I thought this article was pretty neat

http://www.niagara-gazette.com/local...231002218.html

C Platoon works while you sleep so criminals don’t

By Rick Pfeiffer/pfeifferr@gnnewspaper.com
Niagara Gazette

NIAGARA FALLS — It’s Friday night in the Falls.

For some folks, that means it’s time for a night out to party. For others, it’s a chance to relax and get ready for the weekend.

For the men and women who make up C Platoon on the Falls police force, it’s time to hit the streets and get to work.

“It’s a tough shift. I worked it for nine years,” Falls Police Superintendent John Chella said. “Midnights gives you a different perspective. You deal less with people and more with situations.”

What Chella means by that is, the officers working overnight tend to see more of the Cataract City’s bad side than the good side.

“Nobody’s around,” said C Platoon Captain David LeGault. “It’s just us and the bad guys.”

So it takes a different breed of cop to stay on top from 11:30 p.m. to

7:30 a.m. and working the shift can take a toll.

Some officers rotate on and off the shift, while a few spend large chunks of their careers in the darkness.

On Friday night, a Gazette reporter and photographer spent an entire shift on the C Platoon, following officers in each of the city’s three patrol sectors.

The night begins in the South End, with Officer Steve Gizzarelli. Working in Car 48, the nearly 4-year veteran who will turn 26 on Monday, has spent his career on the overnight shift.

With a one year interruption from October 2005 to October 2006, when he was called up in the Army Reserves for duty in the Iraq War, he’s glad to be back on patrol.

“When I was a kid, I always wanted to do this, but then I got interested in carpentry in high school,” he recalls. “But I realized there weren’t a lot of (construction) jobs here, so I thought I wanted to be a police officer and help people.”

The shift has barely started and already Gizzarelli has a chance to help one of his own, an off-duty officer involved in an accident at 19th Street and Pine Avenue. The officer was making a turn from Pine Avenue to 19th Street, when another driver hit his car in the front on the driver’s side.

The officer and witnesses say the other driver ran a red light. The driver says he went into the intersection on a yellow light.

Gizzarelli takes the information, but holds off writing his report until later. The incident will probably be settled by each driver’s insurance company and Gizzarelli says, “On a summer night, I don’t want to get tied up right now writing a report.”

Despite the eventful start, there’s a lull in radio calls and Gizzarelli begins patrolling areas in his sector where trouble is never far away. He cruises 19th Street from Pine Avenue to Falls Street and checks the Third Street bar scene frequently.

One sector over, in the North End, Officer Bill Kutis is running almost non-stop from one call to another. Before midnight, he’s responding to a call of a person shot at 15th Street and Weston Avenue.

He can’t find the crime scene because the cabbie has driven himself to the hospital. Still, before the night is over, officers will be on the lookout for a 16-year-old suspect who allegedly robbed the cab driver of his cash and then shot the victim.

The only good news, the cabbies injuries are not life threatening.

Kutis, 32, has been on the force for six years, four and a half of them on C Platoon.

“I started on midnights, then I went to days and then I got bumped back to midnights because (the shift) needed more people,” he said. “I like the action. You get the hot calls on this shift, the fights, the shootings.”

In Car 50, Kutis may have the most diverse patrol district in the city. He ranges from the hard-scrabble streets of Center Court to the quiet lanes of Deveaux.

“You’ve got people out here making a lot of money and people, just a stones throw away, in poverty,” Kutis said. “It’s like they say, ‘Which side of the tracks are you on?’ The tracks go right down Monteagle Street.”

Back in the South End, things have heated up a little for Gizzarelli and fellow Officer Ron Cirrito. A call of a possible burglary in progress on Fifth Street turned out to be false.

However, an apparently disgruntled patron at the Shadow Bar on Third Street has called 911 to report that women, under the age of 21, are in the club and drinking. As soon as Cirrito and Gizzarelli enter the bar, they begin checking IDs.

They walk over to a table where seven well-dressed and attractive girls are sitting and immediately confront them.

“I know some of you are under 21, because I’ve seen you at (Niagara Falls High School) basketball games,” Cirrito says. “I know some of you are in high school.”

Gizzarelli tries another trick.

“Everyone here, who is under 21, raise your hand,” he says.

Four of the girls put their hands up. At the same time, a dozen or more other attractive young girls begin heading for the front door.

Still, the bar owner is lucky. None of the underage patrons had an alcoholic drink as the officers walked up.

The bar manager escapes with a warning.

“We just found seven girls in here who aren’t even close to 21,” Cirrito tells the manager. “I’m just letting you know. You know, if they were here tonight, they’ve probably been here before.”

As the officers leave the nightclub, the sidewalk outside is now crowded with partiers who had been inside.

“Everyone who’s over 21, you can go back inside,” Cirrito says as the officers leave.

Just over an hour later, Cirrito and Gizzarelli are back on Third Street. They arrive at the Bank of America parking lot to break up a fight. One of the young males involved in the scuffle is the disgruntled patron who called the cops about the underage drinkers.

Back in the North End, there hasn’t been much of as lull for Kutis. A few loud music and noise calls, a burglary report and the Highland Avenue bar scene is as hot as ever.

“There’s been cars up and down the street all night,” Kutis says at 3:30 a.m. “The old 3 Ms Club (now the Highland Lounge and Grill) has been packed.”

As Kutis heads back to the area, he drives down College Avenue and prepares to make a right turn on to Highland Avenue. Then a crackling sound breaks the silence.

“Pop ... pop ... pop ... pop ... pop.”

Five gunshots in rapid succession. Kutis calls into the police dispatcher.

“I’ve got five shots fired at College and Highland. Trying to see where they came from,” he tells the dispatcher.

There are four occupied cars sitting, with their engines running, in the area of the gunfire. Remarkably, all four drivers tell Kutis, they didn’t hear anything.

“It’s frustrating,” Kutis says, with more than a little exasperation in his voice. “Nobody knows anything, but you know they know something.”

While things are hot in the North and South ends, the LaSalle sector has been quiet. Officer Jon Shuster, one of the most senior officers on C Platoon with 17 years on the force, is actually picking up his patrol a little bit later than usual.

He’s spent the first patrol of the shift executing search warrants as a member of the Falls police SWAT Team.

Shuster has spent time working in the jail and on the day shift, but he has 10 years on overnights. He splits his time between LaSalle and the North End patrol sectors.

“I just like to get a mix. It’s so different out here (in LaSalle). You don’t get as many calls. There isn’t as much action,” Shuster said. “But when you do get a serious call, sometimes, downtown, you get a call of a man with a gun or a man with a knife, and it may or may not be true. Out here, if the call is a man with a gun or a man with a knife, you know they have a gun or a knife.”

All three officers say C Platoon can take a physical toll on you.

“It’s tough on the way you live,’ Kutis said. “You’re tired a lot. Your sleeping pattern is different. The way you eat is different.”

For now, Kutis and Shuster have no plans to leave the platoon. Gizzarelli thinks he may look to move to the day shift next year.

“(The day shift) would just be something different,” Gizzarelli said. “Midnights, no one is out and all you come in contact with is criminals or victims. I’d like to meet some of the business people and others who are around during the day.”

Gizzarelli’s captain may follow him. After five years of life in the darkness, LeGault says he, too, may be ready for a change. However, if he goes, he’ll miss the platoon he’s leaving behind.

“It’s an incredible group of officers,” LeGault said, smiling broadly. “They are self-motivated, they work hard, they do all the little things that make a difference.”

Contact reporter Rick Pfeiffer

at 282-2311, ext. 2252.