Behind the Badge: Riding with Morganton's Finest

Professionally, it’s a different story, as you are about to see.

The disturbance is three blocks away. Waters drives her patrol car to the scene. You are along for the ride and admit to being disappointed that there’s no need to fire up the flashers or the siren.

Per protocol, backup arrives. It’s PSO Jonathan Chapman. They huddle for a moment. He patrols around the house; Waters walks to the driveway and talks to the woman who aggressively accuses her neighbor of vandalizing her car.

Waters has people skills extraordinaire. Before entering law enforcement, she was a barista in a local coffee shop. She knew all the customers by name. They knew her, too, and the friendly banter was constant.

That is where she met retired Morganton Public Safety Chief Mark Tolbert and was introduced to the idea and pathway of a career in law enforcement.

These people skills, along with what you call The Police Voice (a “managerial” technique Waters says she learned in Basic Law Enforcement Training, BLET), are about to come into play.

While Waters skillfully diffuses the victim’s anger, a big guy pops out on a second-floor balcony next door and begins shouting his uninvited version of things.

“Just a minute, sir,” Waters says politely. She turns back to the woman. But there’s an ugly shouting match brewing between parties.

Waters pivots her 122-pound body directly toward the big guy on the porch, whips out her Police Voice and says forcibly but politely, “I NEED YOU TO GO BACK INSIDE THAT HOUSE RIGHT NOW AND I WILL TALK TO YOU IN A MINUTE.”

The Big Guy is stunned. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times and backs into the house.

Within 10 minutes all is good. No reports are filed. Waters and the woman are pals. Waters climbs back into the cruiser and off you go. She’s multitasking — radio communications, situational awareness, typing license plates into the computer.

THE NIGHT GETS ROLLING

This Friday night is the first night of the annual Morganton Festival. The city is about to come alive, and the city’s police force is gearing up to ensure safety for residents and visitors.

Waters is a member of Morganton Public Safety’s C-Platoon, the all-night shift. Tonight, you are accompanying Waters during her shift.

Half an hour before Waters diffused the domestic episode, C-Platoon gathers in the headquarters conference room. Sgt. Joey Belanger sits in the front of the room, briefing papers spread on a table before him. It’s the Shift Meeting. He’s leading the team through safety and enforcement strategies before everyone heads out on patrol.

In the room, taking notes, are PSO (Public Safety Officer police/fire) officers Tou Vue, Waters, Teighton Martin, Emmanuel Jerez-Diaz, Tyler Holland, Jonathan Chapman, and Zack Carlton. C-Platoon’s Lieutenant Joseph Beaver is out attending classes.

The festival is a key topic this evening. Belanger tells his team that another platoon is on foot in the heart of downtown Morganton. C-Platoon will be in patrol cars serving and protecting the nearly 18,000 residents throughout the city’s 87.8 miles of streets within the 18.5-square-mile city limits.

Belanger adjourns the meeting. It is 6 p.m.

Before the night is out you realize that what appears to residential passersby as random patrols are actually coordinated and choreographed moves designed to maximize safety and minimize dangers.

A continuous stream of communication between officers and Belanger ensures officers maintain law enforcement vigilance and needs. There will always be a backup, regardless of the severity of the event — from the most casual of a traffic stop (e.g. license plate check) to the dangerous (e.g. gunfire in the neighborhood).

Don’t let size and youth fool you. She has spunk and capability. When she graduated in August 2023 from Western Piedmont Community College’s Basic Law Enforcement Training (BLET) class she won first place in physical training and driver training.

She tells you about the time a drunk lady hit her in the head with a vodka bottle. Waters and Officers Holland and Martin were responding to a domestic trespassing. “We already decided we were gonna arrest her for trespassing, and then she runs inside, grabs the vodka bottle,” Waters says.

“And I said, ‘Do not throw that at me.’ I grabbed her wrist to throw it behind her so we could arrest her, and she just took that bottle and cracked it over my head. I had a goose egg on the back of my head.”

The Platoon meeting adjourned. Waters, in full uniform with all the jangling implements of law enforcement, leads you outside to her assigned police cruiser. It’s a 2017 Ford Explorer, car No. 7704. Waters conducts a walk around inspection. Its cockpit is crowded with a touch-screen computer, multiple cameras, and radios.

Waters climbs behind the wheel; you get in the front passenger seat. She politely tells you some rules, such as, Stay in the Car. (Of course you protest. You want to be in the heart of the action. “It’s for your own safety,” she says.)

After witnessing Waters manage the dispute between neighbors, you pay compliment to her impressive management of that encounter, especially with The Big Guy.

“I know I’m a smaller officer,” she says. “I’m not like some huge person. So, I know that sometimes I have to use my tone or my words in order to get someone to know I’m in control of this scene. You know that whenever you lose control of the scene, that’s when stuff just goes downhill.”

“He didn’t need to be outside, because they could have yelled back and forth. And you don’t know what it could have turned into. I was trying to have a conversation with her, so that’s why I just told him, like, hey, you need to go inside. I’ll talk to you in a minute.”

For a Friday night, especially a festival night, it seems pretty quiet. Waters chuckles and says, “Don’t say that. Whenever Sarge says it’s ‘quiet’ all hell breaks loose.”

IT’S OFF TO JAIL

Right on cue, at 8:10 p.m., there’s drunk and disorderly at the festival. It’s an angry woman whose car keys were taken away by friends. The woman isn’t happy.

Three or four officers, including Waters, arrive at the corner of Green and Concord streets to assist. It is clear to even the most naive observer that the woman is tanked.

She has not broken any laws, per se, but she’s in no shape to be out and about, let alone behind the wheel. The best thing, C-Platoon decides, is to just take her home. She can get her car tomorrow.

You know the story. The woman insists she hasn’t had anything to drink (though she can hardly stand upright). OK, she says, maybe a few Chocolate Vodka shots.

Waters leans the woman over the hood of No. 7704, searches her, cuffs her hands in front, and places her in the back seat. Waters assures the woman she’s done nothing wrong, isn’t being arrested, just going home.

From the backseat the woman, just before passing out, throws F Bombs left and right, repeatedly kicks the seat in front of her and slurs, “I don’t like you AT ALL.”

Waters says, “Well, I hate that, but I’m taking you home.”

“Honestly, people, when you’re taking them to jail,” she says, “they’re gonna call you every name in the book.”

As we get underway, Sgt. Belanger radios that police are very familiar with the woman’s home. There’s a history of unpleasant domestic calls, perhaps some with weapons. The safest thing for everyone, Belanger recommends, is to take her to the county jail for a Hold ’Til Sober.

Waters tells you, “And I just told her she’s not going to jail, she’s not in trouble. She’s going to be very mad.”

But it’s hard to be mad when you’re passed out in the backseat of a police cruiser, which she is. You later learn the woman registered nearly 3.3 on the breathalyzer. The woman spent the night safe and sound in jail, but not before being evaluated by UNC Health Blue Ridge’s emergency room doctors.

Waters said she’ll probably never know how things turned out for the person.

“Sometimes the worst part is not knowing what happens after you’re done with the call,” she said. “I’m a people person and I care about people, and sometimes you go to a call, you help them the best you can, and sometimes EMS takes them, and you don’t know what happens after that. What happened to that guy who wasn’t breathing? I feel that’s probably one of the worst parts is the people who you are trying to help, and they don’t want your help. You just kind of have to live with that.”

“The best part is that it’s different every day,” Waters says, observing departing traffic from the festival. “It’s different every shift. It’s not like it’s 9-to-5, like the same old, same old. This is something different.”

“I love the people, too,” she says at the conclusion of our visit. “I love Morganton. I like helping people. So even though that lady (from the festival) was upset at us, I know that she didn’t go to her house, which might not be a good place. She’s safe tonight. You know she might not like it, but you know she is safe.”