Day 1 was a great introduction to my park. I met more
rangers than names I could remember and toured more buildings than I could
locate again if you asked me. I was originally worried that night shift would
be a bust. That in the worst-case scenario, the 5pm to 3am hours would be
exhausting, that everyone would be miserable about missing out on normal
daylight hours or going home to their families in the afternoon, that the
entire park would be dead and everyone would have to be disgustingly
caffeinated just to function. Other than
the extremely high caffeine consumption, I was completely wrong. Extra pay and
a way to stay out of the hot summer day shift is a pretty good deal.
Visitor’s Center
On the first night, I met what felt like a large part of the
NPS staff. I got a solid tour of the park from my supervisor Ranger Cooper as
we patrolled on foot and by car throughout Old City. It was interesting to
watch the usually busy park slowly empty out and grow dark. Towards the very
end of our shift, a fight broke out outside a local club. Two rangers had been
walking down a street right outside our jurisdiction when two men came
barreling out into the street, landing right in front of them. Since it wasn’t
technically our jurisdiction, the rangers controlled the situation and waited
for Philadelphia Police (PPD) to arrive. For about a half hour I got to witness
rangers work alongside PPD, something that happens often, to calm the situation
and send both parties on their way.
The next day, we spent two minutes in the office before
responding to a “Bomb Threat” on the Liberty Bell. It was nothing serious, just
someone with a terrible sense of humor, but law enforcement reacted as if it
was a true threat regardless to ensure everyone’s safety. I met Ken the Bomb
Dog and witnessed him sweep the Liberty Bell Center. Afterward, I sat among all
the rangers as they went through their after-action report. where they covered
what happened, what went well, and what could go better next time. Later I spent a good chunk of time with
Dispatch, which is way more involved than I ever imagined it would be. I was
shown how dispatchers record all of
the radio communications, monitor park cameras, record submitted ranger
information, track ranger shifts, record what building and areas are checked
most often, and how they run ranger contacts in search of warrants, past
criminal histories, and any other information they may need.
I had a lot of great Q&A sessions with Ranger Cooper over
topics like the 4th amendment, searching subjects under probable
cause, reasonable suspicion, and understanding when to respect people’s rights to
not be searched.
On my last day on night shift, I witnessed my most extensive
event of the week while patrolling the park on foot with Ranger Clarke. He
discovered a subject about to inject heroin next to a park building. This was a
process of controlling the situation, removing the threats of needles or
possible hidden objects, both calming the subject and getting him to comply,
calling other rangers on scene to conduct a willing search of the subject, and
then writing a number of citations and a mandatory court appearance. The
subject had a pretty substantial amount of drugs, which I got to observe Ranger
Clarke officially test for identification and then submit into evidence.
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