Behind the blue lights
By John Joyce
Published in News on September 20, 2015 1:50 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Eight-year veteran of the Goldsboro Police Department Sgt. Joshua Stine eased the unmarked SUV in behind Goldsboro's only K-9 officer's patrol car at the corner of North Carolina and East Ash streets.
We'd been in the car maybe five minutes.
The operation had just begun.
"The amount of resources that we have, this is unprecedented. The state agencies, the county, and we've got the federal agencies here, too. I mean, that's quite a show of cooperation," Stine said.
Almost on cue, the K-9 unit lit up its blue lights in front of us and stopped an approaching black Dodge Charger with 20-inch rims and blacked out windows.
The vehicle had been surveilled by another unit leaving a liquor house.
It was 8:25 p.m.
"We had probable cause to stop the vehicle because the tags were expired, he's (the suspect's driver's license) revoked, and as we're getting him out of the car he is telling us he's got a gun in the car," Stine said immediately after the traffic stop.
The officers had deployed quickly, cuffed the driver and placed him in a squad car. They also searched the passenger and cut him loose when he was found not to have anything illegal in his possession. The K-9 never had to get out of the car.
"We don't need a dog to search that," Stine said.
He explained that certain criteria exist within the law to allow an officer to search a vehicle without first having to have a dog alert on a scent.
"Even with the odor of marijuana, there is a doctrine called the Carroll Doctrine. It deals with movable objects -- vehicles and things of that nature -- dealing with plain sight," Stine said.
"If I see marijuana, I don't need a dog to come and tell me that I can search that vehicle. It all falls under that. Plain sight, plain smell, plain touch," he said.
While out on the traffic stop, some of the officers were called away to a foot pursuit in the housing community at Day Circle.
Stine climbed back into the SUV, spoke a few words to the officer staying behind and then pulled away in the direction of Day Circle. Just two blocks from the first traffic stop, the lights of the Downtown Goldsboro Development Corp.'s annual banquet being held at the new Goldsboro/Wayne Transportation Authority transfer center came into view.
Stine used the drive time to Day Circle to explain what officers routinely check for while out on patrol. He said officers check regular hangouts, gas stations and corners and church parking lots. A lot of times, cars are broken into while people are inside the church attending services.
"Obviously, in our problem areas, we're looking for hand-to-hand drug transactions, hand-to-hand activity. It's pretty easy to pick up. I don't mean to sound rude, but it's not rocket science. You're looking around for those things, people loitering around," he said.
He called them "quality of life" issues.
"You have your problem areas around the city, but just because it is a problem area doesn't mean there aren't good people living there," Stine said.
As we pulled into Day Circle, officers stood milling about a white passenger vehicle with its doors open.
Stine asked another officer what they had and the officer said a guy jumped and they chased him on foot.
"You get anything out of it," Stine asked.
"He left his 3-year-old kid in the car," the officer replied.
The suspect had no warrants, he had no contraband in the car, but because the police pulled him over, he decided to run and leave his child behind. The officers caught him and arrested him. Stine asked if a wrecker has been called to come collect the vehicle.
As we pulled away, Stine explained that the scene we just left is in no way unique.
"And that's not uncommon when we chase folks," he said. "We've had it several times where they'll run from us and they leave their children in the vehicle when they get out of the vehicle and run."
We shifted over to Audubon Avenue and Mimosa Street. A woman stopped at checkpoint had become irate and took off. The officers there finally got her stopped at Olivia Lane and Carver Drive.
"A girl almost hit one of the police cars," Stine said.
She had been stopped for a child restraint violation, meaning her child was not properly seat belted or in a child safety seat, he said.
She threw the citation out the window, Stine explained. "So he wrote a second citation and she threw that back at him and took off."
The suspect ended up nearly backing into the police cruiser right in front of her home, resulting in her arrest.
In the end she was released with a child restraint violation and two counts of littering.
The next few hours were much of the same. Checkpoints for licenses, a few minor drug arrests or citations, a car full of young black men stopped and the men made to sit on the curb while the car was searched. One of the men had a handgun and was charged. The others were free to go.
And at one point, a surveillance operation at a gas station near Hooks River Road and North William Street turned into a melee of cars and agents when a suspect tried to flee and hit a police cruiser. The officer was uninjured, but his struggle with the suspect -- a large black man who might have swallowed a bag of cocaine to hide evidence -- had gone out over the officer's radio. Every available unit in the city sped to the scene, including Stine.
"Just getting there and being able to help," Stine said when asked what went through his mind while speeding to the scene.
Toward the end of the night, at about 1 a.m., a final checkpoint was set up at North William Street and Industry Court.
After a few cars passed without incident, then a pickup truck approached. Inside were a white man about 30 years old and his 6-year-old son. The boy wore a red plastic fire chief's helmet and a plastic coat with reflective strips on the sleeve. The back of the jacket read, "Fire Chief."
The officers conducting the checkpoint had noticed a smell. Upon checking the vehicle, they discovered a Bojangles box. Inside the box they found two pieces of chicken, two biscuits and a crack pipe.
A metal grinder containing marijuana and a plastic bag containing a pill of some kind were also found.
Stine removed the child from the vehicle and sat him in the front of the police car. He let the boy work the blue lights and gave him a stuffed animal and candy before finally locating the child's mother and delivering him safely to her. The father was detained, checked for warrants and cited and released.
Those are the sad sort of stories that the officers see often during their nightly patrols.
It is especially poignant when there are children involved. Most of them are fathers, too.
At the conclusion of the operation, Interim Police Chief Michael West, who had been out to the William Street checkpoint, said he thought the overall operation was a success. But the scene with the young boy in the fireman's gear stuck with him.
"It is disgusting that we've got to see a 6-year-old child kind of getting involved in something because the parent doesn't have good sense," West said.