DATE: Monday, October 6, 1997               TAG: 9710060074

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   78 lines

POLICE, PUBLIC TEAM UP TO CATCH RECKLESS DRIVER

Chalk up another victory for teamwork.

An alleged reckless driver who recently led bicycle policemen on a chase through two neighborhoods, in and out of some woods, and across three fences might have gotten away without a partnership of police and public.

Instead, it was community police 1, suspect 0.

The citizens' support made the difference as residents helped the officers follow the trail, said community policeman Junious H. Jackson III.

Police work is no longer a story of cops and robbers, said Jackson, who was tapped as the city's first community police officer in 1995. It's not just the good guys in uniforms vs. the bad guys in a getaway car.

These days, it takes more to catch a culprit than wearing a badge and hollering, ``Stop! Police!''

Recently, bicycle officers Fred Cunningham and John Sanker were arresting a man for being drunk in public in the West Jericho neighborhood when they heard tires squealing. A car turned a corner and headed toward them.

The car was sliding sideways, Sanker said. ``It was definitely reckless.''

He pulled his bicycle into the middle of Clarys Drive, held his hand up and ordered, ``Stop!''

But the driver ignored him, turning onto Fourth Street. Sanker pedaled after him. Cunningham stayed with the prisoner until Sandra Gilluly, a third bicycle officer, got there.

The driver ditched his car at the end of the dead-end street and headed to the woods, pursued by Sanker and Cunningham, who by then had joined the chase at the end of Fifth Street.

The specially made bicycles bounced through the underbrush until they reached an 8-foot-deep gully they couldn't maneuver.

But Sanker had radioed for help. Jackson, detective Carlos Gonzalez and patrol officers Ronald Kline and Tammy Younger surrounded the area.

Jackson spotted the suspect after he circled back through the woods and out onto Briggs Street. He had pulled off his shirt, apparently hoping to foil the officers by changing his appearance.

The 15-minute chase through more than a dozen streets finally ended when the suspect strolled - unsuspectingly - around the corner of a house. He had been amazed to see the pedaling police who could follow him off the beaten path, he told the officers later.

But perhaps the biggest surprise was the community support.

``The citizens in the area were telling me and the rest of the police department what he had on, which way he was running, that he ran behind a shed, that he was hiding behind a vacant house, that he was hiding behind a tree,'' Jackson said.

A few just pointed or nodded their heads to show the direction the suspect had gone.

They also pointed out a plastic sandwich bag that they said the man threw down next to a car tire.

He was arrested and charged with reckless driving, attempting to elude police officers and driving on a revoked license.

And narcotics charges are possible as well, pending test results on the bag, which the officers said was filled with $200 worth of crack cocaine - 10 pieces individually wrapped for distribution.

The man probably would have gotten away without the community policing program, Jackson said. The officers had spent time recently in the area, getting to know the residents.

Two people promised to watch Jackson's vehicle while he trailed the suspect on foot. And when he came back, Jackson said, they were standing beside it, guarding it for him.

``It makes me feel good when I'm out there,'' he said. ``When I'm hurt, I know somebody is going to pick up a phone.''

Residents who cooperate with police can take back their community, Sanker said. ``When the bad guys know the citizens are not going to get involved, they do more in plain view,'' he said.

And the back-up from the uniformed patrol officers is also essential to their work on bicycles, he said. ILLUSTRATION: Suffolk officers John Sanker, left, and Fred

Cunningham are part of an old-fashioned patrolling concept to get

police back in touch with the neighborhoods. Residents recently

helped the officers catch a reckless driver.

MICHAEL KESTNER

The Virginian-Pilot

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