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Taking a ride-along with YCSO deputies

Tue, 01/10/2017 - 4:13 pm
newsdesk@grahamleader.com
Editor’s note: Graham Leader reporter Thomas Wallner rode along with two Young County Sheriff’s Department deputies during parts of two shifts on Saturday, Jan. 7. The following is Wallner’s account of that time. Day shift Deputy Paul Hemphill pulled out of the Sheriff’s office parking lot at 3 p.m., then continued on his normal day shift as a deputy in the Young County Sheriff’s Office. Hemphill has worked with the sheriff’s department for two years full-time and four years part-time. He worked as a paramedic while serving as a reserve deputy and also previously was a firefighter. He made his way down Hwy. 16 North and within five minutes pulled over a white Silverado pickup for speeding. He approached the vehicle, spoke with the driver and came back with his license, to check if the driver was eligible or their license was suspended or invalid. The driver didn’t have his insurance on hand, but did have insurance, a fact Hemphill was able to confirm with his in-car computer system. He checked the driver for “locals” – local warrants. Hemphill’s computer system checks for any warrants or concerns that may pop up in other areas, but for local area information he radios dispatch to check. No local warrants came up but the driver did have multiple past speeding violations, but none of them happened recently, Hemphill said. “Usually, if it is the first time (speeding), I give them a warning unless they are really doing about 10 (mph) over,” Hemphill said. Hemphill issued the driver a verbal warning, then continued down Hwy. 16 to Loving, where he began looking for anything suspicious. After approaching two neighbors talking on the side of the road and having a short chat with them, Hemphill moved back to the main road. During each traffic stop, dispatchers will make periodic radio calls to an officer, to make sure he is OK. If the officer does not respond within a certain amount of time, dispatch will send other deputies to make sure the officer is safe and the situation is under control. The day and night shifts can vary depending on the circumstances and it is similar to a roll of the dice as to whether or not deputies find something or someone to investigate, Hemphill said. “The day shift can be busy, but it just depends on how it falls,” he said. Hemphill is assigned the whole county to cover, but he chooses the route he takes each time, which can sometimes be a large area. “I can go anywhere from Markley all the way to Eliasville, all the way to Olney, north of Olney, west of Olney – you know, we’ve got a big county to cover,” he said. While driving through Loving, Hemphill noticed a group of cars taking off and going down a street by the Loving Community Center. He decided to go check out what was going on. After inquiring with a local resident, he found out it was a wedding event being held at the community center, so he headed to Hwy. 114 toward Olney. He could see Olney PD vehicles on his CopSync computer program. Through CopSync, Hemphill has access to a touchscreen map with most of the locations of the local police and county officers in the area, shown in realtime. In case of an emergency there is a button on the system that can be used to alert all officers in the area if assistance is needed. “If they call for assistance (other counties) asking our county to come help, I can see where they are at,” Hemphill said. About an hour into his drive, Hemphill stopped another speeding car, on Hwy. 251. The white GMC Yukon XL was given a warning after a check was made of the driver’s license and locals were checked. Almost immediately after the last stop, Hemphill stopped another speeding car on the same road. The blue Dodge truck’s driver had no license, but Hemphill was able to get information on the driver with just a name and date of birth. He had to ask the driver for their information again, after the person’s records didn’t show up when checked. Hemphill then saw that the driver had a suspended driver’s license from Arizona. He gave the driver a written warning for speeding and a ticket for driving with a invalid or suspended license, which printed out from a small printer located on top of his center console. He headed back down U.S. 380 towards Graham then onto the U.S. 380 bypass, where he pulled over a yellow Jeep for speeding. While Hemphill was trying to get driver’s license information, the driver tried to leave the vehicle, which Hemphill said is a safety issue both for the officer and the driver. He said he makes sure to always watch the driver. “I am sitting here doing this but also keeping my eye on him for any movement,” Hemphill said. A verbal warning was issued to the driver and then the deputy made the trip back to the sheriff’s office to end his shift. The rotation from day to night shift happens at 6 p.m. The day officer briefs the night officer on what happened during his shift and and shares any other important information the deputy may need to know. Hemphill passed the shift over to Deputy Devin Wright who has been a part of the sheriff’s office for around seven months. Night shift Wright pulled out of the parking lot after filling up at the gas pump in the back of the sheriff’s office, and said he had a few concerns the fuel might not pump due to the below-freezing temperatures that night. A slow night is not uncommon for the Young County Sheriff’s Office, he said. “Sometimes we will go all night and not get a call. It just depends. Sometimes we will get four or five calls, sometimes you are hiding behind your car because somebody is shooting at you,” Wright said. Wright worked with the Graham Police Department for 10 years and before that worked as a paid reserve deputy in Archer County. Most of his job, Wright said, is relatively quiet, but there are times when things can heated. “It’s about 90 percent boredom, 10 percent work and then 1 percent you don’t know what is going on,” Wright said. Wright started up Hwy. 16 and saw only a handful of cars going under the speed limit when he approached the crossing at Hwy. 114. He took a left on Hwy. 114, which he said has its fair share of drug traffic to and from Lubbock and Dallas-Fort Worth. In some areas in the county, the dispatch radio officers wear can’t reach the office, but the radio inside the vehicle can, Wright said. All deputies are equipped with a body camera which the deputy said can help because it shows others what he sees, through his eyes. “Now we have taken the jury out of the jury stand and out of car and actually taken them to the car with us,” Wright said. An orange 2017 Ford F-150 pickup speeding east of Olney was the first vehicle Wright pulled over that night, a truck newly purchased by the driver who was on his way home. The only other stop came almost an hour later when Wright saw a blue Dodge swerving in the lane on Hwy. 251 and stopped it to investigate further. “There are different things we look for when we are looking for an intoxicated driver, of course the swerving back and forth is one of those things, inconsistent speeds, speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down. At night they will forget to dim their headlights and then when you pull them over and ask for their license they will hand you a credit card,” Wright said. When Wright came back to run the license and registration on the driver of the Dodge, a call went out over dispatch about an accident on U.S. 380 West on White Rose road with no injuries. The deputy let the driver go after determining nothing was amiss with his driving and quickly drove 10 miles to respond to the accident. Wright wasn’t the lead deputy at the wreck, but spoke to a game warden who was on the scene of the one-car rollover, and with DPS troopers who arrived shortly after the deputy started getting information from the driver of the vehicle. He gave the information to DPS and remained on scene until a tow truck arrived, which could not get around the vehicles of the DPS, game warden, EMS, Graham Fire and Rescue and the two deputies on the small road. Wright then headed up to Newcastle and noticed a car that had been in the Newcastle High School parking lot for a couple of days and hadn’t moved. He ran the license, which told him the vehicle was a Hertz rental car from New Mexico. Wright also checked the inside of the car, which he said held teaching supplies. Despite working late the deputy had planned to meet with his family for dinner and spend time with them. When he arrived at a restaurant to meet them, Wright immediately received another call to go assist an elderly motorist on Hwy. 16 North, five miles south of the U.S. 281 cutoff with Archer City. Then an Archer County deputy called dispatch and said the motorist was in their county, so Wright had to make the long trip back after checking a property which had a resident who had warrants out for his arrest. The house was barricaded with a “No trespassing” sign on its fence and a spotlight on the street that lit up the sheriff’s car drove by.   On the way back to eat, the deputy got another call, to pick up for a motorist whose car died on the way back from Wichita Falls and who needed a ride back to Graham. Wright was finally able to sit down with his family at around 10:30 p.m., and he made it about 75 percent through his meal when a noise complaint came in about someone cutting wood with a chainsaw and dragging it across a road. The deputy met with the county resident, who was cutting wood for a fire in his backyard, and advised him turn off the chainsaw for the remainder of the night. Closing In the month of December, the Young County Sheriff’s Office received 154 calls, conducted 227 traffic stops and made 18 arrests, according to a report given by Sheriff Travis Babcock. The Graham Leader appreciates any and all hospitality given from the Young County Sheriff’s department in allowing us to ride along with two of their deputies.