Occasionally, he'll stop the car for a change of pace.

When not driving, the blond-haired Crowley sits in his parked car, amid a bank of flashing and beeping machines, watching the vehicles and pedestrians streaming by. He says he's always sure to stay on guard for anything unusual.

The HUPD radio hums in the background, rattling off an endless barrage of codes, car numbers and static. The stream of white noise is interrupted only by the crooning of the Bryan Adams and the Blues Traveler tunes playing on the radio.

Sitting in the Spartan vehicle, pressed against the blue cloth seats and listening to a strange combination of static and soft rock seems incongruous with the wild West image most have of crime-fighting.

Day-to-day, working on the HUPD may not live up to the thrill of the "COPS" television show. But Harvard police officers say they don't mind.

Sgt. James McCarthy says he does not regret working for a department that does not see a lot of action.

"They can keep it in New York City," McCarthy says. "I'm happy where I am. I've seen enough action."

If the action picks up, it does so after midnight according to McCarthy, "when people have had a few drinks in them."

"Any call that gets your adrenaline going--a fight in progress, an emergency call--that's kind of fun," he says.

The kind of incidents cops deal with, the officers say, range from the exciting to the benign, to the absurd.

Crowley recalls being parked in front of Holyoke Center one night, when a woman came hurrying out of the arcade and hopped in the back seat. Thinking the cruiser was a taxi, she told Crowley where to drive her.

Crowley looked back at her in disbelief.

The woman repeated her directions and only then did she notice his uniform.

Embarrassed, the lady tried to quickly exit the car, but as is the case in most police cars, the back doors cannot be opened from the inside.

Crowley got up, and opened the door for her to leave.