In the Stowe police cruiser

City folk might chuckle, but “that could be a serious thing,” Cashin said — and it happens a lot in Stowe.

Other animal problems include dogs bothering people on Stowe’s sidewalks, or birds harassing people dining outdoors.

Last Thursday, Cashin — a patrolman on the Stowe police force — took a reporter along for a few hours to see firsthand what an officer does.

Although Stowe “has a lot of critters,” Cashin said, every area has its share of bothersome beasts, and other problems in which police get involved.

Before joining the Stowe department almost three years ago, Cashin, 27, worked in dispatch for the Winooski Police Department. He grew up in central New York and moved to Vermont to work in Winooski.

Cashin has wanted to be a police officer since he was a little kid, he said. While a dispatcher in Winooski, he volunteered with the Vermont Police Academy in Pittsford as part of its training scenarios for future officers, and then enrolled. He graduated from the police academy in 2015.

Cashin, who has a 2-year-old son, still lives in Chittenden County.

He had been working the night shift in Stowe, but about three months ago he jumped on the opportunity to switch to a noon-to-midnight shift.

He arrives about half an hour before his shift starts. He changes into his uniform, checks the cruiser he’ll be driving, and checks his email to see if there’s anything from the prior shift he needs to know.

Every month, the department focuses on catching people committing specific offenses. July’s focus was cellphone use while driving.

Cashin likes working for the Stowe Police Department because he gets a lot of freedom about where he wants to patrol. He prefers South Main Street, Pucker Street and Mountain Road, because he’s able to catch a lot of traffic offenses there, from speeding to handheld cellphone use to minor accidents.

Stowe, in general, offers a lot of variety in police cases, Cashin said. From fires to mountain rescues to drug cases to house break-ins, “the mountain brings all sorts of stuff,” Cashin said. “Stowe is a neat place. We have a very good mixture” of cases.

On Thursday, Cashin drove a 2016 Ford Police Interceptor utility vehicle. It’s loaded with radar and radio equipment and equipped with a spotlight and blue lights all around, although it doesn’t have the traditional top-mounted light bar.

Before leaving the station, Cashin checks his radar to make sure it’s functioning. The car’s built-in air conditioning was running at 15 mph, he said, throwing off his radar, so he turned it off. He radios in to dispatch that he’s on duty, and then he’s off.

After less than 45 minutes on the street, Cashin spots a driver using a handheld cellphone on South Main Street, but he doesn’t flash his cruiser’s blue lights immediately. Doing so in traffic can alarm people and possibly cause an accident, so Cashin has to find a place to turn around and hope not too many cars get between his cruiser and the vehicle he’s targeting.

Whether to write a ticket

He catches up with the driver on Maple Street. Cashin says he’s “lenient” — he doesn’t like to give tickets when he thinks a warning could be an opportunity for the person to learn better, so if someone he pulls over has no prior convictions on his or her record, Cashin will typically issue a warning.

When he pulls a car over, he likes to chat with the people in it.

“I want to get to know you, to figure out what to do” in terms of penalties, he said. If a driver has children, or already has enough points on his or her license that another ticket would suspend it, Cashin takes those factors into consideration. After all, “people need their license to get to work” to pay for any tickets they’re given.

And, “I wouldn’t write a ticket for something I would do,” Cashin said. “Everyone speeds from time to time,” and he typically won’t pull a driver over unless he or she is going more than 10 mph faster than the posted limit.

What doesn’t Cashin take into consideration when deciding whether to issue a ticket? The attitude of the person he pulled over.

“They say you should know whether you’re going to write a ticket before you get out of the car,” Cashin said, so whether a driver is polite has no bearing on whether he or she gets a ticket.

By the time Cashin gets out of the cruiser, he’s already checked the license plates to be sure the car is registered. Then, once he gets the driver’s license, he can check with dispatch for prior traffic tickets or arrests.

Since the Main Street cellphone user had no prior tickets or warnings for that offense, Cashin let him off with a warning.

Cashin pulled over two more drivers for using handheld cellphones while driving. Just one received a ticket, because she had prior convictions on her record.

In the afternoon, Cashin also pulled over a driver whose inspection sticker was past due. Typically, Cashin leaves inspection stickers alone unless they’re more than six months past due, which this one was. That driver, too, drove away with a warning, since she had tried to schedule an inspection already.

Stowe problems

Cellphone use is a big problem in Stowe, Cashin says, despite the state law that has banned drivers from using handheld cellphones since Oct. 1, 2014. Traffic, which is worse in summer than in winter, exacerbates the difficulties officers face in actually making a stop.

“People see blue lights, they tend to freak out,” he said. “It’s not worth doing anything you don’t have to do” — meaning, if there are too many cars between Cashin’s cruiser and his target, he might not be able to make the stop without endangering other drivers along the way.

“It’s not worth putting anyone else at risk for one person,” Cashin said.

For cellphone users, Cashin typically writes them a ticket for a cellphone offense, rather than a texting violation — the latter means five points on the person’s license, while the former only means two, and Cashin called texting violation penalties “steep,” so unless he can prove the driver was texting, rather than merely glancing at his or her phone, he’ll issue a ticket with a lighter penalty.

Driving under the influence of alcohol is a bigger problem in Stowe than in some other police jurisdictions, Cashin said. The more practice an officer gets in dealing with DUI cases, the better he or she is at catching them.

Cashin is an Advanced Roadside Impairment Driver Enforcement trained officer, meaning he’s taken a 16-hour course that taught him how the effects of drugs and alcohol can show up in different people, to help him decide when to bring a person in on suspicion of DUI.

DUI cases can take a long time to process, Cashin said; the quickest he thinks a person could be processed is two hours.