By Sara Bridget Au

Riding alongside an Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy for an evening is an eye-opening experience. With Deputy Sheriff Elizabeth Collins, I witness bravery, intense pride in her job, and satisfaction at getting the bad guys off the street. It is interesting to see the kinds of calls coming in from all over our eastside community. Sector Two, which stretches from Semoran Boulevard east to the Brevard County line, and from the Seminole County line south into Moss Park, is the most widespread sector in the county.

Sworn in at the end of 2006, Collins’ has been in a squad car with OCSO in this sector for one year. “I’ve always been interested in law enforcement; I loved the academy.” Her supervisor, Sergeant Reginald Hosey toots her horn loudly, explaining the sector has already nominated her twice in 2008 for Deputy of the Month.

We start our evening around 7:30p.m., leaving OCS)’s substation on East Colonial Drive near Dean Road, and heading down Goldenrod Road between Curry Ford Road and Hoffner Road. Collins regularly patrols this area, running the license plates of every car she happens behind, as the neighborhood is thought to be the epicenter of a car theft ring. Late model Hondas are the vehicle of choice, and Collins’ says the thieves take the car and are gone in under a minute.

But tonight, a Wednesday, she doesn’t come across any stolen cars, or even any suspended licenses, so the evening starts off slowly. We cruise the neighborhoods, in a rotation that tells me she has a routine. She points out the home of the juvenile boy she arrested the last weekend, and tells me the story of how his parents tried to hide him from police in a closet. Too many loved ones, she laments, try to protect criminals from the law instead of realizing they need to be taught a lesson.

Collins works the overnight shift, 7 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., on a rotation with every other weekend off. It’s the hardcore shift, and she shares that East Orlando’s Sector Two is getting a reputation to rival Sector Three (Pine Hills) or Sector Four (Orange Blossom Trail) in terms of sheer number of calls. “It’s a lot worse than it was a year ago.”

Part of the problem is the fast growth our area has experienced. But the other part, she explains, is the vast coverage region and the dearth of deputies on the road. “On OBT, you have a [police] car on every corner, every night, but here it’s impossible to get [for example] from Curry Ford and Goldenrod down to Moss Park quickly enough.” There was a home invasion in Moss Park earlier in the day, so response time to that area weighs particularly heavy on her mind this evening. She also says that despite their navigation systems, the curves and twists in the roads in Avalon Park consistently slow deputies down.

A recent problem in the Waterford Lakes area is pizza delivery guys getting robbed. “Most of the time, they call in an order to an abandoned house and rob the driver while he’s wandering around trying to find it. They take the food, too.”

In fact, she gets a call around 10 p.m. that a pizza company has a suspicious order and is worried about sending their driver out. We are planning to swing by the area with the delivery guy, but then dispatch is on the radio about a burglary in progress, so instead we speed off in the other direction. “It’s so hard to do an investigative follow-up when another emergency call comes in because there aren’t enough deputies.”

At the scene of the suspected burglary, Collins sweeps the area and sets up a perimeter from the home while the helicopter and K-9 units arrive on scene. She and another deputy, guns drawn, approach the house. When the residents open the front door, she quickly ascertains there is no real threat; a teenager forgot his key and snuck in through the garage. A watchful neighbor had called police.

Instead of feeling like the time was wasted, Collins welcomes the call. “That’s how we catch ‘em.” She wants residents to always be vigilant and always call in anything suspicious. “Call 9-1-1, or the non-emergency number, 407-836-HELP.”