Dana Smith is a patrol officer for the Rockport Police Department. On a rainy Saturday afternoon Penbaypilot rode along with Dana while he conducted his patrol shift. Dana has been a patrol officer for the town for six years.

“The Taser is the big thing now,” said Smith. “When I go to the elementary school the first thing they ask is, is that a Taser? I hear it on a weekly basis.”

The yellow end on the taser tells you that’s what it is. The yellow end is also the spare cartridge. It stands out on the duty belt the officer wears. About the size of a small sized sidearm there is also a red dot sight that lets you know where the gun is pointed.

“It’s a serious piece of hardware,” said Smith. “People have watched enough videos about them on YouTube they know what it is and what it can do. As part of our training, we have it employed on each one of us, even Chief Mark Kelley. What can I say; the bigger they are the harder they fall. We do training on it once a year and that’s done by Camden PD.”

PBP: Do you find your job interesting?

“It’s a very interesting job. Some days you have to look for something to do and other days you don’t even have the time to eat lunch. I didn’t get to eat my dinner until 9 o’clock last night. I tried to plan for it three different times, but every time something else came in.”

PBP: What’s your most recent traffic stop?

“I just stopped a car for expired inspection and registration,” said Smith. “When I asked for insurance he didn’t have it, but he swore he did. I’m pretty reasonable. I told him keep looking; if you find it wave it out the window so I know you have it. He had his potato gun in the front seat, but he couldn’t find his insurance. I guess he had his priorities.

“Travis is the Field Training Officer,” said Smith. “What that means is you have to ride with him until he says you’re ready. I rode with him for three weeks before he asked if I was ready. I said ‘I don’t know’ and he said I was ready. We have a new recruit coming out of the academy. He’s been there for 18 weeks. He’ll ride with Travis until he says he’s ready.”

PBP: Do you have favorite areas you like to patrol, or hot spots, I guess I’d call them?

“There are no hotspots,” said Smith. “I know where to go at certain hours. Route 1 at times the traffic is so thick. You see numerous violations, but it’s a safety issue to push seven cars out of the way to get one guy not wearing a seat belt.

“Each road is different. Simonton Corner, you can sit there. There are lots of reports of cars failing to yield or stop at the stop sign. I’ll just sit there in plain view and sure enough, somebody at 30 mph looks up and nobody is coming and they’ll blow right through it. You get the 60-year-old guy who’s going blow right through it and then they look up and see me sitting there. They slam on their brakes and screech to a stop, but they do stop. After six years, I know where the spots are to watch. The new guys they’ll drive around and drive around, but now I know where to sit. I don‘t need to waste gas and they come to me.

“I’m pretty heavy on the school zones of course. The lights are flashing, 15 mph, and cars will come through there at 55 mph, oblivious to the lights flashing. I’m a pretty fair guy. It’s posted 45 and they’re doing 55 and I have them on radar. I’ll flash my blue lights in the rear to let them know they need to slow down. Most do, but there’s always that one and he gets a ticket.

“It’s a rainy day today so nobody is going fast. As you can see on the radar they’re doing 44 in a 45. Friday is a bad day. People get out of work and they’re just ripping and tearing to get home. Route 17 you can get some high speeds, 70 mph. That’s excessive, I feel. I don’t even do that on the way to a call. It’s just too dangerous. Every day is different. Some days I’ll focus on the back roads and others I’ll work Route 1 all day long.”

PBP: How much of your patrol area do you cover in a shift?

“I cover it all. I’ll drive 100 miles in a shift. The Dodge Charger is a good car. We haven’t had many problems with them at all. They get used pretty hard sometimes, but they hold together really well. It’s a rear wheel drive and it can get tricky in the winter time. If you get a nor’easter and snow banks we use the Tahoe.”

PBP: Is there such a thing as a routine call?

“There’s no such thing as a routine call,” said Smith. “They teach you that in the academy. You get a lot of 10-80s, which are alarms. I’ve been there five times already, it’s always the same window when the wind blows out of the southwest. Is it really routine? You don’t know. That one time you put your guard down, is that time you’re going to get your shock.”

PBP: Do you find the tourists hard to deal with?

“For the most part, no,” said Smith. “They’re actually very polite and respectful. Occasionally you get that one whose been that way his whole life whether he’s in Maine, Alaska or California. He just doesn’t have any respect for anybody.”

PBP: When you pull a car over for a traffic stop, what do you like to see the driver do?

“I like to see him pull over immediately,” said Smith. “I have my lights going and they’re still driving and I’m behind him. I don’t like to have to hit my siren. That’s probably my biggest pet peeve. If I turn my lights on, please pull over. Sometimes the one you want keeps driving, but the three cars in front of him and the two cars behind him have all pulled over, but the one you’re looking for keeps driving. It’s just driver inattention.”

PBP: Travis said you were starting to get away form the 10-codes.

“There was talk about doing that a couple of years ago. Some of the older guys, everything is a 10-code. The newer guys hardly ever use a 10-code. I’ll do a partial mix. Some day I’ll use them and other days I hardly do. I started in the 10-code generation. At the academy you had to know your 10-codes or it was a painful day. There’s a new guy getting out of the academy soon and I’m curious as to what he’ll do. The dispatchers all know what they are and if you listen to them they don’t use them very often. You very rarely hear a 10-code out of Rockland.”

PBP: Tell me about inspection stickers. You see a few of those.

“I love traffic. I can hand out six or seven tickets a shift. Yesterday, I wrote four and some days I don’t write any. I’m not out to pick on anybody, but like the guy I stopped yesterday. I told him I was stopping him because he didn’t have an inspection sticker. I had seen him numerous times and it was time to address it. Today is your day. I tell people it’s for your safety; it’s for the school bus full of little children’s safety. I stopped a guy a month ago and his had expired in 2008. I had seen him twice before in Rockland when I was off duty and I thought you don’t ever want to come to Rockport and he did. I told him to drive it straight home and park it. I could have had it towed, but I didn’t.

“This is Maine and you have to make a living. It’s not like a metropolitan area where you can take public transportation. It’s $12.50 to get it inspected, $133 to get the ticket. It’s easy math. And people are so proud, they’ll go by and toot the horn and point to their new sticker. I tell them their sticker is eight months out, can you please take care of it. And they say ‘it’s way up under the window, I can’t see it.’

“I was sitting on the side of the road and I heard this car laying on the horn and it was this lady pointing to her new inspection sticker. I didn’t give her a ticket and she went right out and did it.”

Dana Smith works four 10-hour shifts on, and three days off. He is a regular sight around Rockport in the town's police cruiser. If you see him, give a honk and a wave. It won’t get you out of a ticket if you deserve one, but it’s always nice to be friendly.