Police Lt. Donnie Poore loves being out on the street. As a patrolling officer serving the night shift, the 17-year veteran with the City of Fairfax Police said the interaction with people makes the job worthwhile.
"Community policing has really taken off," Poore said.
Poore is just one of seven officers on the 12-hour night shift, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. While his colleagues at the police station conduct criminal investigations or respond to rabid dog calls, Poore and the other officers on the evening squad drive through and monitor activity throughout Fairfax City's seven square miles.
Poore prefers the evening shift to the day shift, because of the schedule and the different types of activity. During the daytime, officers get calls on larcenies, vandalism and traffic accidents.
"There's a lot more traffic enforcement," said police Lt. Mike Artone.
But in the evening, the action includes drunk driving, drunk and disorderly behavior, domestic assault calls and burglaries.
The eight-member patrolling squads used to be on rotating day and evening shifts, Artone said. But several years ago they switched to 12-hour day or evening shifts on a two-week cycle.
"The good thing about [the rotating shifts] is that you get exposed to everything different," Artone said.
Yet Poore likes his colleagues and the camaraderie from working together. They stay connected on patrol through the radio system, which also connects them with other forces throughout the region, and through the computers in their patrol cars.
On one mid-August evening, Poore experiences a typical Tuesday:
7:50 p.m.
For the last several weeks, officers have stepped up their efforts to check in with the local homeless who loiter at bus stops and at spots around Fairfax Circle. Businesses and citizens at Fairfax Circle often complain to the police about the loitering, littering, begging and public drunkenness that they sometimes witness. By keeping track of the people there, the police can ensure that nothing gets out of control.
“A lot of stuff we do is based on citizen complaints,” Poore said, adding that it’s the department’s job to keep on top of the usual complaints that occur.
It’s dusk on a warm summer’s day, and three men are reclining on a small spot of grass behind the 7-11 and the Lamb Center at Fairfax Circle. Two men — one of whom the department has known for years — are sitting silently, while one is lying down, resting. Some of their belongings are next to them.
Poore asks them how they’re doing, and where they’ll spend the night. They point eastward, to wooded lots beyond the city border. After getting the name of the man lying on the ground, Poore politely asks them to leave, which they politely oblige.
“We try to be sensitive to them, but sometimes you do what you got to do,” Poore said.
8 p.m.
With the car windows down so he can hear what’s happening outside, Poore drives through the parking lots of several shopping centers. According to their narcotics officers, dusk is a good time for drug dealing, because people are outside and activity doesn’t look as conspicuous.
Poore sees two men at a Fairfax Circle parking lot talking to each other as they stand next to their cars. They don’t look like they’re leaving to go home soon. Poore slowly drives away from them, keeping his eye on them through the car mirrors.
“A lot of times you know what belongs where, what’s out of place,” said Poore.
8:05 p.m.
Two of the men that Poore had met behind the 7-11 are sitting at a bus stop on Old Lee Highway. A third man is with them, one whom Poore hasn’t seen. Before getting out of the car, he radios the other patrolling officers about the situation, because Poore isn’t sure if the third man is the one of that had been hostile to an officer the other day. But when Poore asks all the men to leave, the unknown third man follows the request without argument.
8:20 p.m.
As part of the rounds, Poore drives behind the Main Street Shopping Center on Main Street. The area behind the shopping center has seen some criminal activity before, with vandals spray painting graffiti behind the thrift store Yesterday’s Rose.
When Poore drives up to the back of the thrift store, he sees two clean-cut, young men who look to be about 20. One of them quickly throws something away in the dumpster. Poore notices this action, and gets out of the car to talk to them, but they don’t understand English very well. He takes down their names and goes back to the dumpster, where he sees a cell phone and a calculator. He takes those objects out and tries to ask the two men, but they don’t respond. They look down on the ground. Poore thinks they could either be hiding something, or they simply panicked when they saw him. Uncertain of their motives, Poore continues to try to communicate with them.
Five minutes later, a middle-aged man asks what’s the problem. He tells Poore that the two men work at the restaurant a few stores down. Acting as translator, Poore finds out the two men were digging through some leftovers from Yesterday’s Rose. They got scared when they saw him, so the one young man through the cell phone back into the dumpster. Poore tries to give the cell phone back to them, but they reply that it didn’t work.
8:47 p.m.
Poore drives up to a 7-11 next to the Dolce Vita restaurant on Lee Highway. Two boys, who look 14 or 15, see him and try to get away from his sight. Poore gets out of the car, thinking that the two might have stolen something. When he catches up to them, he discovers that one of them had been smoking. Poore gives a five-minute lecture on smoking, then lets them go. When he comes back to the car, he calls the boy’s parents.
8:55 p.m.
Poore responds to a domestic assault call in an apartment off of Jermantown Road. The husband had reportedly punched his wife in the mouth. When Poore arrives, two other police officers are on the scene. He sees the wife, who is with her child in another room. The husband sits silently on the coach. The police try to tell him what he did wrong, and he replies that he doesn’t understand English very well.
9:20 p.m.
Another call comes in. A mother wants her son to stay with her, but the child’s guardian doesn’t want the son to leave with the woman. Poore arrives first on the scene, and another officer arrives shortly afterwards. He finds out the two are involved in a custody battle. He offers to mediate between the two, but says it’s beyond his power to bring the son to his mother. The mediation goes peacefully, but the child stays with the guardian.
Poore says afterwards that they get a lot of calls where officers mediate between disputes.
10:25 p.m.
Since the last call, Poore has been patrolling stretches of Fairfax City, looking for suspicious activity. The evening has been a typical night officers would see — not too slow, but not too busy. When the bars close, there might be a skirmish between bar patrons. But after 3 a.m., activity winds down and the streets are quiet and empty until cars start their morning commute around 5 a.m. Only occasionally will Poore get a call that officers like because it pumps them up — those calls happen when a crime is in the process of occurring, like a robbery.
After driving up and down Lee Highway and Main Street and going through a motel parking lot, Poore drives through a restaurant/bar parking lot, where he sees a young man loitering at a car dealership. Poore calls out to him and asks him what he’s doing. The man replies that he’s shopping. After circling the restaurant parking lot, he returns to the side of the lot that borders the car dealership, but the man is gone.
10:30 p.m.
Poore thinks he sees the man he spotted at the dealership coming out of store in Fairfax Circle, but it’s someone else.
10:43 p.m.
While driving down Main Street, Poore sees a man staggering. The man sees Poore’s car and tries to make a run for it, but falls to the ground instead. He’s very drunk. Poore gets out of the car, and several other officers arrive shortly afterward. One officer asks for the man’s ID, but the man insists that he just wants to go home, which is the next street down. After several minutes of insisting, the man quiets down and an officer pulls out the man’s ID from his wallet. Poore arrests him, saying the man is too drunk to walk home safely. Being in the detention center for several hours will give him some time to sober up. The man had been kneeling on the ground and is starting to doze off.
Poore puts the man in his car, and he races to the detention center. Poore says the problem with arresting drunken people is that they might throw up in your car. That’s something no officer wants. He calls out to the man in his backseat, telling him several times not to vomit.
10:53 p.m.
Poore has arrived at the detention center, but hears a lurch from the backseat. He gets out of the car quickly, and tries to pull the man out of the car. Poore was almost successful — the man threw up, but a little bit of the vomit was inside the car.
The man starts to fall asleep, but Poore takes him inside the detention center. Poore will stay with the man until he’s ready to be put into a cell. If there’s a possibility of alcohol poisoning, Poore will have to wait with the man at the hospital.
The man is cleared to go into the cell, and Poore comes back to his car, where he sees a note his fellow night patrol officer and friend had left him. It says, ‘HA HA!’ Poore starts to clean his backseat.
Until midnight.
Poore drives around Fairfax and observes that traffic has lessened considerably. A call occurs before 11:30 p.m., asking for an officer to go to the Safeway shopping center, but no one is there when Poore arrives. Right before midnight, he gets gas. Seven more hours remain on his shift.