David Dyson works long hours. A Duke University Police Officer for five years, Dyson works 12-hour shifts on a rotating schedule that ensures days, nights and weekends are all covered.
Saturday, Dyson had the night shift: 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. It's a fair rotation, but hard on the sleep schedule and the girlfriends, he said.
"In a Squad, we're a good group of guys," Dyson said. "If I worked for some of the other squads, I would have walked to Raleigh or Durham [Police Departments]... or a larger organization that would give me some more opportunities. But I work with a good group of guys, we all back each other up, we all pull our weight, we're all there for each other-that's what makes the 12 hours go by."
Dyson sits in his police car, patrolling from the hospital to just past Shooters II. He listens to radio feeds from the Duke University Police Department and the DPD, with his iPod on shuffle in the background.
It's a slow night, and the first call he gets is a student who was thrown from his moped around 10 p.m. and is being treated by Emergency Medical Services.
Saturday on campus, Dyson also responded to a fire alarm in Craven House C and a report of naked students running around in Edens Quadrangle. And he had to break up a section party.
"Most of us drank before we were 21, so as long as you're not causing any problems, we're not going to ruin your night," Dyson said. "People get into trouble because they're doing stupid things while they're intoxicated."
One thing that would force Dyson to end a party is a a noise complaint, like the one he responded to at 12:40 a.m. at Kappa Alpha Order fraternity's section in Craven House A. He and several other officers had to empty the halls and the rooms of noisy students. As officers cleared the section, several students complained that their off-campus party had been shut down due to a noise complaint earlier that night and they now had nowhere to go. Others yelled obscenities at the officers from outside.
After the party cleared, the officers joked about the incident, like they frequently did about previous calls they had been involved in. Dyson said all of the officers use humor to get them through their shifts or through difficult incidents. Officers have to learn not to take insults and obscenities personally. He said they "have to leave it at work."
"If I'm telling you to leave and you're swearing at me up and down and telling me things about my mother that I didn't know, but you're leaving, then alright," Dyson said. "You have to have pretty thick skin."
But as a DUPD officer, Dyson does more than deal with students slinging obscenities.
Although he is paid by the University, Dyson has police jurisdiction throughout the City of Durham. But Dyson said that for practical purposes, patrol officers generally stop at Duke Street.
"That doesn't mean you can stand on the other side of Duke Street and laugh at me, because I'm going to walk right over," he added.
Forty minutes after ending the KA party, Dyson stopped his cruiser on Main Street across from East Campus to perform a background check on a 46-year-old black male who had been loitering on a bench.
The check revealed that the man was homeless and usually seen in Wake County. It also showed he had been convicted of robbery with a dangerous weapon and second-degree rape.
Dyson and several other officers spoke with the man and requested that he move on. Dyson said, however, that because the man was not on University property and had not committed a crime, there was little DUPD or DPD could do other than keep an eye out for him around Durham.
"I do make the world a better place every day," he said. "I may not have ended their problems, but I kept the peace for tonight. And hopefully some people [I interact with] will consider that maybe they have a drinking problem."
Although he could not take action against the man loitering near East or solve a later dispute between a man and woman on Main Street, Dyson would soon run into a challenge.
"I'm a little bit of an adrenaline junkie," he said. "I wanted [a job] with a little adrenaline, but not a lot of adrenaline."
At 3:50 a.m. Sunday behind the BP gas station at the corner of Ninth and Main Streets, Dyson encountered a homeless man who had a warrant for petty larceny.
The 40-year-old black man, Elton Keith Henderson, was wearing jeans, a black undershirt, a black baseball hat and Nike Jordan shoes. He was eating a burrito, and was intoxicated but cooperative when Dyson searched him for weapons and drugs.
Dyson put Henderson in handcuffs while he verified the warrant, and Henderson soon became belligerent. He made homicidal statements as he was loaded into the back of the patrol car.
"I'm going to hell, I'm taking as many with me as I can," Henderson said as he was driven to the Durham County Jail, a little more than a mile away. "I am God, I am going to kill. They can't stop me, never stop me, y'all going to die the day I die."
Because Henderson had a criminal record, Dyson said he knew not to take his threats seriously-Henderson was trying to be admitted to the psychiatric ward instead of going to jail, Dyson said.
Dyson led Henderson into the waiting room to see the magistrate and fill out the necessary paperwork for his arrest. At 4:44 a.m., Henderson was incarcerated and given a $500 bond by the magistrate.
Although this was not Dyson's first arrest or even his most difficult offender, DUPD Officer G. Smith said every officer has to be alert when making an arrest because people's behavior can change in an instant.
"I don't think there's any such thing as having it be automatic," Smith said. "Dyson gets butterflies in his stomach [when making an arrest]. I would, anyone would. You always do, no matter who it is, even if it's a 90-year-old female."
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