HPD Officer Alan Dyer scans traffic during his night shift. Photo by Holly Marcus for hburgnews.com

9:15 p.m. – We arrive on a scene that is already awash with blue lights. Two HPD units arrived ahead of us and already have the suspect, who surrendered peacefully, in cuffs. Standing head down between two towering officers, his slight build and bashful demeanor don’t profile him as a girlfriend beater. Jones volunteers to haul the suspect to jail.

Blue lights signal a traffic stop. Photo by Holly Marcus for hburgnews.com

9:30 p.m. – The ground level of the Rockingham Regional Jail is the temporary holding facility, where inmates may sleep it off over night, wait until they can make bail, or get booked into the long term cells on the higher levels. The facility’s tile floors and painted cement block walls give you an educational feel, except that the windows are barred and the doors to the “classrooms” are steel with a large deadbolt. Four deputies lounge behind the counter. It’s Friday night and they’re expecting plenty of business.

It’s the arresting officer’s job to process their detainee, which includes finger-printing and photographing them and taking them before the magistrate to determine their bail. Our suspect seems strangely comfortable in his surroundings. As his background check confirms, he’s been here before. He smiles slightly into a camera that captures the gray background mug shot that would look familiar to anyone who has ever watched the evening news on TV3.

An hour after arriving, our charge is given an unsecured bond and told that he is free to go home. He sheepishly asks Jones for a ride. “It’s only my job to bring you here,” is the reply.

A car mounted camera records a traffic stop. Photo by Holly Marcus for hburgnews.com

11:15 p.m. – The neighbors call 911 and say there’s a fight going on. All they can hear is the screaming and the sound of dishes breaking. When we arrive in the trailer park a crowd is out, directing us to the residence in question. While another officer approaches the front door Jones and I approach the rear. A burst of shouting and cursing sends us sprinting around the front.

Two HPD officers search for a suspected gang member during a routine patrol. Photo by Holly Marcus for hburgnews.com

It’s our COPS moment of the evening. Extended family living in a small space. Mom is drunk by the time Girlfriend gets home from work. Exhausted Girlfriend spanks her misbehaving two-year-old. Mom tells her to stop. And the fighting starts. It appears the only casualty is Boyfriend, who stepped between the two women and promptly received a roundhouse from Girlfriend that is already blackening his eye. Now they’re all out on the front porch and Jones and Officer Chris Ray are refereeing a Jerry Springer-style war of words between Mother, Son and Girlfriend. A neighbor holds the crying two-year-old as a pit bull leers from one of the trailer windows. The officers send Son and Girlfriend to a friend’s house to spend the night and warn Mother that if they have to come back, people will be arrested. It’s three generations on a gerbil wheel of crime and poverty. “This is the stuff I hate seeing,” Jones says as we drive away.

Midnight Saturday – We’ve finally made it back to Area 3, the southeastern section of town composed mainly of student housing that Jones is assigned to patrol tonight. He will drive nearly 100 miles on a normal night within a few square miles of the city, less if the night is busy and he’s stopped often responding to calls. We’re just about to make our first pass through some town houses when the police radio gives two loud tones. It’s an emergency signal calling all nearby units. There’s a fight in progress and one of the suspects may be carrying a gun.

Sirens on. Blue lights flashing. The Ford Police Interceptor’s V-8 screams as we dash the few blocks to the scene on streets that are still busy with traffic. The narrow one way street is already clogged with cruisers, a fire truck and an ambulance. We race down the hill to the basement level apartment. One suspect is already face down and spread eagle in the gravel. Officers are shouting to the apartment’s occupants through a broken window that they had better open the door. An officer arrives with “the keys to the city,” a wood-handled sledge hammer, and the door is forced open. Jones and I check out the neighboring alleys by flashlight but there’s no sign of the armed suspect.

Incoming calls for service keep the police radio busy on a weekend night. Photo by Holly Marcus for hburgnews.com

An HPD officer requests for an apartment's occupants to open the door as they search for a suspect that was reported to be armed. Photo by Jeremiah Knupp for hburgnews.com

1:15 a.m. – “Did you see that?” Jones asks me as he hangs a U and heads in the opposite direction. In the parking lot in front of the bar a person hangs onto the mailbox to keep from falling into the roadway. The young man is disheveled, his pants unbuckled. One foot wears a flip-flop and the other is barefoot as the other flip-flop was abandoned ten yards back in the parking lot. No I.D., he can remember his name and age, but not his birthday. He keeps repeating “This is bad,” but despite his predicament he’s drunk enough to be calm, cooperative and happy.

Jones runs his name and determines that he is in fact, 24. Happy Drunk is a few moments from going to jail for being drunk in public when two of his sober friends walk across the parking lot to collect him. They promise to take him home and put him to bed. As we leave, they’re carrying Happy Drunk between them, his arms draped over their shoulders, back to their car.

1:30 a.m. – The neighbors are complaining about the noise from the party and claim the revelers are climbing the trees. By the time we arrive they’re out of the trees and dancing in the parking lot with the broken branches. The party organizers are apologetic and cooperative. They chat it up with Jones and Officer Tim Wright, but their nervous laughs belie the fact that they’re afraid of getting in trouble this close to graduation. Keep your friends inside and keep them quiet, Wright warns them. If we have to come back here you’ll get a summons. By the time we drive off the parking lot is deserted, except for discarded leaves and branches.

2:14 a.m. – For the second time tonight we get the ominous two long tones. There a fight at a gas station and someone has a knife. Lights and sirens. The nearly empty streets mean we’re there in moments. By the time we arrive three other HPD units are already on the scene and the knife-wielder is long gone. While the first responders talk to witnesses Jones runs the plates of some of the cars in the lot.

Early Saturday Morning – The police radio has chatter almost non-stop. Drunk in publics. Traffic stops. Loud parties. As the bars let out, parties rev up and intoxication levels hit their peak, HPD members are scrambling all over town. Most officers work alone, but when one gets a call the next closest unit shows up for back-up. Jones is going non-stop.

HPD Officer Alan Dyer administers a field sobriety test to a suspected drunk driver. Photo by Holly Marcus for hburgnews.com

Officer Scott Jones (foreground) backs-up Officer Tim Wright as he performs a field sobriety test on a suspected drunk driver. Photo by Jeremiah Knupp for hburgnews.com

A vehicle is towed after its occupants fail to produce driver's licenses. Photo by Holly Marcus for hburgnews.com

3:15 a.m. – The car that speeds by us in the opposite direction clocks 48 mph on Jones’ dash mounted radar unit. He’s out of sight and all we have is the sound of squealing tires to know that he pulled an evasive maneuver into a residential neighborhood. We guess at his direction and swing onto a side street, cruising slow and looking for occupied vehicles. A group of smokers on a front porch offer us a cold stare, but no information.

An HPD unit monitors traffic along Stone Spring Road. Photo by Holly Marcus for hburgnews.com

Officer Dyer completes a faulty equipment summons for a driver. Photo by Holly Marcus for hburgnews.com

Officer Wright and his K-9 unit show up. He was following the speeding suspect too and lost him just before he passed us. We spend nearly half-an-hour working our way through the maze of residential neighborhoods looking for the suspect until we decide he’s long gone.

4:30 a.m. – For the first time all night, absolutely nothing is happening. The last parties have fizzled out and a light rain has driven the crowds from the streets “I love this time of night shift,” Jones says. “Just riding around. You don’t see any people out. The city is so peaceful.”

5:15 a.m. – My ride is over, but for Officer Jones there are two more hours of work until his 12 hour “day” is completed. Much of that time will be spent writing reports on the night’s activities.  Despite what seems like a frantic night to me (my notes detail about a quarter of the calls we responded to) it’s been a slow night by Jones’ standard. Jones drops me off in the parking lot and he’s heading into his office at the Public Safety Building when his radio squawks. Another call. A fight has been reported in the city’s northeastern district. Jones heads back to his cruiser. I head home.

A cruiser-mounted spotlight is used to check for suspicious activity on a late night patrol. Photo by Holly Marcus for hburgnews.com

Photo by Holly Marcus for hburgnews.com

hburgnews.com photographer Holly Marcus and writer Jeremiah Knupp are currently taking the Harrisonburg Police Department’s Citizen Police Academy. The nine week course is designed to help local citizens better understand how HPD works and what individual officers face in their day-to-day jobs. The ride-alongs they took with Officer Alan Dyer and Officer Scott Jones were part of the curriculum. Ride-alongs with members of the HPD are available to any member of the community. Interested individuals must fill out an application and go through a background check. They can contact HPD at 540.434.2545.

The entry doors were damaged early Tuesday morning after trespassers cut a slit in the pressurized pool dome, entered the facility and attempted to exit through the main entrance doors, the Harrisonburg Public Information Office explained in a statement. The doors appear to have been kicked in, and were severely damaged.

Lee Forester, Director of Parks & Recreation, said that the doors that help keep the white dome pressurized are a specialty item, and that’s why the pool is expected to remain closed through Wednesday.

The repair is expected to cost the city at least $5,000. Harrisonburg Police are investigating the incident.

The white dome over the pool was scheduled to be removed at the end of April, and remain uncovered throughout the summer season.

HPD released a statement Thursday, a week after Brown was originally reported missing. Brown was discovered in the trunk of his car in the parking lot of the Valley Mall on Sunday.

Investigators with the Harrisonburg Police Department obtained warrants for Ali Abid, 49, of Weyers Cave.

Abid is wanted for first-degree murder and the use of a firearm in commission of first-degree murder.

Investigators with HPD, along with numerous other local, statewide, and federal agencies, have been working diligently on obtaining information and tracking Abid.

HPD can confirm that Ali Abid fled the area on Thursday of last week, and is no longer in the United States of America.

At a press conference Thursday, Lt. Kurt Boshart of HPD and Rockingham County Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst “did not take questions from reporters following their brief statements.” According to Pete DeLea’s reports in The Daily News-Record, Brown was hired to serve Abid with divorce papers.

Cover shot courtesy of The Breeze

Following the incident Harrisonburg-Rockingham Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst stated, “Never should we be faced with the disrespect toward lawmen that I saw in the videos and the photographs. People think that they can, with immunity, throw bottles and concrete and rocks at our officers. I stand here today to say they will not have immunity. They will pay in a court of law.”

In the week after the Springfest incident a “Special Task Force” that included members of the Harrisonburg Police Department, Virginia State Police and members of JMU faculty combed through images and videos taken of the event, both by police personnel, by local media and those posted online on sites like Facebook and YouTube. The HPD did not put a price tag on the activities of the Special Task Force, but HPD spokesperson Mary Hope Vass stated that the investigation involved seven to ten officers.

HPD Criminal Investigations Commander Lt. Kurt Boshart said that while several suspects were identified as a result of the Special Task Force not all cases were deemed worth pursuing. The post-Springfest investigation also involved a raid on the offices of The Breeze, by Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst, to obtain photos taken of the incident by Breeze photographers. The incident garnered both national attention as well as condemnation from the Student Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists and calls for Garst’s resignation from the state Libertarian Party. The Breeze and the Commonwealth’s Attorney office later settled in an agreement where the state Division of Risk Management paid the paper $10,000 to “resolve any monetary payment . . . including compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees and costs” and The Breeze released 20 photos from the 926 that had originally been confiscated.

Peter Morgner was one of two individuals identified and charged as a result of the Special Task Force. But according to Morgner’s attorney John Holloran, it wasn’t a Breeze photo or YouTube video that resulted in Morgner being identified. On April 10, after the crowd had been dispersed from the Village Lane area, Morgner witnessed a beating and approached a police officer to report what he saw. Holloran maintains that the officer later recognized Morgner in Springfest photos and used the personal information that Morgner had given with his report to identify and arrest him.

Photo by David Casterline, Courtesy of The Breeze

“If Peter had not approached the police he definitely would not have been arrested,” Holloran stated.

Morgner originally faced 12 charges, including nine felony charges of assault on a law enforcement officer and attempted malicious wounding of a law enforcement officer. Morgner’s attorneys tried to have the trial moved and subpoenaed Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst to testify at the trial. Both were unsuccessful. On January 27 a failed attempt to select a jury resulted in a mistrial.

On February 22, Morgner’s attorneys and the Commonwealth’s Attorney office reached an agreement where Morgner plead guilty to one count of simple assault felony assault on a police officer in return for having the remaining charges dropped. He was sentenced to six months in jail. Having been in jail since July 2010 for violating his bail, Morgner’s time served was applied to his sentence and he was released. Morgner’s guilty plea resulted in the only felony charge successfully prosecuted from the incidents at Village Lane.

The conclusion of Morgner’s case two weeks ago, along with the trial of Lucie Banting, brought to a close the prosecutions that stemmed from the Springfest incidents at Village Lane.

In total, 26 people were arrested and charged for crimes that occurred at the Village Lane incident. Of that total 15 were arrested by the HPD, five by the Virginia State Police and four by Virginia Alcohol Control Board officers at the scene. Two other individuals were later arrested and charged by the HPD.

Of the 26 arrested, 21 were charged with public intoxication and/or failure to disperse from an unlawful assembly, both misdemeanors. Most of these cases were prosecuted by June 2010. Thirteen were convicted of one of the charges. Four were convicted on both charges. Guilty verdicts resulted in fines of between $25 and $550. Four people had both charges dropped, dismissed or were found not guilty.

The remaining five, including Morgner, had charges that included felonies and that could result in jail time.

• Justin Lyons was found not guilty of assault on a law enforcement officer and participating in a riot with a deadly weapon.
• Japheth Rawls IV was arrested on four counts, including felony assault on a law enforcement officer and participating in a riot with a deadly weapon. He reached an agreement with the Commonwealth’s Attorney where the charges were reduced and he plead guilty to misdemeanor simple assault and participating in a riot and was sentenced to seven months in jail.
• Christopher Dashiell, coverage of whose case was absent in the local media, ended up with the longest sentence resulting from the incident. Dashiell, who was originally charged with felony assault on a police officer and unlawful assembly, pleaded guilty to reduced charges of misdemeanor assault and disorderly conduct. He was sentenced to 20 months in jail.
• Lucie Banting was originally charged with failure to leave an unlawful assembly and felony assault and battery on a police officer and conspiring to incite a riot. The Commonwealth’s Attorney dropped her charges, citing “new information” (“Charges Dropped in Riot Case,” Daily News-Record, Jan. 22, 2011).

“There were inconsistencies as to what officers saw and some of their initial statements proved to be inaccurate,” said Banting’s attorney John Hart.

The Commonwealth’s Attorney later charged Banting with misdemeanor failure to leave an unlawful assembly. She pleaded guilty and received a fine.

Photo by Robert Boag. Courtesy of The Breeze.

“Our biggest concern was the protection of law enforcement officers, as well as those citizens whose property was being destroyed or who were being assaulted,” said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Alycia Eldridge, who prosecuted most of the cases resulting from Springfest. “We identified as many suspects as we could. Our office was aggressive in prosecuting these cases and I believe we did the best that we possibly could.”

Of the 26 people arrested at Village Lane, ten were not JMU students. Of the five charged with the most serious crimes three, including Morgner, were not JMU students.

In a February 10 article in The Breeze, Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst stated of the Springfest incident, “It was just a perfect storm that I hope will never happen again. It was not a happy time for anybody. It was awful for the victims, awful for law enforcement, awful for JMU students and awful for anybody who lived here.”

The beating, which Morgner witnessed and reported to the police, is still being prosecuted. The incident happened at the Corner Market parking lot on Port Republic Road at 9 p.m. on April 10, away from the Village Lane area and after the crowd had been dispersed. Six individuals were arrested and charged with beating a single victim. None of the accused were JMU students. Charges were later dropped against five of the suspects. The remaining suspect, Kalvin Lamar Jackson, has a trial scheduled for May 13 on felony charges of malicious wounding and malicious wounding by mob.

Related Links

HPD investigation Moves Forward

JMU Students Charged in Village Lane Riots

Breeze, CA Office Reach Settlement

UPDATE: The DNR reported Monday that Brown, a private investigator, was shot to death.

Harrisonburg police released a statement Saturday morning, seeking information about the whereabouts of A. Greg Brown. At approximately 9:30 a.m. Sunday, HPD received a tip with information on the location of Brown’s vehicle.

The Daily News-Record reported Brown was found in the trunk of his car, and that the HPD is treating Brown’s death as a homicide. The exact cause of death has not yet been made public.

HPD is seeking Ali Abid, 49, of Weyers Cave. Investigators believe that Abid was the last person in contact with Brown.

Earlier today, an unknown person took a tire and rim from a vehicle in the parking lot of Lowes, 201 Linda Lane. The incident happened sometime between 8 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

The victim’s vehicle, a 2006 black four-door Nissan Sentra, was propped up on a rock while the offender removed the tire.

HPD is asking for information from anyone, who may have been in the area during this time frame and witnessed the incident.

Since October 2010, HPD has taken seven additional reports, where someone has stolen tires and rims from vehicles.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Solvers at 540-574-5050.

The very public drama at the Harrisonburg Church of Christ between Pastor Bill Drumheller (who, unknown to congregants, was a convicted murderer and the coordinator of a Medicare scam in the 80′s) and two of the church’s elders had been covered extensively by WHSV and a local newspaper. Now it’s the subject of a multi-page feature article in the Washington Post Magazine, due out in print on Sunday:

The Harrisonburg Church of Christ is an unlikely setting for a bedtime horror story, the kind of Southern Gothic tale involving murder and mendacity and money and treachery and, by many accounts, the handiwork of Satan himself.

Spoiler alert: after courtroom drama and several tense church meetings, Pastor Drumheller left the Harrisonburg area and the church continues on at its previous location.

Community members are invited to the Harrisonburg Justice Summit, scheduled for this Saturday, November 13, from 1-6pm at Eastern Mennonite University’s Campus Center. This free event will focus on issues related to criminal justice, neighborhood safety, rehabilitation of offenders, alternative sentencing, employment needs, and more. Pre-registration online at www.HarrisonburgSummits.com is encouraged, but walk-ins are welcome. The event is hosted by the Fairfield Center, and sponsored by Kline May Realty, Cottonwood Commercial, The President’s Office at EMU, EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU’s Environmental Sustainability Major, and EMU’s Peacebuilding and Development Major.

“The Harrisonburg Justice Summit has grown out of a series of events in Harrisonburg over that last year that have highlighted alternative sentencing options, neighborhood safety programs, and more,” says Kai Degner, coordinator of the Harrisonburg Summits series. “There are many people and organizations working together, in their own ways, for a more just community. This is a chance to get together to work together.”

Registered participants include EMU President Loren Swartzendruber, local justice advocate Harvey Yoder, artist and Northeast Neighborhood community member Steven Thomas, retired lawyer Larry Hoover, and many more.

As with every Harrisonburg Summit, participants are given an opportunity to create breakout topics during the event. There will be three time blocks for breakout conversations, and each block can accommodate up to ten different breakout topics.

Breakout topics can focus on project ideas, questions, challenges, needs, or opportunities. This is a person’s opportunity to name what s/he would like to discuss with others.

This event will be free for all who attend. Participants are encouraged to register online at www.HarrisonburgSummits.com.

The Harrisonburg Summit Series began in 2009, created by the Fairfield Center in response to a need felt by people, organizations, and businesses in various sectors to network, share ideas, and build partnerships. Over 1,200 people have attended at least one Harrisonburg Summit.

According to The Breeze, Andrew Lewis Jones was arrested yesterday morning at his home in Broadway and charged with 33 counts of credit card theft, forgery and fraud.

Jones, however, said in a private message that he would “never steal from anyone”.  He believes that some College Republican members set him up to appear guilty because he is gay, which he has not previously made public.

He denied The Breeze’s report that he was a “student impersonator” who is not really enrolled at James Madison University, writing, “I wouldn’t have a JAC card or JMU e-mail if I wasn’t a student.”

Jones was an intern for the Bob McDonnell gubernatorial campaign in 2009 and was Deputy Campaign Manager for Tony Wilt‘s bid for House of Delegates earlier this year. McDonnell and Wilt are among many Republican politicians who have opposed including homosexuals in state discrimination laws.

Initial rumors about the arrest indicated that it was for ballot tampering or some other form of election fraud.  Jones himself says “I thought when they arrested me it was for voter fraud. I was shocked to find out that wasn’t [the reason].”  In a public Facebook note about his arrest, Jones wrote: “I am aware of election fraud that took place, and I will bring this issue to the eye of the public as soon as the timing is right.”

UPDATE: Jones’ Facebook account was deleted sometime early Thursday morning.

UPDATE 2 (11/11 8:21pm): JMU College Republicans have released a statement denying Jones’ claims.

Jones, 18, said he dropped out of JMU last night and will transfer to another school, citing the school’s culture of underage drinking as one reason he felt he didn’t fit in.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.