E In The Night Citizen Volunteers Patrol Their Neighborhoods Deep Into The Night To Observe And Report Suspicious Activity

Bob Humphrey drives the GMC van around a commercial area near Holy Family Hospital. His wife Nancy and three other volunteers peer at doors, watch indoor lights and note license numbers.

With snow falling all around, the neighborhood observation patrol, or NOP unit, skates along at 20 mph.

They pass an auto repair center on Hamilton noting four cars and a van in the parking lot. “If one car is missing later in the shift we can call the owner at home and tell him,” Bob Humphrey said.

The volunteers drive through a commercial area behind Yoke’s on Foothills Drive and take note of any new graffiti. They look for unlocked loading doors, new footprints in the snow and seem to know most vehicle makes of night-time maintenance workers.

Heading into the neighborhood around Northpointe, a white Jeep Cherokee squirrels in a church parking lot, parks in an apartment building lot and pulls back out. The vehicle then speeds around residential areas, circling the neighborhood.

Nancy Humphrey notes the license number, description and calls Crime Check to report suspicious activity.

Just another night on the NOP.

Since Dale Witty and two others started patroling his West Central neighborhood in 1993, citizen observation patrols have been the fastest growing part of Spokane’s community policing program.

Using their own vehicles, personal scanners, cellular telephones and radios, dozens of residents have taken to observing activity around their homes and keeping a log of people, cars and incidents for police.

Much of the motivation for the program is reflected in people like West Central resident Brent Hoke, a 33-year-old Johnson-Mathey employee. “I couldn’t really gripe about the crime in my neighborhood unless I was willing to do something to get rid of it.”

“I got hit by the bug, the NOP bug,” said Bob Humphrey, 44, who along with his wife has logged more than 3,000 observation hours since March.

“We even did it the last week of our vacation,” said Nancy, 43.

Witty proposed the program to Police Chief Terry Mangan after sitting in the COPS West volunteer substation night after night listening to the scanner.

“We were sitting at COPS West hearing about things and we thought if somebody were only watching, maybe something could be done.”

NOP units have emerged not only in Nevada-Lidgerwood and West Central, but Indian Trail, North Hill, Hillyard, Emerson-Garfield and Logan.

This year alone the units have taken drunk drivers off the road, found stolen cars, watched teenage girls walk home, stayed by open doors until business owners arrived, took information on drug houses, found felony suspects and reported juvenile probation violators.

Witty, 43, remembers last winter when a man rolled a pickup into a parked car and then rammed into the Walgreen’s drive-in at Division and Buckeye. He left the truck and fled on foot.

A NOP unit with binoculars spotted him at Corbin Park and called police, who came in for the arrest.

“He denied it, of course, but he still had the keys to the truck,” recalled Witty.

The most publicized arrest involving volunteers was when a NOP car in northeast Spokane heard a scanner description of a car involved in an armed robbery believed to have been committed by the “Bad-Tooth Bandit,” a man with rotten teeth suspected of 31 holdups. Police arrested Aaron Wayne Coats, who is now serving a prison sentence.

For those who patrol, NOP’s advantage is clear: volunteers know the neighborhood as well as the crooks.

Witty remembers when police were looking for a young man who was suspected of breaking out the window on a pickup truck parked along West Broadway.

“I knew where these kids were going to go and we went there and saw them. The cop was all the way down the street, probably new to the neighborhood.”

But being on patrol doesn’t mean taking things into their own hands.

NOP volunteers go through an eight-hour training course at the police academy and strive to assist police most by staying out of their way. They watch, they listen and they write what they see, which then gets reviewed by the beat officer assigned to the neighborhood.

“We’re a non-confrontational group,” said Kelly Reinlasoder, 35, who heads the observation patrol in the Hillyard area. “We don’t get into people’s faces, we don’t say ‘What are you doing here?’ We stay out of their way and keep the police informed as far as what we’ve seen.”

NOP volunteers have a long list of things they are not permitted to do. One volunteer in Indian Trail has a permit as a private citizen to carry a concealed weapon, but cannot do so while on a neighborhood patrol.

NOP is not for everybody. Volunteers sometimes stay out until 2 a.m. and the work can be downright boring.

Patrol officers were originally leery of NOP cars. The growth of the program has brought new concerns.

“Some are elated with it and others hate it,” said Cheryl Steele, program liaison with the police department. “It got confusing over the summer. We have the potential of having 14 NOP cars on the North Side, more than uniformed cars.”

Under police policy, volunteer cars must be marked with a magnetic NOP logo that attaches to each door. The signage has been controversial as some volunteers say it sets them up for abuse. Units have been flipped off, and the target of egg and rock throwers.

Saturday night, Bob Humphrey was followed for several blocks by a man who then pulled up alongside. Humphrey drove to a designated safe area. He also called the car’s license into police.

Long-time volunteers, however, say the signs bring more information and better relations than abuse.

“We hemmed and hawed about the policy but later saw the wisdom of it,” said Witty. “The police, the neighborhood and the crooks all have to know who we are.”

Some liability issues as well as policies on how volunteer cars deal with police dispatchers are still being worked out.

The policy is very clear on who pays if volunteers pursue cars, engage offenders or partake in other activity they are told not to.

“If you break policy you’re on your own,” police officer Susan Mann told a meeting of volunteers last week.

Still, volunteers say the benefits of the program are worth their time and risk.

“I love every minute that I’m out there,” said Hoke. “If I can keep one person from being robbed, then my time is paid for. If I can pull off one intoxicated driver I may save one life and never know it.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo