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Before going on patrol Friday night, Lt. Joseph Hoffman, a shift commander for Prince George's County District 2, made an important call on his cell phone—to his wife.

He told her he would be home earlier than usual that night—after midnight, he said, when his shift ends.

Hoffman and the rest of the 26 officers on duty that night are on a month-long deployment on the late shift. District 2 officers, who are based in Upper Marlboro, respond to thousands of crimes each year, and Hoffman said officers deal with the dangerous patrols and late hours by becoming close to each other and by joking around.

"I'm not going to compare this with the military, but it's the next closest thing," he said while driving his white unmarked Crown Victoria. "When you look out for each other it brings a certain amount of closeness."

Police District 2 is the county's second largest district, covering the area between Route 295 to the north, Interstate 495 to the west, Route 4 to the south and the border of Anne Arundel County to the east. Hoffman said police pay the most attention to the high-crime areas of Largo and Lanham.

Of the 50 reports the district received of shots fired in September, 15 came from within four square miles of Lanham, and nine came from within four square miles of Largo, according to district figures.

Twenty-one of the district's 56 calls reporting drugs and dangerous substances came from the two towns, as well as 20 of the district's 40 robberies.

Police still find time to "86"—code for meeting in the field—where they swap information, jokes and jabs.

"I tell you what I enjoy most about this job—the characters," said Hoffman, a Dunkirk resident who has been with the county police department for 19 years. "Cops are characters…It makes the night go faster."

But Hoffman said he takes crime seriously. After finishing roll call and administrative work in the office, he said, he likes to get in his unmarked car and drive out to areas where crimes have been reported. He spends much of each shift tearing across the district, following addresses on his data terminal.

The breaks are short and rare. At one of the breaks outside a convenience store, Hoffman greeted another officer, Sgt. Nathan Rogers.

Hoffman spent the next few hours driving around, stopping three suspicious men at a shopping center off Old Marlboro Pike and responding to a traffic accident. It was a slow night for District 2, he said.

Later, at another field meeting, Sgt. Sonny Mrotek explained the relationships between officers.

"When you think about police, think about horses in a stable biting each others' necks," said Mrotek, who was supervising officers north of Route 50, an area known as David sector.

He was joking, and everyone laughed.

Then Hoffman walked back from his car, where he had been checking for crime reports on his data terminal. There was a two-car accident nearby he wanted to investigate. Excusing himself, he sped off into the night.