8:30 p.m.

I arrived at the police station on Boat Street and met the photographer who was waiting for me in the lobby. After we waited for about 15 minutes, Officer Russell Ellis introduced himself. He’s a big guy and smiles a lot. I told him I’m looking forward to tonight and he said, “Don’t get too excited. My job is boring.”

Ellis is an officer on the Incident Prevention Team, which means he’s assigned to do proactive police work in the area on and around campus.

He gave us a brief tour of the station, which included a visit to short-term holding cells.

“It smells bad in there,” Ellis said, laughing. “Some guy took his shoes off and the whole building could smell it.”

Our tour also included the room with a large machine that tests blood alcohol levels, a fingerprinting machine and a 9-1-1 call center, which was still decorated with Christmas lights. The dispatcher, Kelly Miller, introduced herself and said that so far, things have been quiet for most of the night.

“Around midnight, though, people start acting crazy,” she said, “Especially on weekends. We deal a lot with the fraternities, kids out there drunk and puking on the side of the road that need to go to the hospital, transients on the street and the Husky Night Watch.”

The Husky NightWalk is a service the UWPD provides to students who would like a police escort when walking on or near campus at night.

“We usually get about 40 calls a night,” Miller said.

After I signed away my life on a liability waiver, we headed out.

8:57 p.m.

We got into Ellis’s squad car, number 137. I took the front passenger seat and the photographer got in the back, behind the glass barrier that divides the police and whomever they’ve arrested.

“The backseat doesn’t have a cushion. It’s not comfortable at all,” Ellis said.

With the photographer in custody, we started driving up Boat Street toward campus.

“Usually, I just cruise around,” Ellis said, “I drive a little fast, but I’ll try not to since you don’t have a seatbelt back there.

“On an average Friday night, I do the party check. If there’s nothing going on at the frats, I run traffic. I like to stop people from running red lights and speeding through the Greek system, because it’s a safety concern.”

Keeping people, especially young people, safe is something Ellis said is important to him.

“I became a police officer to go out and help the community. I spent seven years working in the prison system, and I worked for the Liquor Board. You see a lot of bad stuff. I worked with alcoholics and some of the worst people in life. This is the best job I ever had. Everybody’s pretty much friendly, even the college kids.”

We cruised up 15th Avenue Northeast and took a right on Northeast 45th Street to patrol the north of campus, where much of the Friday night parties and other disturbances take place. At 9:00 p.m., however, not much was going on.

There were several students out and about. Some took notice of the patrol car. I wondered if they wondered what a student was doing riding shotgun with the police, or what crime was committed by the guy with the camera in the back.

Some people stiffened when the squad car rolled by, as if they’re mentally double-checking that they’re not inadvertently jaywalking or committing some other infraction.

Throughout the ride, the car radio transmitted dozens of conversations between officers and call dispatchers. In Ballard, some kids that were throwing rocks at a building were running from the police and were making their way down Market Street. A few minutes later, an armed robbery took place on Aurora.

There’s a camera in the car that records and stores Ellis’ drive, as well as a taped recording of all conversation in the car. I realized there was a shotgun and a round of ammunition secured above my head.

Ellis answered the phone, and had a brief exchange with whom I assumed was another officer until he said, “Goodbye, I love you, too.” Hanging up he said, “That was the wife, of course.”

He said it’s hard for him to work nights; he worries about his wife at home alone with his two kids. Ellis has a son and a daughter in elementary school. We chatted until a silver Jetta with its headlights out drove by.

“Here,” Ellis said, “I’ll do a traffic stop for you.”

He turned on the siren.

“Before I stop her, I’ve already made up my mind what I’m going to do, as long as she’s not drunk,” Ellis said.

Ellis got out and issued a warning to the driver about driving with broken headlights, and then we were back to cruising.

We continued to drive in the area north of campus.

“Around here, I get a lot of under-aged kids walking around with containers of alcohol. It’s only the underage kids that do it, too,” Ellis laughed. “C’mon guys, I went to college and I knew I was supposed to stay inside with alcohol when I was underage.”

We also cruised the N parking lots inside campus.

“What I usually get in here is people trying to jump into the front seat of their parked car and pull their pants up before I get to them,” Ellis explained. “Then I just check to make sure everything’s consensual and tell them to go home.”

Ellis said some of the funnier things he’s had to deal with are along those lines.

“We had kids skinny-dipping in Drumheller Fountain last summer, and I found some kids skinny-dipping down by Husky Stadium, and there was a beaver right near them smacking his tail. I said, ‘You might want to get out of the water­ — there’s things swimming in there.’”

10:27 p.m.

After more than an hour without any action, we drove by a fraternity party on 19th Avenue Northeast with neon lights, dance music and a line that stretched down the block.

Ellis explained that fraternities must register parties with the University and assure there is no underage drinking by using an armband or hand stamp system. There were no parties registered tonight, so Ellis called it in. He explained how the police usually deal with big parties like this one in the Greek system.

“We all go in and look for underage drinking and see if it’s registered. We contact the president of the house, and if he can’t provide documentation, we shut it down and everybody has to go home.”

Ellis said the plan now is to wait for more officers to arrive before we go in, so we circled the block until then.

He told me that he used to want to be a state trooper.

“But then I answered a traffic fatality, and I knew I didn’t want to deal with that on a daily basis. It was a family in the car and the mother had died. Only the father survived. The kid in the backseat died as we were pulling him out of the car, and all I could think about was my kids.”

10:53 p.m.

We were still cruising when a large vehicle that looked like a dogcatcher’s van pulled over on Northeast 50th Street and 20th Avenue Northeast. About fifteen people, mostly dressed in black hooded sweatshirts and skinny jeans, stumbled out the back doors. They made their way down the block and into a house party and the van took off.

We followed it for a block before Ellis turned the siren on and the driver pulled over. Another squad car pulled up behind us and its driver, Officer Kevin Jackson, went with Ellis to talk to the driver, a young man in a black Tool hoodie and black jeans. As the cops talked to the driver, people on the front porch at a nearby house party yelled,“Illegal search and seizure!” and other taunts at the officers.

Still in the car, I couldn’t hear what Ellis and Jackson were saying, but after they searched the van, Ellis returned to the squad car and the van drove off. Ellis evidently let him off with a warning.

“Well, the whole truck smelled like marijuana and there were empty beer cans and his girlfriend in the back without a seatbelt, but he was really cooperative and polite. He didn’t seem to be on drugs and he didn’t smell like marijuana — just his van did — so I let him go and warned him about people in his van not wearing seatbelts.”

Before we drove off, Jackson jokingly slammed his hands against the back window and barked at the photographer, “You want me to call your lawyer, huh?”

11:10 p.m.

We returned to the fraternity where the party was still in full swing, now joined by three other squad cars and five more officers. The crowd outside parted as we made our way into the house; revellers stepped back apprehensively. Jackson led the way with Ellis behind him.

“You got a permit for this party?” Jackson asked the young man at the door handing out wristbands. The man said the house did have a permit. Jackson responded,“Oh, yeah? We don’t have any parties registered. Did you get it on eBay or something?”

The man at the door offered to get the house president who could show them a permit, and the officers made their way downstairs, asking people holding cups if they’re over 21.

A fraternity brother informed me that it’s their house policy not to allow reporters or photographers inside, and I found myself kicked upstairs where the guys at the door were apologizing to their female guests about the cops. Eventually, the officers came back upstairs and said that the house did indeed have a permit. Satisfied, we moved on.

11:35 p.m.

What was a quiet evening had become a jumpy Friday night, and we had only to walk down the street to find another party, this one at a private house on 20th Avenue Northeast. Guests on the lawn saw us coming.

“Hey guys, cops are here,” one guest shouted into the house. I stood on the grass while Ellis and Jackson talked to the renter who lived there, a young male student. The next-door neighbor, another young man, came onto his porch.

“Hey, officers,” he said, “I’m their neighbor and I don’t think it’s too loud. You don’t have to bust them.” He then saw me writing in a notepad.

“Hey,” he said, “Can I get an eye-witness interview?”

I told him sure.

“I’m Alex Biller,” he said, proceeding to spell his name for me. “I just want to say, it’s Friday night. If you don’t like loud noise on Friday night, then don’t live in the U-District.”

Ellis and Jackson finished telling the resident that he needed to keep the noise down, be sure there was no underage drinking and not to let anyone intoxicated drive home. The young man agreed, and as we walked away, someone shouted, “Alex, you’re going to be famous!” to resounding whoops and cheers.

11:47 p.m.

There was yet another party right across the street. As I endured glares from party guests as I followed the officers up the stairs, I began to wonder if I’d ever enjoy a social life north of campus again.

As we walked up the steps, one female party guest said, “These cops are all hot, I’m not going to lie.”

Jackson knocked on the door and a young woman answered it. Jackson told her to turn the music down.

“Are you serving alcohol to minors here, yes, no or maybe?” Jackson asked.

“Maybe,” the hostess said.

He informed her that she couldn’t have big crowds of intoxicated people in front of her house, and that she needed to be sure her guests don’t drink and drive and that young women don’t walk home alone.

“You guys need to convince us that you are responsible adults to have a party,” Jackson said. She agreed and we headed down the steps. Ellis, Jackson and Officer Dave Fontenot tried to disperse the crowd outside the house, telling people to go home. Three young men walked across the street and Fontenot called after them, “Hey, Ted Nugent, you’ve got a beer in your hand.”

The young man dropped his drink and hurried off. Fontenot said to another group of partygoers, “Alright, which of you is driving?”

They all pointed to their appointed designated driver.

“You’ve gotta do a sobriety test,” Fontenot said. “Put a ball on your nose and spin it like this.” Fontenot does his impression of a circus seal and the group laughs.

As we headed back to the squad cars, I told the officers that the girl on the stairs said she though they were attractive.

Fontenot said, “Well, fortunately, alcohol makes you effectively blind. She should call my wife, who will inform her that I am actually bald and old.”

12:14 a.m.

We arrived back at the station, and I thanked Ellis for taking me out on his shift. Anyone who wants to do a police ride-along can, provided they are over 16-years old and sign a liability waiver.

Before I left, Ellis fished out a wallet full of photos. The first was of his son in his football uniform. He flipped to their school photos, and then one of his daughter dressed as a cheerleader with pompoms.

“That’s the family,” Ellis said.

We took one last picture in front of the squad car and I wished him a good night.

I’d had plans to go to a party after my ride-along, but it looked like Jackson and Fontenot had beaten me to it. I cruised by just in time to see revellers pouring back out into the streets.

[Reach reporter Siv Prince at features@thedaily.washington.edu.]