen pointed out the cameras on the car and said those are just one of the new pieces of technology he has had to get used to. The academy used to focus mainly on safety, he said. It still does, but now also focuses on showing officers how to angle the car to ensure the camera always catches their movements.

'You're almost a producer because you're always miced up,” he said.

On his person, he has a bodycam that he has to turn on and off manually. Sometimes he forgets to turn it off, he said, but the eight hour battery life prevents that from being an issue.

Back in the car, he checks his lights then pulls up a map of the city on his laptop. Blue dots appear showing where every patrol car in the area is located. Every officer in the state who uses the sytstem can be found on this map.

I saw cars as close as Mt. Pleasant and as far away as Grinnell. I thought it was pretty cool but Hansen was definetly more impressed.

'That is the neatest thing I've seen in law enforcement in a long time,” he said.

Before leaving the parking lot, he extracted tuning forks from a suede pouch and struck them on the dash. He held them up to the radar at the front of his car to ensure it was working. It was.

After pulling out onto Washington Street, we went through a couple of neighborhoods and chatted some more.

'You do this long enough you'll be able to pick up if something isn't right in an area. Call it a sixth sense, call it paranoia,” he said.

At every four-way stop he approached, drivers were overly polite. Never have I been waved through every stop sign I approached but when a patrol car approaches, people act differently.

Eventually we stopped under a bypass to wait out some rush hour traffic.

I took that time to take stock of who I was sitting beside. Lt. Hansen is fairly tall, taller than me at least, and has a calm gentle demeanor. His hair and mustache were trimmed neatly and his glasses smudge free.

On his left wrist he wore a gold watch and on his right a black and blue bracelet to represent law enforcement officials.

'Got one,” he said at 5:37 p.m., breaking me of my train of thought.

He pulled the car quickly onto the street and sped up to get behind the driver who eventually pulled into a parking lot. Hansen had to re park his own car a couple of times to make sure the camera was positioned the right way.

'Remember what I said about being a director?” he remarked as he finally put the vehicle in park.

After hopping out, he approached the window and explained to the driver they were pulled over for going 55 in a 45 mile per hour zone. After reading the license number back to dispatch, it came back the driver had no prior criminal history. They also had their license, registration, insurance and a positive attitude. All the keys needed for a warning that night.

Once he got back in the car, he drove further into the parking lot to finish logging the call. Some officers wait until the end of their shift for that step, he said, but he preferred to do it while it was fresh in his mind.

Carefully he scanned the signatures into the system and logged the call. At 5:51 p.m. he was done.

Pulling people over takes a lot of work, he said. Officers do it out of necessity to keep others safe, not because the paperwork is enjoyable.

We had just pulled back onto the main road again when he spotted a car without a license plate at 5:54 p.m. Once again the lights came on and we followed the car down the road a bit where it was promptly pulled over by the driver.

As he stood next to the car and spoke to the driver, other cars flew past. He checked his shoulder involuntarily, checking for his own safety.

I asked him if he ever got nervous about the cars flying past. He gave me a solid answer: yes. Coincidentally, the night before was the closest he had ever come to being hit. It was an ambulance that almost did the trick.

After he logged the call we drove back to the department where I was expecting to meet another officer to ride with.

'We tore it up,” Hansen said proudly when we got inside.

As soon as I set my pen down, another call come through. Security alarms at a local business were going off. This happened often, he said, and officers were pretty sure it was just raccoons but they would rather be safe than sorry.

Once we got to the location, he began looking for tracks in the snow.

'Looks like rabbit,” he said.

At 6:13 p.m. he tried a door. It was open. He lowered the flashlight and quickly reached back for something else on his belt before flattening himself against the wall and sliding inside.

I realized after a second I was holding my own breath. For the second time in less than an hour I was watching someone go into a potentially dangerous situation. The first time, Hansen stood on the side of a highway was while cars flew past. This time, while he walked into a dark building.

Nobody was inside the building. A minute later he was back in the car. We drove a little further.

At 6:16 p.m. he got out again and this time took his keys out of the ignition and tossed them onto the dash. He walked up to another door and tried it. It was locked but he shone his flashlight around inside anyway just to check. Nothing.

I asked why he took the keys out. He said it was so no one would steal his car. Then he clarified it was so no one would steal his car while I was in it.

We headed back to the station at and 6:29 p.m. I shook hands with Officer Jason Chalupa.

Unlike Hansen, he was quieter and didn't wear any accessories except a wedding band and a gray hat. Before we left he put on a new earpiece. Then we were in his vehicle.

Chalupa's vehicle had a thick wall of plexi glass separating the front from the back. It was for criminal transport, he said. Otherwise the equipment was pretty much the same.

Originally from the area, Chalupa worked in Centerville for two years then in Fairfield for five before moving up to Washington about three years ago. His whole life he wanted to be an officer, he said.

Music was playing from the car radio and was occasionally interrupted by calls from dispatch or other officers on the scanner. We drove through neighborhoods and did routine traffic monitoring.

Officers work 12 hour shifts and are given the choice between day or night shift, he said. He picked night shift because it produced more 'heart thumping” calls.

He pulled the car into the United Presbyterian Church parking lot and we waited for a couple of minutes. At 6:52 p.m. he pulled out into traffic and followed a car to another church parking lot.

They had a headlight out. After speaking to the people in the car for a couple of minutes he got back in his own car.

At 7:22 p.m. he pulled another car over. He held out the radio for me and asked if I wanted to call it in. I declined.

'Washington 103 traffic stop,” he said for me.

After getting out of the car, he grabbed his flashlight from the door and walked up to the driver. They chatted for a few minutes and he got back in.

At 7:34 p.m. he pulled over another driver for a burnt out taillight. Once again, he gave a warning and the driver was on their way.

For a while after that the only sound in the car was the radio playing top 40 hits. At 7:47 p.m. he pulled the car into the Corner Stop gas station to assist an officer.

He approached a vehicle then got back in the car and drove around it. He explained to me the driver was disoriented in the dark and could not find their way home.

Chalupa pulled his car in front of the lost driver's and let them follow us back to their house. Once the house was located, he hopped out of the car again, grabbed his flashlight from the door and went back to speak with the driver.

He left them his card and said if they had any issues in the future to give the police a call back.

After that, we turned down a few more streets before arriving back at the police department at 8:01 p.m. where my car was parked. I struggled to take off the vest Lt. Hansen gave me earlier in the night, but I made it.

I left it on the seat, said thank you and told him to have a safe night. He told me to do the same.

Getting into my car and turning on the heat, I prepared to go home. Chalupa waited until I was safely in my car before pulling out the parking lot to finish the rest of his shift.