How many of us think we are good at multi-tasking?
Balancing our schedules, driving and talking on our phones, monitoring the kids while cooking or shopping...
None of it compares to what police officers do on a daily basis.
Last Friday this reporter had the opportunity to participate in a ride-a-long with Becker Police Sergeant Jason Lawson for a couple of hours.
Immediately when I jumped in the squad car I was met with constant voices on the car scanner as well as Lawson’s collar radio and the squad’s computer. I listened as closely as I could to the codes and numbers spewed out and was astounded anyone could pay attention to the “noise” that was continually bouncing around in my ears from all those sources.
And that was just the start.
Lawson used his ears to listen while using his eyes to watch the road as he drove. He also kept looking at passing and parked cars and watched the people walking the sidewalks throughout the city. All the while he kept an ear to the scanner and radio to be ready for any incident or accident that may come during his shift from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Lawson likes the “noise”.
Becker police had four officers on duty during that particular Friday night — two regular patrols and two on duty to enforce seatbelt usage.
Lawson’s computer uses GPS to identify where all the other officers are in the city along with any county sheriff’s patrols so they aren’t all in one area too much of the time. Lawson is a former North St. Paul cop who for a period of time worked for the Becker PD in the 1990s. Much of his work in the cities revolved around handling open cases and taking 15-20 calls a night.
Friday, Lawson said he’s lucky if he gets five to 10 calls a shift in Becker.
He likes it that way.
The “noise” is less in Becker as compared to St. Paul, but Lawson is okay with that.
“I missed being a patrol officer,” said Lawson. “That’s why I came back here to Becker. I like working the field, arresting and assisting other officers in keeping this community safe.”
Lawson continues to hear and see everything going on around him as we navigate the streets of Becker. He says he especially keeps an eye out for specific makes of cars and when he spots one, he quickly enters the license number in his computer to check its record.
“Hondas and Toyotas are the most stolen vehicles so I put their tabs in the computer to check and make sure its not something that has been reported stolen,” he said.
As Lawson is scanning the roads for cars, he is also pressing a button near his computer that activates the radar for oncoming vehicles. Within moments of passing, Lawson cranks the wheel of his car and dows a u-turn, accelerating quickly to catch up to a car he caught speeding just before Pebble Creek Golf Course on Sherburne Ave.
Lawson approaches the vehicle driven by a woman and asks why she thought he pulled her over. She shrugs and Lawson tells her he nabbed her going 41mph in a 30mph zone. He takes her driver’s license and insurance card and runs a report on her while she sits idly in her Pontiac.
After seeing her record is clean and insurance checks out, Lawson records the incident in a log book, then returns to the car and gives the woman a verbal warning before allowing her to leave.
“My main job here is not to give out tickets and come down on people, but to try and keep our community safe,” said Lawson. “There are people who follow the laws and those who break them. To keep the community safe I need to put the lawbreakers in jail or get them to stop breaking the laws.”
Moments later, Lawson is cruising along Edgewood Ave. when his radar picks up another speeder, so he u-turns to pull him over.
Another warning is given to the man who said he was running late to pick up his kid. He caught a break because Lawson’s computer bogged down when he entered the information from his license and insurance, so the sergeant told the driver to slow down and be on his way.
I asked Lawson if he had heard the rumors swirling around the city about certain individuals wanting to get rid of the Becker Police Dept. to save the taxpayers money.
He said he had heard and was disappointed someone would even consider such a thing.
In 2012 the City of Foley tried to restart their police department after the city once contracted with the Benton County Sheriff’s Dept. since 2003.
“I think Foley thought that by not having a police department of their own they could save money, but in fact it costs probably more,” said Lawson. “To start up or try and re-establish a police department could cost a city up to millions of dollars to get it done.”
Lawson referred to the fact a start-up PD would have to buy new squad cars, uniforms, weapons, safety equipment, computers, software and plenty of other things that make up a quality police department.
Lawson pointed out that only three cities in Wright County have their own police departments and Monticello — which has a population of over 12,000 people — gets patrolled by just two patrols at any given time.
Lawson, who is the BPD reserve officer in charge and has been back with Becker since 2012, has four reservists under his tutelage and is looking to hire about eight more reservists for the program. Lawson is proud of the reserve program which brings so much needed value to a community like Becker.
The reservists have contributed anywhere from 700 to over 1,000 extra hours and saved the department nearly $40,000 in wages. The reservists help out in a variety of situations including surveillance, assisting with traffic direction, volunteering at local events and being an extra set of hands, feet and eyes in the community.
At 5:49 p.m., Lawson got a call on a “noise” complaint in Becker Twp. As we arrived, the homeowner approached and acknowledged Lawson and the purported complaint call. An anonymous neighbor had called the police to protest to their child driving his mini-motorcycle through three backyards in their development.
The parents of the child said they have permission from the homeowners to have their child drive on their property. Lawson said since the call was anonymous, he had to tell them to try and find an alternate spot to have the motorcycle driven.
Within minutes of leaving that location, Lawson pulled over another car, this one driven by a woman in her 50s who had three small children in the back seat of her Chevy Malibu. She was traveling over 70 mph in a 55 mph zone.
The bigger problem was, none of the kids (all likely to be under five years of age), were restrained in car seats or boosters. Plus, Lawson noticed the driver (who was the grandmother) didn’t have a correct driver’s license with current address and her insurance card was invalid.
Lawson asked where the woman was coming from and where she was headed. She said from one of her daughter’s homes (a couple blocks away) to another daughter’s home in St. Cloud. Lawson lectured the woman on her driver’s license situation, the invalid insurance card and the improper restraints for the youngsters.
Lawson proceeded to call fellow officer Tim Martin to the location to have Martin go to the woman’s daughter’s home and retrieve the car seats.
As I called it a day a little while later, I was reminded of the “noise” Sgt. Lawson had had to deal with for those few hours and how much “noisier” it probably was going to get later that night and early morning.
The thing is, Sgt. Lawson likes it that way.
The “noise” is what he lives for.
