Reporter riding with deputy experiences gun incident

Source: Dayton Daily News, OhioOct.儲存 15--Dayton Daily News Digital Crime Reporter Marc Katz rides along with local law enforcement officials to see first-hand what the officers encounter while on patrol. This is one of his stories.DAYTON -- Had the suspect raised his rifle just a few more inches -- maybe 4 to 5 -- I would have been in his straight-line field of view, taking notes on a note pad, wearing a sweater made of cotton, not Kevlar."Had that rifle come up above his waist," said Fred Zollers, the deputy Montgomery County Sheriff I was with on a ride-along, "I'd still be doing paper work."He said that about six hours later, after we had made several other tours of the West Third Street/Gettysburg Avenue area and elsewhere, making or assisting on stops on vehicles that had some sort of drug or gun connection.He said it because of the mound of paperwork that would have to be completed if he or one of the other officers surrounding the suspect fired, fatally wounding the suspect standing in front of me.It would have made no difference that the suspect was carrying a BB gun, which looked to be much more dangerous. Four officers, in a semi-circle in the street, pointed real guns at the suspectThankfully, the suspect gingerly bent down and laid the rifle -- it wasn't even a loaded BB gun -- on the ground.He said he had purchased the weapon, although he could just as easily have found it in someone's yard, or stolen it.The suspect didn't seem to be too coherent as to how he came in possession, or why it was under his shirt, where he was going or where he came from.We had been on patrol less than a half hour and Zollers was helping another officer with the stop of a person suspected to being on drugs when an intercom call alerted the force about a man carrying a rifle near the intersection of Elmhurst and Triad.Within moments, we were out of the cruiser, the aforementioned four hand guns were pointed at the suspect, and he indeed was carrying a rifle -- oddly under his t-shirt -- that was sticking out, barrel showing.It turned out he wasn't so dangerous -- although he did have a warrant out for his arrest -- but from a short distance, his rifle that looked real enough to do major damage. There was no question what was going to happen if he didn't put it down.All of the officers held their ground without acting prematurely."It's trigger discipline," Zollers said. "You have to know when to shoot. When you get in that situation, you have to think, 'I'm going home tonight to my wife and kids.'"He had rarely drawn his gun, and hardly ever shot it.Zollers, Brian Statzer, Brian Shiverdecker and Kyle Baranyi are all part of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office COPS (Community Oriented Policing) Unit, which patrols high-crime areas throughout the county."This unit deals with the worst of the worst," said Statzer at a pre-ride-along briefing. "This unit gets into everything. Anything mini storagehat happens (in our area) we look into."It is also a pro-active unit. The sheriff's unit tries to find a potential drug or gang problem before it becomes a big problem."Our main focus is violence, drugs, guns," Zollers said. "Most times, you're not getting drugs or narcotics out of a house. It's coming out of a car."Those cars increasingly are not personal cars, but rentals, made to look like personal vehicles, but more difficult to trace.Often rental cars have their rental bar codes removed from the windows, which are then tinted (sometimes beyond allowable code). License plates are set in personal frames and caps and other items are tossed on the back window ledge to make it look like a personal car.If a stop is made on a vehicle like that, the driver often isn't the name on the rental agreement, and it's difficult to trace whose is.Vehicles with drugs usually are also loaded with air fresheners trying to kill the smell, and the driver often has multiple cell phones -- one for personal use, one for a special girlfriend, one for a drug dealer and so on.Several vehicles -- most of them rentals -- were stopped on this ride-along, almost all of them smelling like marijuana even though not much unused was found.Stops can not be made on suspected drug use. There has to be some other reason, usually a traffic violation, which are easy to spot. Lack of using turn signals, erratically weaving in and out of lanes, failure to stop at red lights or stop signs or lack of headlight and taillights are common.In one such car, a hand gun that looked strikingly real was found in a book bag. It was a BB gun. During another stop, the smell of raw marijuana was so strong, the vehicle was searched from top to bottom and the driver made a mistake of trying to swallow a marijuana cigarette he had been smoking.An officer yelled, "On a minor marijuana charge, you're engaging?" A few officers drew their pistols.Statzer was livid, and it was an indication to him there really was something in the vehicle, although it couldn't be found."He took a minor misdemeanor charge to a felony three," Statzer said. "We would have cited him and let him go. Now, he's in jail."On one stop, the center console of the driver held four cell phones.While no drugs were found in the car, the driver was flush with cash. He was from California, visiting friends. In his luggage were linens from a cheap hotel near Miller Lane."You took the linens from the hotel?" an officer asked."Well, I was hooking up with the desk clerk," the suspect said. "She told me to take them."I felt a lot safer confronting a guy stealing hotel blankets than the guy with the rifle. The difference was, I didn't get out of the cruiser this time. I wasn't taking any more chances.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) Visit the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) at .daytondailynews.com Distributed by MCT Information Servicesself storage