A San Angelo Friday Night with the San Angelo Police

SAN ANGELO, TX — On Friday, Aug. 10, I rode with a San Angelo Police Department officer to see what she sees on a routine weekend night. Officer Jennifer Ogan was my partner for the day. Officer Ogan has been with the San Angelo Police Department for over two years. Our shift was the mid-shift, which is 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. All the patrol shifts are 12 hours long. There is a day shift, mid-day shift, and a night shift.

The afternoon began with a briefing at Police Headquarters, 401 E Beauregard Ave. Ogan said the briefing consisted of officers learning about what happened the shifts prior, if there are any suspicious areas or people to watch, and seeing what areas each patrol unit will be assigned.

We hopped into Ogan's fleet vehicle and were dispatched immediately to where I usually work, the offices of San Angelo LIVE!, for a report of an unwanted subject. Dispatch sends notifications from the caller and one said, “subject is longer in the area.” No one was injured or in danger so no lights or sirens were needed.

Going to the call, Ogan informed me that every situation is different. Therefore, she reads update notifications from dispatch because she needs an idea of what to expect. The San Angelo LIVE! call was easy enough because the subject was no longer in the area and so Ogan told the staff there to call again if the subject returns. 

The second call dispatched us to Unidad Park for a report of 6-8 men acting suspicious with their cellphones. Because of the sound of this call, we expected something completely different from what we found. It turned out to be just a crowd of people playing Pokémon Go.

“You can’t go in immediately hot when you don’t have a full understanding of what is going on,” said Ogan.  “The caller can see one thing and it be completely different.”

Ogan then cleared the call and put on record that there was no problem and the “Yellow team was currently winning.”

The calls at the beginning of the shift were coming in one after the other. The next call was a criminal mischief report and again the subject was no longer there.  Ogan gathered information from the person who called in and took photos of what was damaged.

By our sixth call, it was 6 p.m. and we were dispatched to the 3800 block of Tridens Trial for the report of suspicious activity. The caller believed a house in the area should be empty and someone might have broken in. Three units responded to the call because two officers need to be in the back and one at the front knocking on the door. Before setting up to approach the house, officers learned the location was a group home.

“When I have calls like this, at first things are serious because there could be someone inside the home that could be dangerous, like a person with a weapon,” said Ogan “But you have to be quick to let that feeling go once the situation is clear and no threat is around.”

Once that call was cleared, we were on our way to to the old H-E-B at Avenue N and Sherwood Way for the report of an unwanted subject who threatened to punch an employee. The subject had walked away but the he was stopped in Henry’s Diner parking lot down the street. Ogan warned the subject not trespass at H-E-B again or he would be arrested.

Ogan and I responded to call after call until it started to quiet down at around 9 p.m. The break offered us a short reprieve to grab some food and eat while Ogan wrote reports on the calls so far this evening. Ogan and I had gone to a neighbor dispute, an elderly woman’s home to help her with a pool overflow, a hit-and-run crash, and suspicious activity at a storage facility.

Officer Renaud and Officer Faz were the two officers I saw most that responded to calls with Officer Ogan.

“Everyone is our partner because every unit rides solo,” said Ogan. “You become close to those on the same shifts and same areas as you.”

The rest of the night was slow. Ogan was called to a noise complaint, and she walked up to the partiers with a smile. The revelers promised that they had already quieted down so nothing further needed to happen. Ogan checked on a motorist on the side of the road who had had a tire blowout. We checked areas that are regular spots for problems, too.

The final call of the night was to Whiskey River Saloon, 125 E. Concho Ave., downtown for the report of a fight. Dispatch had notifications from a 9-1-1 caller that the fight involved 20-30 people, but upon arrival it was only the victims that had stayed at the bar to speak to police. Ogan and several other units responded because a bar fight can be dangerous for only one officer. Dispatch quickly downgraded the event after initial police units arrived and found no big fight scene.

One man supposedly in the fight there was transported by ambulance to the hospital for a laceration on his hand. Officers investigated the location, asking witnesses what happened, talking to staff, and taking photos of the where the fighting took place. The officers quickly dispersed as 2 a.m. closing time rolled around. Ogan loaded all the information she collected into her mounted laptop connected to the central police reporting computer system and we headed back to HQ.

I had an amazing time riding alongside Officer Ogan. From responding to calls to singing along to 80’s hair bands, Jennifer Ogan is one of 12 officers that patrol on the mid-shift and she is a devoted, hardworking, police officer. She encapsulates the police concept of "service above self."