Great Stories
Montana Campus Corps:
College Students Meeting Critical Community Needs
More Than a DUI by Elizabeth Fisher

While participating in the Campus Corps, I had the privilege of shadowing police officers with the Missoula Police Department. On one evening, the officer I was travelling with was requested to backup another officer on a traffic stop. From the front seat of the squad car, I watched one officer run sobriety field tests on the driver, while the other was talking to a person I could not see in the car.
Eventually, the driver failed the tests and was taken into the jail for booking. I stayed in the car, waiting to see what would happen next. After ten minutes, another car pulled up and a young boy exited the car that had been pulled over. He gave the officer a high five, and went to hug the woman picking him up. They chatted for awhile, then the officer returned to fill me in on what had happened.
In our community, many grumble that police officers try to fill quotas and ticket people for no reason, since they have nothing better to do. My experience that night showed me that there is far more to policing than the public gives credit for, and officers should receive special notice for the many skills they employ on the job.


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