Community Spotlight
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Small force keeps Neptune community safe
Vic Micolucci
Neptune Beach sits due east of the Intracoastal Waterway. It’s only a dozen miles from the heart of bustling Jacksonville. The quaint beach town runs one mile along the Atlantic Ocean and delves just one and a half miles west. It’s a quiet town. The officers at the Neptune Beach Police Department want to keep it that way.
It’s not riddled with crime, but nonetheless it has its problems ... especially on warm, summer nights.
Friday night, Patrolman Mike Key worked with two other officers to protect the town’s population that barely tops 7,000. It seemed like a typical warm, summer night. But this night, the N.B.P.D. had an extra set of eyes for the force. Me.
Sgt. Ryan Hall, officer in charge for the nightshift, told me he would give me an assignment that would offer a lot of bang for my buck. He put me with a “proactive, young officer;” Mike Key. Key, a three-year veteran police officer, works the graveyard shift - 8:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. Key does not complain about his usually undesirable schedule, though.
“It doesn’t bother me. I’m very passionate about stopping drunk drivers and I hate daytime traffic. It’s perfect.” Though I have a more diurnal schedule, I followed Key for the early part of his shift to get a glimpse of a night policing the Neptune Beach community.
9:45 PM: Beach patrol and property check. Officer Key and I took to the department’s four-wheel drive Mule. The fully-loaded golf-cart spawn goes places Key’s four-door Impala cannot. Most importantly, it chugs along on the sand to help patrol Neptune’s one mile of coastline. Key explained to me that we were looking for “hanky.” I was dumbfounded. Here I was in the moonlight on the beach with a police officer looking for “hanky?” Maybe the term doesn’t describe what the officer’s eyes were peeled for exactly. “We’re looking for anything out of the ordinary. We often refer to it as ‘hanky.’ We’re just looking for things that don’t look right. We get a lot of drunks and burglaries out here.” So we were off, Mag-Lite and Mule. The department is just as focused on keeping its beach safe as it is about its roads. They perform frequent sweeps nightly in either the Mule or an all-wheel drive Tahoe. We didn’t find anything suspicious on our check. It was a quiet night, nothing out of the ordinary. A good night.
10:10 PM: Foot patrol. After clearing the beach, Officer Key and I patrolled the bar district, the downtown part of Neptune that sits adjacent to the ocean. Key explained that by walking you can see things and hear things you normally wouldn’t in a patrol car. He has a routine. Walk by the gas station on the corner of 2nd and Atlantic. Then stroll eastward through the restaurants and bars to make sure no one has had too much or gotten too rowdy. Cut right and see Pili Pili set up with his reggae band. Finally, walk through Slider’s. Repeat. It’s not a big area, only about three blocks by two blocks, so it didn’t take us much time to observe.
We walked to Neptune Beach’s worst intersection, the corner of A1A and Atlantic Blvd. It’s where the two big roads meet the small district littered with pedestrians and bikers. Key said it’s also where he’s seen many fatal and near-fatal crashes. He showed me the coquina posts that inebriated drivers and their 2-ton weapons turn to dust clouds. “The city just can’t fix them quick enough.” One post was missing a light pole from a two-person, alcohol-related crash in which a young woman clung to life as a Trauma One helicopter landed in the Walgreen’s parking lot. Key was at the scene within minutes and said he couldn’t believe she made it. “Only the Lord saved her.” In the bushes, there were pieces of post from a wreck where a drunk driver thought the sidewalk was a road. Amazingly, he survived. He escaped death but couldn’t escape the Duval County Detention Center. Key’s had to work the crashes at the intersection for two years. Almost all the serious crashes at the spot were from drunk drivers, too. That’s why he and the others in his force keep a watchful eye near it, hoping to deter catastrophic impacts. Luckily, as with at the beach, it was a quiet night, nothing out of the ordinary. A good night.
10:40 PM: Street patrol. Though working the beach and bar district is necessary, and fun, Key spends the majority of his shift like other cops, in his patrol car. He has his usual spots, an old abandoned building that looks inviting for transients and delinquent kids, the Intracoastal bridge that drivers some think is a speedway, the quiet neighborhoods on the western side of 3rd Street. We even ventured a little into Jacksonville and Atlantic Beach. (Police officers have jurisdiction county-wide, so they can enforce outside of their city’s limits. It’s called a Mutual-Aid Agreement.)
Officer Mike Key watches traffic at the corner of 3rd St. and Atlantic Blvd. He says it is the most dangerous intersection in Neptune Beach.10:57 PM: Traffic stop. Probably the most common thing any officer does. Definitely the most common thing Key does. “It’s 90 percent driving around with your eyes open, 10 percent excitement,” said the officer earlier in the night. “And when you have that exciting time, it’s over in a few seconds.” He says teachers can’t explain this part of policing well enough to cadets at the Police Academy. That ... and the paperwork and subpoenas.
We had stopped a white Toyota Highlander just after we followed it off the bridge. The license was tinted by a cloudy, plastic cover so we could not read it. Key ran the tag and found there were no warrants or warnings attached. Backup came by way of Sgt. Hall less than 90 seconds later. The two spoke to the woman in the SUV and determined that the offense was harmless. “She was a soccer mom.” She didn’t seem deceiving or conniving. “[After you’ve been an officer for so long] you get this sense when somebody’s lying or telling the truth.”
No jail for Mom tonight. The woman was sent on her way with nothing but a verbal warning. Officer Key is not the guy that punishes without good reason. He averages 3-4 misdemeanor and about 2 felony arrests per week. “I make 0.75 arrests a night.” One offense you can guarantee you will not get away with under the patrolman is driving under the influence. Key has no tolerance whatsoever for DUI’s. “You can completely ruin your life and others’, too. It’s so foolish.”
11:02 PM: Street patrol. After returning to the road and heading back over the water, we went back to patrolling. Officer Key and I discussed his growing concern over “car-hopping” crimes committed by area high school-aged teens. He says the station gets a lot of calls from people who have come out to find their car doors opened and their stuff scattered. “They sometimes make off with a bag of quarters or something.” Key says he and the other officers are always watchful for groups of kids that rattle car handles in hopes of finding an open car. Then they ruffle through the contents looking for anything of value. “They’re hard to catch because they do it so quickly,” said Key. But he says he can usually spot them because they’re often in big groups and almost always go on their sprees on beach cruisers.
11:15 PM: Aggravated battery. While on patrol, we spotted a man laying on a bench in front of Jarboe Park off 3rd. He wasn’t moving and his arm dangled off the side. When we pulled over on A1A and shined the spotlight, he sat up and rubbed his head. He had blood on his hands and arms and his face was swollen. “They hit me with a brick. Three guys jumped me and tried to rob me. I don’t know what they hit me in the mouth with but it wasn’t their fists,” said the victim, Marcus, who was able to hold on to his wallet. “I don’t know why they try to rob you when you’re broke.” Marcus said the confrontation happened in the back roads across from Rita’s Italian Ice almost a mile away in Jacksonville Beach.
He was dazed and confused after the beating, which made him seem even more inebriated after a night of “a few beers.” Nonetheless, the man rode his white Huffy north to the Neptune Beach park where he passed out. “I wanted to go to a place in plain view.” Again, within a minute or two, Sgt. Hall arrived as backup. Judging from the wounds, the officers called fire rescue. The victim said he was assaulted by three, bicycle-wielding, black males that looked about 19 years old. Jax Beach P.D. was alerted and officers were told to “BOLO,” be on the look out.
Within five minutes, Jacksonville Fire Rescue paramedics came via ambulance and fire truck. Marcus, who was about 40, had head lacerations and was spitting blood. The victim didn’t have any serious injuries, however, and refused a ride to the hospital. At the same time, Jax Beach P.D. Cpl. Brown came to investigate. Between the two agencies, the victim Marcus gave enough information for patrolmen to look for the suspects.
The investigation was handed over to Jacksonville Beach police and Marcus was taken to be picked up by his boss. Officer Key said there was about a 50% chance the suspects would be apprehended later that night. “Criminals usually continue to do what they do so they eventually get caught.” If the suspects are caught and convicted, they will face aggravated battery charges.
After the brick incident, I decided it was time to call it a night. A seemingly slow night at the beach turned serious within a matter of seconds. “Unfortunately, we have all the same crimes as the big city,” said Sgt. Hall. “Just much less.” Neptune Beach officers may not have the same frequency of crimes, but they must be prepared and alert. “Any crime can happen anywhere.”
