?Do you want me to ring your mumma?? was the question meekly put to the drink-driving suspect, sitting handcuffed in the back of the Police Cruiser.

His friend and passenger felt it was the only question to ask of the man who had swerved his car off the road and bolted down a private driveway after spotting the cops parked at the bottom of Cobbs Hill Road.

He clearly got frightened by the four-vehicle convoy that comprised the Police Support Unit on Friday night, and decided to split the scene.

While the majority of officers continued to search and arrest the young people congregating on the street corner ? one was seen chucking a bag of drugs over a wall while two females were wanted on warrants ? others sprinted off in the direction of the vehicle.

It was stopped in a private garden and a beer bottle had already been tossed away by the time the officers swooped.

?Just a normal night,? said PSU boss Acting Inspector Steve Donnelly, looking rather fearsome in his vest, leather gloves, shaved head and with a stick on his belt.

?We just deal with whatever happens. We have the hot spots we also go for, but you can never plan your evening out.?

The run-in with our nervous driver, and even the congregation of kids, were unplanned stops for the convoy of three vans and a car containing the vital sniffer dog.

We had been heading to a Warwick restaurant where there had been complaints of drug deals taking place ? but never made it.

The cell in the back of the van was full for the second time that evening, and it wasn?t even 11 p.m. On our way to the restaurant, an eagle-eyed officer had spotted a suspicious man in a garish ganzi. He and his crack pipe were put in the van before the next stop, which yielded three more bodies. The drink driver, a young lady with a warrant out for her, and then a curious motorcyclist, who had stopped to see what was going on and ended up in the back of a van because of yet another outstanding warrant.

Not only did the Warwick restaurant not get visited, but neither did the West End club that was tentatively scheduled a visit from the 15 frontline officers who deal with weekend public disorder.

Logistics, and the red-tape of booking in prisoners and taking breathalyser tests, ensures that the Police can?t always be out on patrol and trips to the Island?s extremities can be curtailed.

But that is not to say it wasn?t a busy night, with a dozen arrests and around $750 worth of drugs taken off the street.

Early on, trips are made to well-known hangouts, with the St. Monica?s Mission area and Court Street obvious targets.

With no sirens, the convoy swoops on the 42nd Street gangs first, with the officers piling out to search (and often chase) suspects and scour the streets for drugs ? ably assisted by the invaluable dog, who unearths our night?s first find. Seven bags of marijuana, with a street value of $50 are collected.

Unfortunately, and this is a common occurrence, the drugs and our first two suspects, who rather conveniently had more than $2,000 on them in cash, are not found together.

Although it looks like they are the owners, without proof, there is nothing that can be done in terms of bringing the guys to court.

Frustrating? ?It is a little,? conceded Act. Insp. Donnelly. ?But just by being here we are disrupting the drug dealers? trade, we are causing them to think a bit harder, we are appeasing local residences and we are taking drugs off the street.?

Some nights, the PSU can haul in thousands of dollars worth of marijuana and crack as well as taking untold quantities of weapons off the streets.

Much of what this elite unit do is preventive.

With 42nd Street over with, and a quick, if unsuccessful, chase on Friswells Road, we move on to Court Street.

Clearly used to the visits, many of our street friends are already spreading themselves up against walls by the time the Police order them to do so, but there are some that do not like to see the reassuring presence of the boys in blue at that time of night.

?Who the f*** do you think you are, white boy?,? screams one Court Street patron, unhappy that an officer is keen to search his pockets.

?This is my country, what are you doing here you f***** pig?? His attitude, it seems, is not unique. Throughout the evening, threats and general hostility are encountered. This is the sharp end of policing, and this is what you expect.

With the early ?hotspot? visits out the way and journeys to restaurants curtailed by unexpected drink drivers, crack smokers and delinquent youths, the public order part of the evening begins in earnest.

We drive around the back of Hamilton in search of a suspect who fled the scene of a Reid Street assault, but when the radio crackles in with news that the complainant doesn?t want to press charges (another frequent occurrence) we head to the 24/7 for a well-deserved coffee.

Just as we are ready to disembark the van, the call comes and we rush to the Captain?s Lounge for a street brawl. Scores of onlookers pile into the street, many it seems just to abuse the cops, to watch the proceedings. The suspect is detained and we move out. Job done.

Then it is to Front Street for the end-of-the-night drunken violence, of which there is plenty.

We chase down a couple having a domestic, needless to say she doesn?t want to pursue her complaint, a call-up to Docksiders yields further sneers from the public but nothing really to trouble the thin blue line.

An Emporium scrap does warrant our attention, with a blood-stained drunk wanting us to arrest the man who left him with a swollen eye and a nasty gash on the side of his shaved head.

The suspected attacker is arrested, but our victim, full of the excesses of a Friday night, ends up in the van himself after his bravado and aggression leads to an officer getting shoved.

All of these incidents, although eye-opening for The Royal Gazette reporter and photographer, are very much run-of-the-mill for the boys (and girls) in the PSU.

Their job is to combat anti-social behaviour and they will go as far, and do as much, every night as their resources allow.

The graveyard shift is not a nice one, the people you come across, as a rule, are not nice ones, and, intriguingly, the smell emanating from a large number of our temporary passengers in the van?s cell, is not a nice one. But it is a vital job which officers in the Police Service are queuing up to do.

Every night is different, with various offences being committed by various people across various parts of the Island. Often the only thing that Bermuda?s criminals have in common is that most of them want to talk to ?their mummas? after their clashes with the law.