EPD Ride Along

Last week I experience my first ever ride-along with Ellensburg Police Office Jones. It was a cold, wet and dreary Wednesday night in this tiny town. At the start of the night I had a feeling that this would be an uneventful night. Unfortunately sign ups for ride-alongs went surprisingly fast, and I ended up with an evening less full of trouble than say a weekend night.

You could never imagine how many times I have witnessed a drive fly through a red light. One of those situations where you constantly wonder, "where is a cop?" Well during my ride-along the only real thing we did was pull over a driver for running a red light. Remember how I said Ellensburg was a small town? Ironically Office Jones told me he had pulled this driver over a few weeks earlier, but decided to make this guy's night by passing him off with a warning.

Here I was riding shotgun, thinking to myself, "wow finally I witness justice for drivers running red lights!" Now I'm sure you can imagine the disappointment I had watching him drive off unscathed. I thought to my self, " hey, whatever, I knew this night wasn't going to be exciting."

Please don't get confused at my reaction to this experience. As much as it would seem I dreaded this ride-along, I actually had a really enjoyable time. Officer Jones was very talkative, friendly, and willing to answer all of my questions. Not only that but he was willing to listen to some of my story as well.

One of my professors in a class says he is an ex cop. He warned us not to talk about being students because cops don't like college students. Turns out this was a stereotypical judgment, and Officer Jones sure didn't behave in that sort of manner. We chatted it up about football, and my goals to be a sports broadcaster.

Oh don't let me forget to mention ... we stopped at Winegar's for coffee. Being a cop seemed like a pretty cool job that night!