Editor's note: Notebook is an occasional series on slices of life found by The Bee's police reporters.
From Stan Oklobdzija:
Being a good cop means walking the line between knowing when to lay down the law and knowing when to bend to defuse a volatile situation.
On the corner of Sonoma Avenue and Callecita Street in North Sacramento Thursday night, about 15 angry residents crowded on the outside of a police perimeter while Sacramento Police searched the neighborhood for a burglary suspect they who they thought migh have hid in one of the nearby houses.
It was near dinner time and many had been evacuated from their homes, forced to stand and wait while police combed the neighborhood. Some had small children with them and others didn't even manage to get their shoes on before police ordered them out.
Police wanted to search the house of one man standing on that corner. An officer manning the line asked the resident for permission, which he refused.
"Don't you want to be safe?" asked the officer, explaining that the suspect could be hiding somewhere inside his home, waiting to harm him or his family once they got back in.
"You don't need to go through my house," the man said. "If someone's in there, I'll get him myself."
The officer grew indignant, asking the man for his name, which he refused to give.
Several people in the crowd gathered behind the man, yelling obscenities at the officer. The residents told the officer that they wanted to go back home.
The officer went back to his car and returned a short time later.
"What's your name?" he demanded from the man.
He was going to write him a citation, he said, for spitting on the ground earlier.
The crowd became angrier, demanding the officers badge number and hurling expletives with even more vigor than before.
Two other officers arrived.
After a brief discussion among themselves, the original officer backed away and Officer Kurt Wilhite turned to the man.
"If you don't want us searching your house, we won't. But we just want to make sure the neighborhood is safe," Wilhite said.
He then spoke to the crowd.
"I'm sorry we're putting you out," he said, drawing murmurs of support from the assembled residents. "We'll be done here really quick."
"And look," Wilhite said, all eyes on him.
He took a step back from the crowd and spat on the ground.
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