Night shift with the GPD
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on June 26, 2016 1:45 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Officer Cody Bostic with the Goldsboro Police Department checks the serial number on a gun recovered during a domestic call on East Holly Street Saturday after 4 a.m. The gun was reported stolen several months ago.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Goldsboro police officers talk after responding to a shots-fired call as the sun goes down.
Friday night.
It's just after 7 p.m.
I'm standing in the Walmart parking lot at 1002 N. Spence Ave., and a 2-year-old's dirty diaper is smearing its contents onto my arm.
Officers with Goldsboro Police Department's D Shift are searching a Mazda Protege parked in front of Dollar General.
A 5-year-old is sitting in the back of a police car, and he's telling us about YouTube.
He likes Dan the Diamond Minecart. It's a channel that blends two of his favorite things: robots and Minecraft. The 5-year-old says Minecraft is "the best game in the entire world ever made."
But he tells us not to play the game Five Nights at Freddy's.
It's scary, he says.
He says this as his 2-year-old brother is tearing up and saying he is scared, that he wants his father.
The boys' father and mother are sitting in the back of two separate police cars while D Shift officers search it.
The 2-year-old wants to walk around.
He can't.
He's barefoot -- he has no shoes.
We turn the conversation to superheroes.
The 5-year-old is running around myself and several officers in circles -- literally -- and asking us how fast he is.
We tell him he's at least as fast as the Flash.
He calls himself "mini-Flash."
We ask him who his favorite superhero is, and the answer betrays the severity of the situation the boy's parents have found themselves in.
"Batman," he says. "Because he has gadgets and lives in the dark like me."
Officer Matthew Habermas comes out of the Dollar General shortly after with fresh diapers for the two-year-old and water for everyone -- bulletproof vests trap heat better than most insulation installed in houses.
"Heroin," Habermas says as we ride back to the police station with the mother of the two boys in the back of the car. "We got six bags and several open needles."
The boys' mother -- 22-year-old Amanda Gail Freeman -- and who she calls her "baby daddy" -- 25-year-old Joshua Lee Stowers -- were reported to have shot up heroin in the Walmart parking lot in front of the Dollar General.
The kids were in the car at the time.
Habermas tells me when the officers pulled the children from the car, one of the children was sitting on an empty bag of heroin.
"There were two bags and an open needle on the drivers seat where she was, three bags in the floor on his side with a few more needles and then the one empty bag underneath the kid," Habermas said. "If we hadn't picked the kids up out of the car we never would've seen the empty bag of heroin."
Ms. Freeman was charged with possession with intent to sell and distribute a schedule I controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and two counts of child abuse. Stowers was charged with the same, minus the child abuse charges.
Back at the police station, they put the two in separate interview rooms. Stowers audibly sobs through the closed door. Ms. Freeman did the same, quietly.
"They had just done one bag when we got there," Habermas said. "That would've been enough to get them home tonight and through tomorrow until they woke up and did it all again."
This was only the first stop in a 12-hour ride along with the officers of Goldsboro Police Department's D Shift.
*
Both 20 miles per hour and 50 miles per hour have a distinct sound -- neither of them sound like an engine and its pistons pounding. Not to the radar detector, at least.
Habermas demonstrates how he calibrates his radar system -- he uses tuning forks. He calibrates it using one tuning fork keyed up to 20 miles per hour, and another tuning fork keyed up to 50 miles per hour.
This instrument, combined with Habermas' keen eye, is what clocks the speed of drivers in several different directions -- in front of the officer in the same lane, in front of the officer in the opposite lane, and behind the officer. It covers every angle.
As Habermas and I travel down East Ash Street by Camron's Club House after 10 p.m., I see the system in action.
Habermas' eyes flick toward oncoming traffic. He hits the remote to activate radar reading in the opposite lane. The car was doing 54 in a 35.
We crank a U-turn and pull the car over in a parking lot.
The driver was 19 years old, and only had a learner's permit. He's charged with speeding and no operator's license.
Habermas repeats this process innumerable times during a shift, watching and clocking drivers to ensure they aren't speeding or driving drunk.
He has two children of his own, and a wife.
"Every drunk driver, every speeder, every drug we get off the street is one less danger my child might encounter one day," Habermas said.
Habermas has been with the Goldsboro Police Department for eight years -- a public servant for 12. He's from New Jersey, and has done everything from gang enforcement to probation and parole to traffic enforcement.
It's experience that serves him well in nearly every situation he encounters.
Just before midnight, we get a call about possible underage drinkers at Logan's Roadhouse.
*
The fake IDs are good -- incredibly so.
All of the holograms on the North Carolina licenses are correct, the weight of the card is solid and the thickness of it even matches the real thing.
Yet the background of the photo isn't quite the right color. The red lettering that reads "Drivers License" isn't in quite the right position. But the most telling giveaway is when Habermas asks the 19-year-old one question.
"When did you graduate high school?"
She hesitates.
"Twenty fo -- eleven," she said.
"So, how old are you really?" Habermas asks.
She tells him she is only 19. Her two friends beside her don't hesitate to fess up after that. One is 19, the other just turned 21.
Both 19-year-olds used their real names and home addresses on their fake ID cards.
Habermas knows the father of the 19-year-old, who is the other teenager that used a fake ID card at Logan's Friday night.
He says it isn't the first time he's used the fake ID.
"I bet it worked until you actually had to hand it to somebody," Habermas said. The teenager nodded. "It's all right, You're an adult. I won't call your father and tell him. I'll let you do that."
The two were both given citations for consumption of an alcoholic beverage by a 19-year-old.
Later, after Habermas seized the cards, he examines them and discovers the holograms are created from a laminate layover. The numbers on the fake ID cards traced back to a Hispanic man and the other was a fake number.
"These were incredibly well done. They paid good money for these," Habermas said.
*
After midnight, the rest of Habermas' shift passes as quietly as traffic enforcement can be expected to go.
Two traffic stops for suspected driving while impaired turn out to be nothing. One of the girls stopped blew .00 on the breathalyzer, while the other passed also.
But the third stop, conducted on Wayne Memorial Drive, ended in Brittany Janae Moses, 26, being charged for driving while impaired and failure to burn headlamps.
Habermas and I were heading in the direction of Harris Teeter on Wayne Memorial Drive when he spotted a Ford C-Max Hybrid with its daytime running lights on, but no tail lights activated and no nighttime headlights burning.
He falls in behind the car.
We cross the bridge over U.S. 70 on Wayne Memorial Drive and pass through a traffic light.
Ms. Moses, the driver of the car, jumps up and over the curb of the median.
Habermas hits his lights and pulls her over in the Circle K gas station. We climb out of the car and walk up to the window.
The C-Max is rented.
Ms. Moses tells us that she just got her license back several days ago after clearing a driving while license revoked charge.
She's complaining, saying she didn't do anything. Habermas tell her that her headlights were out.
"When she opened her mouth to speak, the smell of alcohol smacked me in the face," Habermas said.
Ms. Moses claimed that she only drank one beer, and that it was her sister's birthday.
Habermas attempts to put her through several field sobriety tests -- following his finger with her eyes, walking nine steps forward and nine steps back in a heel-to-toe fashion and balancing on one leg.
Ms. Moses immediately refuses to cooperate when Habermas asks her to follow his finger with her eyes.
Later, he would tell me that she would follow his finger out to one side, readjust her eyes, and look back out at her finger.
"Just let me blow," Ms. Moses said. "Just give me the blow test."
Habermas obliges, getting two readings on the breathalyzer. In between the two separate readings, Habermas puts her through the other field sobriety tests.
She walks 13 steps forward -- "that was about six steps just then right?" she asks to no one in particular as she walks forward -- and then 11 steps back. Her heels never came close to her toes.
As Habermas goes to arrest Ms. Moses, she claims she needs to use the restroom.
"You can use it when we get to jail," Habermas said.
The car ride to the jail is quiet. Riding with someone that has just been arrested in the back of the car is, in a word, tense.
The only chatter inside the car is when Habermas calls ahead to the jail on his radio.
Inside the jail, Ms. Moses is read what she is charged with and told that she'll need to take another breathalyzer test before being fingerprinted and photographed.
She says she needs to use the restroom again.
Habermas tells me the breathalyzer instrument is calibrated in favor of the person that has to blow into it.
Ms. Moses eventually blew a 0.09 and a 0.08 on the breathalyzer in the jail -- at the stop, she blew 0.11.
"She knew the game, Habermas said. "She was trying to delay and delay until her blood alcohol content dropped below .08."
As we take Ms. Moses upstairs to the magistrate's office so she can be given a bond -- $500, unsecured -- Habermas sees someone he knows from his probation and parole days.
"Malcolm!" Habermas says to 23-year-old Malcolm Jamal Russell, who is sitting shirtless at a table in handcuffs. "What did they charge you with man?"
Russell claims not to know. He's upset that he's shirtless, though he was naked when police showed up to the domestic disturbance call that results in his arrest.
"We got possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a stolen firearm," said Officer Cody Bostic, who has been with the Goldsboro Police Department for only about 40 days.
"I didn't have no (expletive) gun!" Russell said. He turns to nobody specific, and asks quietly, "I didn't have no gun, did I?"
Russell has more than 80 court cases against him, more than 30 of which are still pending.
Habermas knows him well, and has charged him with many felonies. Ms. Moses passengers witness the exchange between Habermas and Russell -- they were there to take her home after she was released.
The entire process, from arresting Ms. Moses to releasing her, takes slightly more than an hour and a half -- which, Habermas says, is quick.
Russell knows her, and tells her to call him as she leaves the jail. She says she will.
She never did use the bathroom.