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BEAT GOES ON: At each car stop,
Foss gets briefed by the dispatcher.
Rod Searcey |
a pirate with an eye patch
passes us at 12:50 a.m., headed for the Quad. A minute
later, as our patrol car rolls quietly down Serra Street,
two more goofy-seeming students come into view.
“It’s okay,” deputy sheriff Ali Foss
says. “I know Band people by sight.”
That’s part of her job—getting to know students
on campus, and giving them a chance to know the campus
police as individuals. Foss goes to house meetings in
Kimball and dines on burritos at Kappa Alpha. Students
working on term papers e-mail her to elicit her thoughts
on the death penalty and on sentencing the mentally
ill. It probably helps that the 25-year-old officer—one
of four female deputies out of approximately 30—looks
like a student herself.
If there’s such a thing as a typical midnight
shift, it means there’s plenty for Foss and her
beat partners to do. The first call on a recent night
comes in slightly after 10 p.m., as the four cars on
the night shift pull out of the station to begin their
sweeps. Word of a broken window on the Quad sends Foss
into gear. Maneuvering her Ford Crown Victoria down
a narrow bike path, she parks near the George Segal
sculpture and approaches Building 80 noiselessly, alert
for an intruder.
False alarm. A student banging on a window had shattered
the pane of glass. Foss, aka “Q19,” called
in a work order, and a code four—no further assistance
needed.
At 10:59 we’re easing down Lasuen Street, searchlight
on, checking parked vehicles, when the police dispatcher
reports that a Synergy resident is missing. It happens
a lot, says Foss. A parent doesn’t hear from a
student for a while, fears the worst and calls the resident
fellow, who calls the police. Twenty minutes later,
her estimation is confirmed: an officer has found the
student and all is well. “And the kid is probably
going, ‘Oh, Mom,’” says Foss.
A car slices past us in the dark. Foss phones in the
license plate, then turns on the red and blue roof lights.
Are there any outstanding warrants on the driver? Any
criminal history? No. Foss stops the car and gives the
driver with expired plates a warning and a fix-it ticket.
 |
RECORD NIGHT: Foss records
details in her log.
Rod Searcey |
By 12:39 a.m. we’ve driven Beat One several times.
Foss stops a number of vehicles for speeding but lets
the drivers off with a warning when she smells no whiff
of alcohol and sees no signs of horizontal nystagmus—involuntary
movement—in their eyes. “You look at the
situation,” Foss says. “Is it an egregious
enough violation to warrant a citation? Was the public
safety jeopardized by the actions of this person?”
At 12:54 a.m. a 1066 call comes in: occupied suspicious
vehicle. Foss is the second officer on the scene, and
cautiously approaches the car parked behind the Graduate
School of Business before going up to the window and
talking with the student inside. She’s in pajamas
and having roommate trouble. The deputies calm her,
then leave, satisfied she’s not in danger. “We
try to approach situations with empathy and kindness,”
Foss says.
As the night winds down, a disturbance is reported on
the Quad, which turns out to be a yell-leader initiation.
Foss stops several cars that are riding the white line.
Finally she approaches a car that is stopped near the
intersection of Campus Drive and Galvez Street. The
passenger door is open and a young man is vomiting in
the bushes, thanks to a senior pub night. Foss approaches
him, asks a few questions, checks his ID. Handcuffs
go on and another officer drives him off to Santa Clara
County jail. He’ll be released in the morning,
sober and chagrined.
And after 10 hours, Foss will go home to sleep. |
