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12 - Orono Weekly Times Wednesday, November 2, 2011 Durham Regional Police Keeping a watchful eye on the community... sometimes by Christopher W. Brown Bowmanville Durham Regional Police Constable Scott Gordon is one of those officers whose duty it is to protect the streets of Division 63 (which encompasses Newcastle, Bowmanville, Orono and the surrounding smaller communities). Gordon is back on the streets after a stint of teaching Police Foundations at Durham College. On October 18th, I asked the Durham Regional Police for a ride-along to discover what they do on an average night in the smaller communities such as Newcastle, and Orono. I was with PC Gordon from 9 p.m. on Tuesday, October 18th to 4 a.m. on Wednesday, October 19th. Sometimes you think the Durham Regional Police (DRP) force can be described as an essential service, and other times you just might think it's a waste of time. But at the end of the day, the Durham Regional Police are both hard working and dedicated to protecting the community they serve. One of the duties of PC Gordon and other officers isto work on community engagement, and on the night of October 18th, he walked the streets of Orono, patrolling the area and performing what police call the "Lock it or Loose it" program. "We walk the streets and we check to see if doors are locked on cars," PC Gordon explained. "If I were to check 10 cars, I'm more than likely to find half of those cars with unlocked doors." That night, he checked 12 cars, and six were unlocked. "We put a flyer on their cars to notify the owners that they have left their car unlocked and it would be wise for them to keep it locked," PC Gordon stated. He did say the problem with the Lock or Loose it Program is that a person could follow the police and see a flyer left in a window and break into the vehicle. PC Gordon says that people from the communites he serves often ask him, "Why are you here?" and his response is, "If we aren't here, you would be asking us `Why aren't you here?'" It can be a lose-lose situation sometimes for police, he says. While touring Newcastle, PC Gordon was flagged over by a pedestrian who informed him that kids in a car were throwing eggs at people on the streets. "We are more than likely informed by pedestrians about the problems in the community,"he said. After locating the car, PC Gordon said it's usually up to his discretion to give the person a ticket or not. "We usually try to put the fear of God into them so they won't do it again," he said. It turned out the person driving the car had no license and the car that he was driving was not his own but belonged a member of his family. PC Gordon could have given a ticket to the young offender, but as his father was also with the Durham Regional Police, PC Gordon called him instead to deal with the incident. After waiting for a half hour, the young offender was released to his father. Discretion is the key thing to being a police officer, said PC Gordon. "You have to always use your own judgement when dealing with the community. Yes, we can hand out tickets to everyone we pull over, but more than likely if we pull you over you're going to have a 50/50 chance of getting a ticket." "After dealing with us, some people are going to go on with their lives, remembering that they were pulled over for breaking the law and were let off the hook, so they won't do it again. But if they are pulled over again for doing the same thing, the police will not let them off the second time." PC Gordon said. He says "The biggest misconception of the Police Service is that there is a quota system that police work off of." PC Gordon scoffed at the notion. "It may seem like we are giving out more tickets at the end of the month, but in actuality we are not. We are just doing our jobs and we are patrolling the streets the same way as if it was the beginning of the month." While he agrees that some people in the community have problems with the police, he says, "More often than not, the police have had good dealings with the local residents." PC Gordon came from Pickering, and he says, the people in a smaller community like Clarington "are hardworking people who try to keep to themselves." PC Gordon says like other communities, Clarington has its issues, with the number one issue being domestic disputes. "While people think illegal drugs are the main issue," he says, "we get called to more domestic disputes than drug related calls." He went on to say that the police know who some of the major drug dealers are around Newcastle, and Orono, but admits sometimes they can't do anything. "When you come rolling along in a large white vehicle with "Police" on the side, most people stop doing anything illegal, which makes it hard for us to do anything then." One incident that night brought the Durham Regional Police down to Wilmot Creek Retirement Community. It turned out that someone had barricaded themselves in their room with knives, telling the other occupants in the house they were going to kill them. When PC Gordon arrived at the gates of the Wilmot Creek community, he said he hoped that the vehicle he was in had a transponder, which would open the gates without a passcode. It turned out it didn't and after a short conversation with me, the gates opened. "Without you we wouldn't have been able to get here" PC Gordon said. After attending the scene, the woman who had barricaded herself into the room of her parents' house was brought into PC Gordon's custody and brought to Oshawa General Hospital. "We deliver patients like this to Oshawa, because Bowmanville's General Hospital doesn't have the specialists on call 24 hours." While at the Oshawa General Hospital, PC Gordon said, "We can be here for an hour or for four, depending on how busy the emergency room is or how busy the oncall doctor is." It took 45 minutes after walking through the door of the triage, to get the patient signed in for a 72-hour review of her mental stability. He openly admits that at the end of the day, people may not see what we do, "because we can get tied up on one call for hours." On this particular night, PC Gordon was called to three calls which in total took over three-quarters of his shift. PC Gordon says he enjoys what he does, "The hours are great, the people I work with are great, and the people in the community are cooperative."