RIDE ALONG

The Havre Police Department employs the men and women who keep the city safe at night.

Officer Brian Cassidy began his shift Saturday with standard preparative procedures.

"At the beginning of the shift, we go through the same sort of starter procedures," Cassidy said. The officers check their radars, cameras, car lights, siren and duty weapons as part of preparing for their shifts. The patrol cars are equipped with a 12-gauge shotgun and an AR-15 platform.

"We make sure they're all functional and ready to go," Cassidy said.

He said that there is no designated area for the three police officers on shift to patrol; they just cruise around in city limits waiting for a call from dispatch or until they see something that needs taken care of like a traffic violation or suspicious activity.

"If you're on a call or a traffic stop, the other guys will try to swing by and check in on you," Cassidy said. "Have each other's backs kind of thing."

He said that when a call comes over the radio, it generally depends on who is available and closest to the incident when determining who will take the call.

At certain times, they will patrol areas more heavily, like the bars around closing time and arenas and schools when sporting games are going on.

"We usually just go all about town and try to make our presence known," Cassidy said.

He added that Saturdays and Fridays are not necessarily the biggest nights of the week for him.

"It just depends on the night; you never know what it's going to bring and I've had Tuesdays and Wednesday be more busy than weekends," he said.

However, the police station receives a higher volume of calls over the weekends just because everyone is out and about, he said.

The unpredictable nature of the job is one of the things Cassidy said he loves about it.

"I enjoy this job," Cassidy said. "Every day is different."

Cassidy, 25, has been with the Havre Police Department for two years and came to the area from Manhattan, Montana, to take the job.

At sunset, Cassidy pulled over a white pickup truck because it was missing a headlight.

After flipping on his patrol lights and letting the siren give a short burst, he made a U-turn on 5th Avenue to pull the man over. He shined a light through the back window of the truck and went to talk to the man.

Cassidy gave the man a warning ticket after the man explained to him he was on his way to buy new ones. The warning gives the driver five days to fix the problem.

When Cassidy turned on his patrol lights, the vehicle's camera began recording. He said the camera will turn on by itself for a multitude of reasons: when the lights go on, when the vehicle's strapped-in weapons are unlocked, when there is a big bump or it it feels as though the car has been in a crash, when the vehicle reaches a certain speed and other reasons.

"They're pretty handy to have," Cassidy said.

Along with the wireless microphone he carries on him when he is out of his vehicle, the camera's main purpose is to serve as evidence, but they have a playback feature that also helps the officers out if they need to recheck a license plate or anything else.

After the stop, Cassidy said it was the few cops the town of Manhattan employed that made him want to be a police officer.

"I wanted to be a cop for a long time, actually, when I was a kid," Cassidy said. He elaborated that a close death in his family convinced him to pursue psychology in college, but he decided to switch tracks back to becoming an officer after a stay in college.

"A major part of it was the cops in my town, Manhattan," Cassidy said. "There were only two of them and they really watched out for the community and really had good community outreach on their part. It helped some of us kids to stay in line. Helped us get to where we are. I figured if I could be a cop and help one kid or one person stay on track, it'd be a service."

He joined the force at 23. His background in working corrections helped him assimilate into the job.

"I was already kind of used to being in a role where you're giving people instructions and following a base set of rules," he said, but added, "It's definitely different, and I had my transitional phase."

He said something that helped him out was knowing how to treat elders and others with respect.

"Don't do anything to embarrass yourself, your community or who you work for and treat others with respect and this job is kind of cake, you know," Cassidy said. "You just have to learn how to talk with people."

Cassidy began his shift a 6 p.m. and worked until 6 the following morning. He said his schedule is 12 hours on and 12 hours off.

He said that despite the 12-hour shifts, he enjoys his work. He has worked 8- and 10-hour shifts before, but with the 12-hour shift, he gets a three-day weekend every other weekend.

There are about 12 patrol officers who have shifts throughout the week at the Havre Police Department.

"There's definitely a camaraderie, because we all go through some, people would say, traumatic things, different things together," Cassidy said. "You go on calls with these guys ... you never know what you're going to get with the call."

He said they go through all types of calls together, but the heavier ones are what keeps them working close with one another.

"It could be anything from a false alarm, or something you'd never want anyone in your family to ever have to experience or witness. You have to go through that, and not only do you go through it, you have to relive it when you write your report and you relive it when you have to go up and testify for it," Cassidy said. "The guys go through it with you, there's definitely a bonding experience."

He added that he feels lucky because they have a good group of guys employed by the city. They are all willing to talk and help each other out, from administration to officer.

"It's a close-knit group," he said.

He added that the relationship between the police department and the community reminds him a lot of home.

"One of the reasons I wanted to become a cop is because they had good community outreach there," he said.

He said that there is always negative feedback from a community, but what he hears is mostly positive. He said he will walk through schools during day shifts, and the kids seem to have good attitudes toward the police.

He added that the gentleman he pulled over earlier in the night, the man in the white truck, was not irate at all.

"He actually just wanted to chat," Cassidy said. "And that's something there I think is a good relationship with the community is when that's happening and we're not seen as an inconvenience or Big Brother. We feel a part of the community."

He said there are some tense moments when he is interacting with people, but for the most part, it's a "breath of fresh air."

Each officer has there own measure of what is worth pulling someone over and what is not.

"There's officer discretion. The law is very black and white, and I believe people realize we live in a gray world," Cassidy said.

Technically, officers can pull someone over for going one mile over the speed limit, but each officer uses their own discretion to use the law to help them make decisions about what to do. Cassidy said when the cops get together, it becomes a checks-and-balance system where they compare notes on their decisions.

Cassidy said the point of this is to allow people to continue on with their day-to-day activities while still successfully doing their job.

Later in the night, dispatch called in with a report of a missing 10-year-old. The child's older brother was at the skate park while the kid was at Pepin Park. As night fell, the two brothers began looking for each other at the same time, thus bypassing each other in the dark. The older brother called the police to ask for help with finding him.

The officers began patrolling the areas around the parks, asking local kids playing basketball and skateboarding if they had seen anyone who fit the description of the 10-year-old.

At the skatepark, after Cassidy was talking to the skateboarders about the missing child, he spotted a group of children on top of a hill across the street and ran over to them, shining his flashlight.

The 10-year-old the officers were looking for was traveling with the group of kids and Cassidy pulled him away from the group to take him back to Pepin Park.

Since the front two seats were full, the kid sat in the back of the police car. The kid found the plastic seats interesting and asked Cassidy questions about them.

The kid asked Cassidy's name.

"My name's Brian," Cassidy said. "Not Officer Brian or anything like that, just Brian, OK?"

As the patrol vehicle pulled into Pepin Park, the kid was let out of the back seat and reunited with his family. Cassidy and the other officers on shift stayed and chatted with the family for a minute, and the family embraced the 10-year-old as Cassidy walked back to his patrol car to continue his shift.