On Friday April 12 the time had finally come for the students in the Richland County Sheriff's Department Citizen's Academy 2002 class to take part in the long awaited cookout and ride along with the CAT team. Sheriff Lott (above) was there to hand out the Citizen's Academy shirts and thank the participants for their interest in the department.

That night, the CAT team members had orders to suppress criminal activity in a specific area of Columbia. Every CAT Camaro contained just one officer and one civilian. The picture below was taken while my officer was assisting a colleague in a traffic stop.

The picture below shows my officer making a traffic stop. This Honda had only one working headlight.

After about an hour of making traffic stops a call came through on the radio that someone had fired a shot at one of the CAT officers. All of the CAT officers converged on the area in an effort to catch the shooter.

We ended up in a nearby apartment complex. It may have been coincidence, but as soon as the CAT officers left their distinctive Camaros and disappeared into the treeline to search for the shooter, occupants of one apartment started running from apartment to apartment, and several cars full of people left in a hurry. Maybe they had heard the shooting, or maybe they just didn't want to be around when the CAT team was in town...

The search included clearing some abandoned houses. All of the illumination in the picture below was provided by the car behind me shining its spotlight on the house.

After the hunt for the shooter was over, a drivers license checkpoint was set up on a nearby road. All cars coming through were stopped and had their drivers license checked.

The CAT team soon hit paydirt, making two arrests and seizing some marihuana, money and a marihuana pipe.

Two officers got their pants dirty when another suspect decided to run from them - on foot. Predictably, this endeavour ended after about 10 yards with the suspect landing face-first in the grass.

At the end of the evening, three vehicles had to be towed away because their former occupants were on their way to jail, courtesy of the Richland County Sheriff's Department.