R-Car

It's dark out now, and I'm grateful to be back in a car because it's getting cold out.

This time it's an R-Car (report car) with Officer Jacques E. "Rosie" Derosiers.

"In the R-Car we respond to non-prioritized calls like stolen bikes. We do reports, and we also respond to heavy calls as backup," explains Officer Derosiers, who is originally from Haiti.

"When I came to this country, the police were so kind. To me in Haiti, the police were the criminals. And now I patrol and that's what I want to do," says Officer Derosiers. "I wish I could do it in Haiti to show them how it's done."

As a follow-up on my dinner, he suggests ice-cream from Christina's, and he is appalled that I have never been. He gets carrot cake, and I opt for mint chip.

Now the looks I get are even stranger--here I am in an ice cream shop, laughing with a police officer over which flavor to choose. I don't think I have ever been so at ease around a man carrying an automatic weapon.

Back in the car, we cruise until a call comes over the radio for a 911 call on Norfolk Street. Lights flashing and siren yelping, cars ahead of us pull over to let us speed by as I eat my mint chip ice cream. I could get used to this.

No one at the house on Norfolk Street seems to have called 911. The call supposedly came from a nine-year old, but the kids upstairs all deny calling. We stand in the stairwell with Officers DeFrancesco and Branley from Car 1, who also responded to the call.

"We would never call the police no matter what happened," declares a woman with a necklace that spells out 'love.'

After much questioning, Officer Derosiers discovers that a special needs child called 911 when he got upset by noise from a barbeque outside.

"Every time I get a call," says Officer Derosiers. "I want to service it to the best of my knowledge and to the best of my ability."

The next call is of a very different nature--four skinheads with short nightsticks are fighting on Waterhouse Street. Officer Derosiers is disappointed that the fight is over before we get there.

The next half an hour is quiet, and Officer Derosiers pulls into an MIT parking lot to give me a tour of the squad car. He shows me the wig-wag lights, which go back and forth, the take-downs, which are bright forward-facing lights, alley lights, which go to the side of the car, and the strobe lights.

He also shows me the three noise settings for the siren: The wail sounds more like an ambulance, the yelp is the usual police car noise, and the hi-lo sound just goes up and down and sounds like a car alarm.