Each day and on any given shift, police officers take risks and encounter unbelievable situations.

Here is a glimpse of a day in the life of state, township and city police officers that the men and women of Butler County rely on for protection and service.

Each officer listed here was asked to keep a log of their daily activity for one day for use with this story.

Trooper Leonard Sutton, 44, of Troop D in Butler began his 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift on Jan. 23 like any other by checking the notes from the morning roll call and heading off for patrol in an unmarked blue police vehicle. He noted in his daily journal that the roads that Sunday were “plowed and don’t appear to be too bad.”After picking up coffee at a fast-food restaurant, Sutton headed west on New Castle Road. But before he could get a sip of coffee, he was dispatched to a vehicle crash on Interstate 79 in Muddy Creek Township.Arriving on the scene, Sutton saw two Chevy Blazers, one pulling a U-haul trailer, a few hundred feet apart and off the road in an embankment. Both vehicles slid off the road as they rounded an icy curve.Sutton found that the drivers were unhurt, so he set up flares and began talking to the two drivers for his report. Tow trucks were en route to pull out the two vehicles.While in his car writing up the report, Sutton glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a white sedan spin out on the same curve and stop in the snow. Sutton went to that wreck with more flares and discovered the driver was unhurt, but stuck in the snow.“I told the driver to sit tight and we’ll get him pushed out,” he said.After he, the tow truck driver and the drivers of the Blazers pushed the white sedan out of the bank, Sutton headed south on I-79.Just north of the Route 228 overpass in Cranberry Township, Sutton saw a Cavalier stuck in the snow. Sutton had to yank the car’s fender away from the tire to make it driveable as the motorist had spun out and hit the guardrail. He pushed her out of the snow.Sutton returned to his cruiser to write up the accident report, but the comfort of his warm car would be short-lived. No fewer than nine cars spun out on the black ice on I-79.After checking on the drivers and assessing whether they needed a push or a tow truck, Sutton walked north to set up his last flare.“Suddenly I see a car spin out on the west side and one into the median,” said Sutton’s journal. “A pickup truck towing an empty car trailer behind them brakes and slides sideways, blocking both lanes. Cars are now driving into the snow everywhere. I stopped counting after 12 spinouts.“I radio to Butler station and tell them to close the interstate, now! I don’t care how we do it, just get it closed! The roadway is pure black ice.”Sutton gets his wish at 9:45 a.m., when his colleagues radio him to say they are in the process of shutting the highway down by using local police and fire personnel.The 18-year veteran returns to the task of pushing vehicles out of the snow by hand, and told one driver that when traffic stops, she can turn around and go.“Just then a dark vehicle loses it around the curve and is sliding right toward me,” reads Sutton’s journal. “I run to the top of the median embankment and avoid being run over.”From his bird’s eye view atop the median, Sutton watches another car go into a slide and a Chrysler Sebring behind it brakes and slides into the passing lane.“I know he can’t hear me, but I yell to him ‘don’t go back into the slow lane,’” said Sutton. “He does though, just as a truck tractor pulling a tanker arrives. The truck slams into the front passenger side of the Chrysler, spinning it back under the tanker sideways. The tanker’s rear wheels slam into the Chrysler and shove it out onto the west side embankment.”

Once the tangled mess came to a stop, Sutton hurried toward the crash. He was relieved to see the Chrysler’s driver is shaken up but unhurt. However the car was destroyed.While Sutton is talking to the driver, even more motorist mayhem ensues.“A black sedan loses it on the curve, crosses into the passing lane, departs the road, goes to the top of the median and then turns back down it. I’m yelling to him ‘don’t come back on the road,’ but he can’t hear me and does.“Just then a conversion van arrives and the black sedan goes right in front of him. He brakes and turns left to avoid the car, goes into a slide and slams into him and the front of the parked white sedan. Thank heaven the woman in the parked car had gotten out earlier and was standing on the embankment.”Finally, at 11:45 a.m., Sutton reports the salting and plowing have taken effect, and he completes his reports by 12:32 p.m.“1:10 p.m.: Arrive back at station and load flares, get more crash notices and wash off headlights before heading back out,” states Sutton’s journal.But Sutton’s day would not become any less eventful. At 3 p.m., when he should have been heading home, Sutton was sent to a special emergency response team activation in Latrobe. There, two robbery suspects have barricaded themselves inside a residence.After stopping at home to get his winter weather gear, Sutton drives to Latrobe. At the scene at 4:47 p.m., Sutton and other officers are told there are six people in the house who will not answer repeated calls from police.Sutton and several other law enforcement officers from Western Pennsylvania then surrounded the residence, and the six eventually come out and surrender.After all were taken into custody and the residence was cleared, Sutton drove to the Butler barracks to drop off his cruiser and head home.“9:03 p.m.: Back at Butler station, gas up and leave to see the end of the Steelers game. Finally, the day is over safe and sound,” was the final entry in Sutton’s daily journal.Asked about what turned out to be a 12-hour shift on that Sunday, Sutton was amused.“It was a heck of a day,” he said.Sutton said state troopers see a menagerie of situations because they cover so much area in Butler County. He pointed out that many municipalities do not have their own police force, and they rely on the state police for service.Sutton said an average shift has one trooper covering three zones, which total six townships and three boroughs. He said the trooper assigned to the three zones must respond to all calls within those municipalities, no matter how far-flung.“Sometimes you do some cruising,” said Sutton.

Guarding the safety of a traditionally rural municipality on the verge of a development boom maintains the diversity of calls for officers such as Randy Davison, a patrolman with the Middlesex Township Police Department.Davison, a 12-year veteran on the seven-man Middlesex force, is specially trained as the department’s accident investigation expert in addition to his certification in state Department of Transportation commercial truck inspection.But on the afternoon and evening of Dec. 23, virtually all of Davison’s police training would come into play.After assisting Adams Township Police with drug arrests at Mars High School at 6:30 p.m., Davison went on routine patrol of Middlesex Township. At 8:30 p.m., Davison got a call regarding an animal complaint.“Basically, I was chasing two horses and a donkey down Lowery Drive,” said Davison. “They were running past the car when I got the call.”“The call,” Davison referred to is one that came just after 9 p.m. as the loose livestock thundered past his cruiser.Soon after, he would be dealing with a deadly situation.A homicide, the first in Middlesex since 1984, was reported in the parking lot of H. P. Starr Lumber at the intersection of Route 8 and Route 228 East.

While en route to the homicide scene, 911 emergency center dispatchers told Davison a man had been shot, and the shooter was standing beside his car with his hands in the air. Davison arrived on the scene minutes after the shooting and saw a man with one hand in the air and the other holding a cell phone to his ear.“I used my car as a cover and ordered him to put the phone down and move to the rear of the car,” said Davison. “He did, so I ordered him to get face down on the ground and spread his arms and legs.”Davison then handcuffed the suspect and continued with the appropriate police procedures, finally leaving the suspect disarmed and in the rear of the cruiser.Penn Township patrolman Jack Ripper arrived shortly after that.“(The suspect) was very cooperative,” said Davison. “He was polite and answered questions, but showed no emotion. He wasn’t scared, he wasn’t remorseful, he wasn’t upset. He was just stone cold.”Davison said his police training automatically kicked in when he arrived on the scene, so he handled the situation quickly even though murders are few and far between in Middlesex Township.“The worst call you can get is a murder,” said Davison. “There’s no telling what kind of situation you’ll find yourself in.”He said in addition to the diversity in types of calls received by a township police officer, there are two major differences between his job and that of a state policeman.First, the state police remain on a case from the first dispatch through the investigation, then to trial. Township police often relinquish a case to state crime investigators after the arrest, then are called to court to testify once the case goes to trial.The other difference, said Davison, is officers on a local police force get to know residents and business owners as well as the area they patrol. He said residents often seem relieved to see a familiar face when they find themselves in a situation where they need to call police.

Lt. Ronald Pate, 44, signed on with the Butler City Police 20 years ago as a patrolman. And boy have times changed.“Crime has worsened because of drugs,” said Pate. “Ten years ago, a call involving a gun was rare. Now they seem to be involved with every drug-related call, because drug dealers carry guns.”Pate talked about the different shifts on the police force, but did not keep a log of one day.He said the types of calls received by the 23-man city police force differ depending on the shift. He said the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift mainly finds officers busy with court detail. In addition to attending trials to testify in cases, officers also take suspects to the courts where their trials are scheduled.Actual police work during the daylight shift includes traffic situations in the busy downtown area plus retail theft.The 4 p.m. to midnight shift, said Pate, has city officers answering the bulk of the day’s domestic violence calls, civil complaints and requests for officer assistance.Pate recalls one recent afternoon shift when he was dispatched to an incident in a downtown parking lot in which a man had locked himself inside his vehicle.“I got there and a guy comes walking over to me and said the battery wire had come off the terminals and he was in his car with the doors locked,” said Pate. “He couldn’t get out.”The man said the electronic locks would not work, so he sat there for about 30 minutes trying to figure out what to do. He finally called police, but figured out how to get out of his vehicle just before Pate arrived.“He was quite embarrassed when he realized there are manual door locks on these cars,” said Pate. “I advised him to drive away and never, ever tell one single person about this.”Pate said the shift from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. is feast or famine regarding police work.“It can be very, very quiet or you can be running all night long,” said Pate.He said the more serious domestic violence calls come on the midnight shift, as do other types of more dangerous calls. He said the city police frequently deal with drug and alcohol calls on the midnight shift as well.“In the summer, the kids are out vandalizing and we deal with lots of car break-ins,” said Pate.Pate said that while heroin use is down in the city compared to two years ago, crack cocaine is making a comeback in the Butler area.“But heroin is still a problem,” said Pate.