We traveled across America to ride alongside the folks who ply their trades on the dark, desolate road.
Troopers Zenel Lulanaj and Nehemiah Nelson are parked on the shoulder, lights off, engine idling. The temperature is in the teens, but we’re roasting. When I got in the back of the Dodge Charger an hour earlier, I left on my winter layers. That was a mistake: Nelson likes the heat cranked.
There are four of us in the Charger, a handsome dark-blue machine with gold reflective New YorkState Police insignia. We’re the only ones around for miles. During daylight hours, this stretch of I-287 is jammed. At 1 a.m. on a Saturday in January, it’s dark and empty. This is life on a state trooper’s graveyard shift.
This story originally appeared in Volume 10 of Road & Track.
Lulanaj and Nelson hail from NYSP Troop T. Their headquarters is in Tarrytown, 15 miles north of New York City. Late at night, troopers show up for shift changes, to process arrests, or for a bathroom break, but otherwise the station is desolate, flagpoles clanging as the breeze flaps American, New York state, and POW-MIA flags. The building gives off a new, sterile feeling—a “Petco vibe,” one trooper jokes. I’d waited in my car for half an hour before someone came and unlocked the door.
At the start of our shift, Lulanaj launches the Charger onto the Thruway with purpose. He drives like every state trooper you’ve encountered in your rearview: with menace. Lulanaj sets the dashboard to full dark and turns down the light electronic dance music that was playing when we got in.
Less than two miles from the barracks, just minutes into the shift, we find our first customer: a white Range Rover Sport hogging the left lane and weaving across the dotted line. Lulanaj hits the lights, the driver pulls over, and on go the signature Stetson hats. The troopers approach from either side, a choreographed dance.
Troopers Nelson (right) and lulanaj at the start of their paired overnight shift.
JJ Sulin
I’m left in the back seat with Trooper Denis Schwuchow, a public-information officer sent along to make sure Lulanaj and Nelson don’t give away the one top-secret tip for getting out of a speeding ticket. We’re trapped. Like most cop cars, this Charger has no interior door handles in the back. As I watch the traffic stop unfold, Schwuchow keeps turning his head to scan for an imminent rear-end collision. Not that we’d be able to do much about it.
Barely anyone even drives by. After passing the field sobriety test, the Range Rover driver is let go with a warning.
Nelson and Lulanaj started their shift in separate cruisers, but NYSP policy requires troopers to double up from midnight to 5 a.m. It’s a safety measure, though the two seem mostly unfazed about the difference between a daytime shift and an overnight. “Anything can happen at any time of day,” Lulanaj says.
Throughout the night, the two rib each other over who’s taking up more of the Charger’s con-sole armrest, loaded with equipment.
“I like being paired up,” Nelson says. “Not only for safety, but to have someone to talk to.”
“Two sets of eyes,” Lulanaj adds. “We talk about all kinds of stuff.” Throughout the night, they banter about music and reminisce about the discontinued Ford Crown Victoria, long since removed from NYSP fleets.
Around 2 a.m., the dispatch radio chirps, a state-wide check-in from headquarters. These check-ins are rare during the day, when troopers are busy, but occur regularly at night. Partnered shifts mean half as many patrol cars on duty. Lulanaj and Nelson are assigned to highway patrol, but in rural New York, troopers handle most law-enforcement duties, including general 911 calls.
“It’s definitely not like being in the city, where you call for backup and have 20 cars coming to you in 10 seconds,” Nelson says. “You have to think on your feet and be able to control the situation until you have backup.”
“This job isn’t for everybody,” he adds. “You’re on your own for the most part. That’s just how it is.” After the Range Rover stop, Lulanaj parks the Charger on a dark, icy patch on the shoulder of the interstate, mid-corner. It’s a favorite type of hiding spot: If troopers catch you speeding here, where a cautious driver would slow down, you were probably going even faster before the radar picked you up. The Stalker Dual radar sits on the dashboard directly in Lulanaj’s line of sight, flashing a red speed number as a vehicle passes. It’s an unlucky lottery for a speeding motorist. Hovering between the seats is a laptop computer bolted to the center console, idling on its “Vehicle Inquiry” screen, which spits out information on any license plate a trooper types in. All five traffic stops between midnight and 3 a.m. involve a suspicion of driving under the influence. Four pass the field test. The fifth ends in a DUI arrest. Nelson says empty Modelo bottles were strewn around the car.
It’s a messy situation. I see the driver stumble out for the sobriety test. Before the test is complete, Nelson returns to the Charger to call for backup. The front-seat passenger keeps trying to exit the vehicle, so Nelson stands by her door until the second patrol car shows up. The driver is handcuffed and put in the back of the second prowler. He sure as hell isn’t squeezing in between Schwuchow and me.
A tow truck arrives quickly to get the suspect’s vehicle off the highway, and our convoy returns to Tarrytown to process the arrest.
Stopping this kind of dangerous driver is what keeps troopers alert through an otherwise monotonous overnight shift—“a critical mission of ours,” Lulanaj says. “We get a person who’s driving while intoxicated, they’re obviously going somewhere. They could be going home or going to do something irrational. You don’t know. It’s terrible to have to tell someone that the reason why their significant other is dead is because of someone’s decision to consume alcohol to the point of intoxication.”
As warm as the Charger’s interior is, patrolling the dark in Upstate New York is cold and mostly lonely work. A handful of routine stops punctuate long waits and trailing silences. Not boredom, though, but a vigilant watch to maybe stop a tragedy before it happens.
Keyword: Chasing Speeders and Drunk Drivers With the State Police