Troopers are courteous even when reporters aren’t taking notes

Troopers rapping on my neighbor’s door. Flashing red and blue lights in my driveway. This isn’t exactly what I like to see when I’m minutes from falling asleep.

Sunday night — well, Monday morning, technically, at 1:30 a.m. — the wife and I were up later than usual, but not terribly so. Amber was the first to notice the commotion. I peered out the kitchen window. There was a squad car up the street.

I figured troopers were making a traffic stop and was about to go back to bed when we started hearing a whole lot of knocking.

There are two houses on the property, the one we rent and a smaller one that we don’t. They’re close enough that it’s sometimes hard to tell which door is being knocked on. So I peaked my head out to see if I was needed. By this time there were multiple squad cars, some in my driveway, and three or four troopers.

“Please go back inside, sir,” a trooper said almost immediately.

“I’m going to go talk to this guy,” another trooper said.

With apologies for the delay I shut the door so I could get my dog — who by now was dancing in circles from all the excitement — into another room.

“Just overly friendly?” the trooper asked when I let him inside.

“He tends to jump on people,” I said.

The trooper — Trooper Lewis, whose first name I didn’t catch — asked a lot of questions in quick succession. He made sure that no one had come to hide out in my place. Then, it seemed to me at least, he tried to figure out if there was any way I could give him permission to open the neighbor’s door. Obtaining permission is generally quicker than obtaining a warrant. I gave him my landlord’s phone number.

Once he’d gone, Amber and I watched the proceedings from our bedroom window. Two troopers stood on either side of my neighbor’s door. They knocked, announced themselves as troopers, asked whoever was inside to open the door. There were troopers at all the potential exits. Eventually, whoever was in the house opened the door. Demanding to see his hands, the troopers filed inside.

Almost immediately the troopers seemed to loosen up. They weren’t moving as quickly and some stood waiting and chatting with one another. After about 10 minutes I poked my head out again to see if it was OK if we stepped outside for a smoke. The troopers said it was. Trooper Lewis walked over to explain everything.

Apparently, one of the officers had pulled a car over on our road and the teen-ager in the passenger seat had jumped out and ran to my neighbor’s house. He knew my neighbor and visits often. But he didn’t want to talk to any troopers.

“He thought he had a warrant, but he didn’t,” trooper Lewis said.

“Ah. Good for him,” I said with a smile.

Before they left, a second trooper, this one a trooper Garcia — again, I didn’t catch a first name — made sure we knew what was going on. Both Lewis and Garcia apologized multiple times for keeping us up.

My point in recounting all of this isn’t to decry crime in my neighborhood. It’s actually a really safe area and relatively quiet, if you discount the noise coming in from downtown Wasilla and a neighbor’s stentorian goat.

What I want to point out is how courteous those troopers were. Amber and I appreciated that they recognized that having officers in the driveway at 1:30 a.m. might be an inconvenience and made a point to let us know what was going on so we wouldn’t wonder or feel unsafe.

Say what you will about troopers, but if there are rude, unprofessional slackers wearing those blue Stetsons I haven’t met them. I often wonder, though, if most of that isn’t because I’m usually holding a notebook and asking them questions with the understanding their answers will be in the next day’s paper.

So it’s nice now and then to have non-professional dealings with law enforcement, to confirm my suspicion that, no, they aren’t just putting on a good face for the reporter. So kudos to Lewis, Garcia and the rest of those who spend their days keeping us safe and locking up the bad guys while somehow maintaining a courteous smile.

Andrew Wellner is a Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter.