TAKING A RIDE ON THE COP'S SIDE

If it weren't for alcohol, Const. Darryl Hubich admits he might not have a job.

There are no doughnut breaks for Hubich and myself on Saturday night, as I
go on my police ride-along, a required part of my participation in the
Moose Jaw Police Service's Community Police Academy. On a Friday or
Saturday night, we go from about 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., watching what they do
and going where they go.

Hubich works on the street as a patrol cop. And at nights -- including this
Saturday night -- he's in a police cruiser, looking in specific areas of
town for crime when he's not called to anything. Hubich is assigned to the
central part of town. He looks down alleyways and is one of a few officers
checking the bars to make sure people don't drive home when they've had a
few alcoholic drinks or if they fight.

At 11:55 p.m., we drove around for awhile. We noted a silent car alarm at
an apartment parking lot across the street from SIAST. It might not have
been an actual car alarm as the four-way lights were on, but there was no
one around. Peculiar.

About 20 minutes later, we saw newer-model red truck in the Town 'N'
Country Mall parking lot, parked in the turning lane at a four-way stop. It
was an odd place to park a truck, Hubich thought. There was nothing near
the truck, and because there was a Warriors game that night, we assumed
that someone decided to get a ride home.

When we went across the street, we saw some people in their late teens and
early 20s parked in the lot near the back of the mall. Hubich checked them
and their cars out through dispatch. The plates on one of the cars were
expired. "How did the car get here?" Hubich asks.

It turns out the plates weren't updated on the SGI system because the
driver had just gotten them the day before. One of the people gets a call
on his cell phone. "Yeah, I'm just with the cops here . . ."

"Everybody's got a cell phone," Hubich smiles as we drive away.

One of the things that struck me is the way people change when they realize
police are present. People either really don't like them, or they
practically stand at attention. There's not a lot of middle ground.

And Hubich is the consummate professional. He speaks plainly and directly.
He calls people by their first name when he learns it and keeps people at
ease or on alert, depending on the situation. He follows traffic laws to
the letter, except when rushing to a scene. When leaving the car, his hat
is on, and it's on straight.

At 1 a.m., we see three 20-somethings -- two guys and a girl -- in a truck
the Safeway parking lot. He asks them to open the door and there are two
open bottles of beer in the truck.

"I'm going to give you the break of a lifetime," Hubich said to one of the
guys.

Hubich could have given him a care and control while impaired for being in
the drivers' seat of a vehicle with open bottles of alcohol -- which has
the same penalties as drinking and driving -- but instead he gave them two
$180 tickets for having open licquor in a vehicle. Hubich also seized an
18-case of Pilsner beer from the back seat of the truck. The kids were told
to go back to the Brunswick Hotel and call a cab, and were specifically
warned that the truck would be watched closely so no one who has been
drinking drives it.

For about a half-hour, we stopped in at a place where a woman had been the
victim of a break-in over the weekend. The drawers and cupboards were
rifled through, but the only thing missing was two cans of pop from the
fridge and a few from downstairs. Hubich suspected a connection to a couple
of other recent break-ins.

A couple of fun things happen at 2:06 a.m. Hubich stopped on High Street
West a couple of blocks east of the four-way stop. A car was driving
between 55 and 60 km/h. "Oh, look at that," Hubich said as the car dropped
its speed to 45 km/h while passing us.

At 2:39 a.m., we are stopped at a light behind a vehicle with a radar
detector at First Northeast and Manitoba Street East. "Watch this," Hubich
says. He turns the police radar on and off in the vehicle, making the guy's
detector lights go on and off. The guy's head looks at the detector as the
light turns green.

A couple of minutes later, Hubich drives in the alley behind High Street
West and we see a guy go towards the wall looking like he's about to
urinate against it. He stops when he sees the police vehicle and looks at
us, with his hands behind his back and eyes looking innocent, as we drive
away. Hubich goes into stealth mode at about 3 a.m., with the lights off
and the radio turned down to a low rumble as he drives through the narrow
streets in the middle of town. Even the car's engine can barely be heard on
this chilly night, which I'm feeling more and more with both front windows
rolled down. We do the same thing five minutes later at Wood Lily Drive and
by the Laurier Apartments. Hubich says that sometimes you can hear glass
breaking, but we can't hear anything on this night.

At 3:20 a.m., we are called out to domestic squabble at some downtown
apartments. Two sisters thought one of their boyfriends was on the booze
again and woke him up with glass of cold water. He apparently doesn't like
this as a face is pushed and a thumb is bitten. Sad situation. Hubich said
if they want to press charges against the guy to call him.

On South Hill, we pick up a guy who is walking north. We chat with him
about his illegal parking ticket before dropping him off at his house.

At 4:49 a.m., we see white van unloading stuff across the street from the
Cornerstone Christian school. It's a Times-Herald delivery truck. "Well, OK
then, he's clean," I say.

A few minutes later, driving west on South Hill, Hubich's eyes focus and he
blurts "Did you see that?" There are some young adults walking across the
street to a car.

Hubich turns around on a street and sees kids in a car driving away from
house party. He pulls them over. There is an open bottle of beer in the car
that no one is owning up to. "So does everyone want a ticket?" Hubich asks.
A demand is made on an approved screening device and an alert is blown. The
20-year-old kid that was driving gets a 24-hour suspension and is
instructed to leave the car where it is.

It's about 5:30 a.m. by the time I get home, and I leave Hubich to do his
paperwork, which will take some time.

At class Wednesday, Cpl. Brent Mackey introduced us to the world of drugs.
Mackey, who is a member of the investigation unit of the police, told us
about the most common drugs available in Moose Jaw. According to Mackey,
marijuana is available in high quality in Moose Jaw. In the 1960s and
1970s, the THC ingredient in marijuana -- the ingredient that produces the
"high" -- was about five to seven per cent. Today's marijuana runs from 20
to 22 per cent THC. Interestingly enough, Mackey said that British Columbia
produces some of the highest quality marijuana in the world. Mackey said he
is not at all in support of the legalization or decriminalization of
marijuana advocates, calling it a "gateway drug" into the realm of harder
drugs. And the use of harsher drugs like cocaine is increasing.

"We're starting to see more and more coke (cocaine) coming into town,"
Mackey said.

Mackey ran down the prices of the major street drugs. For $2, people can
get 50-60 morphine tablets by prescription. They then take the pills to a
dealer, who sells them for a higher price.

People have shot $300 worth of crushed-down morphine per day. Mackey also
told us about bike gangs. He said there are Hells Angels in Regina and
Saskatoon and they own property in Moose Jaw.

He brought some samples of drugs (in baggies and pill containers, kids) and
drug paraphernalia and passed them all around. I think he got all of them back.

"So how many people here watch CSI?" Const. Ron Harder asks. A majority of
hands go up at the mention of the popular American show about crime scene
investigators.

"In my opinion, it's garbage."

Harder, as a real-life crime scene investigator for the Moose Jaw Police
Service, is in a position of knowledge about crime scene investigations.
He's collected evidence at some of the most notorious crime scenes in the
city over his seven years on the job.

One of the things that bothered him about CSI was a scene on a recent
episode where one of the forensic officers approaches red stuff in a pool,
sniffs it, puts it in his mouth and says that it's sweet and it must be
ketchup.

"It's good entertainment," Harder said. But it's not real life.

In addition to major crime scenes, Harder is at all accidents, major
break-ins and in-home deaths.

Harder talked about fingerprints as part of his discussion to our group.
Once a person is charged with a Criminal Code offence, their fingerprints
are taken and a copy of their prints is sent to a national database in Ottawa.

Why are fingerprints so unique and useful? No two prints are alike -- not
even in identical twins. The small ridges in fingerprints help to grip
things, like notebook pages.

"Ever try turning a page with your knuckle?" Harder asks. Funny enough, it
appears that nobody has.

The ridges and tiny sweat pores in fingers work together. If people's
fingertips are dry, all that's needed to be done is to soak hands in water
and after an hour, their prune-like hands will provide prints.

One of the tools used to find other evidence is a pattern of blood spatter.
The pattern of landing helps provide information about the crime. And even
if blood and other matter is washed off of the walls, an illuma-light which
reacts to a substance in the blood helps the blood appear again. The newer
versions help detect old blood through new paint and wallpaper.

At the end of his presentation, Harder also showed a 12-minute video on how
easy it is to steal certain makes and styles of cars. In a matter of 30
seconds, thieves can break into most cars and start them up. Regina, only
70 kilometres to the east, is Canada's car theft capital. (Funny how you
never see that in their tourism brochures). Thieves have been known to take
cars from Regina, drive here and dump them, and take Moose Jaw cars back
home. Harder had, unbeknownst to me, placed a loonie on the other side of a
table where I was sitting. He had also left a sticky message saying "please
don't touch."

I had tapped it lightly with my pen earlier (I don't honestly know what I
was expecting; an explosion? a sudden morph into an actual loon?) Harder
asked me of all people to touch the dollar with my thumb and rub it on my
finger, which I obligingly did.

A thin powder on the coin began to stick to my fingers and turn them bluer
than Smurfs. Apart from being a hilarious party trick, the substance helps
to track down actual people suspected of, say, taking from the company. It
washes off eventually but nearly 24 hours later (and a lot of scrubbing),
there's still a trace of blue left.