The cars envisioned in La Woman were black and white--of course they were. The police cars in the long running TV series adam-12 were black and white. Broderick Crawford always called for a black and white from his tricked out Buick Roadmaster in the Highway Patrol show. You'd never catch Jack Webb and Harry Morgan calling for anything other than a black and white to back them up on Dragnet. and if my fading memory bank serves me right, the interceptors used in Mad Max were black and white. Cop cars should be black and white just like fire engines are red or anna Nicole is blonde. It's the way things are supposed to be.
When I joined the Santa Monica Police Department in 1971, the marked police vehicles were black and white, and so were the motorcycles. The helicopters were black and white, too, or at least the numbers were black and the Hughes 300C helicopters were white. But you get my point. I drove a police car and the folks I stopped, chased, trained, assisted, took to Olive View, dragged to the hoosegow and, on occasion, raced to the hospital, knew it.
One day, while driving on Wilshire Boulevard, I was flagged down by a fellow. as I pulled to the curb and rolled down the passenger's electric window, the lad leaned in and asked, "Hey Reid, where's Malloy?" I'd have never gotten that sort of positive interaction from a citizen while operating a white car.
But somewhere around 1973, I guess, things began to slip. There was a growing clash between beauty--you know, the daintification of the police and the need for the prettying up of the cars and bikes--and the growing inroads of political correctness.
The first all white police cars began to show up. But they weren't pure white, like the old days, either, they were a sort of bone white. Sure, they were nice and cute, with glossy and reflective bright royal blue lettering instead of black. Big blue numbers on the roof and trunk lid instead of the old black numbers. But they weren't the same and it was hard to believe that black was suddenly obsolescent. We worried that blue uniforms might go the same way and conjured up various outfits, band uniforms, pink epaulets, gorgets, white boots, plumed hats, fringe, subdued badges, berets, booties, platform shoes with fish in their clear soles--well, you get the picture.
Cops used to use seniority, rank, threats of exposure about unsatisfactory dates, recently uncovered genetic mutations in family lineages resulting from good detective work, past debts, repeated failures to imbibe, neglectful behavior at police bars, the inability to hold strong spirits consistently, the threat to expose the proscribed practice of the hounding of partners for short term loans, poor qualifying scores at the police shooting range, the failure to introduce partners to attractive relatives, forgetfulness, amnesia, the roles played in high school stage productions, repeated attempts to join the fire department--all manner of illicit police behavior in order to get the marked vehicles for patrol, such was the inbred police distaste for the all white cars.
The spiffy white cars weren't recognized by the public and the crooks either. It took longer for the honest folk to pull over for their ducats, just as it took longer to run down the fleeing hoodlums. Meter maids wrote you tickets, not realizing that it was a police vehicle until weeks after the cars were in service, situations which were hard to explain for both parties. and worst of all, surrounding jurisdictions looked down on you. Sure you may have sported the exact uniform, the same type of badge and baton, the same stripes and hash marks, toted the same hog's leg, listened to the same radio, but the car, the doggone cars, were really déclassé.
What happened to the old black and whites? Did they go to the bone yard? No, they had their roof lights removed and were turned into pastel colored unmarked traffic cars. Sure, you could write a lot of tickets and book a load of deuces in a canary yellow, a sky blue or a mint green undercover car, but golly sakes, what a dreadful fate for an old war horse. They weren't even auctioned off so some greasy buffalo hunter could end up driving one around with the city seal and numbers sanded off, with the black front and rear still visible and with the police pack muffler still audible to the passers by.
Later, the City, in a further attempt to balance the budget on the heads and seats of the police officers, tried to use smaller police cars and their more economical fuel standards, and tested Chevy Nova's for awhile. This unsatisfactory program was phased out after a few pairings of the likes Thomas "Tiny" Blanchard, 6'7", and myself, 6'4", resulted in our singular inability to get first get into the darn things--"like loading a sausage by hand with a spoon and looking far less pretty," according to one veteran lieutenant with hash marks from his wrist to his elbow--then out of the vehicle in less than about two minutes on a hurry call. Then our secondary problem became quite clear--that of stuffing the unfortunate racketeer into the remaining three or four square feet of space remaining in back after the cage, seat, drive train hump and roof padding were accounted for. a number of transgressors so transported swore that being hauled around in such a confined hotbox was a stint worse than being jumped up and down on by hopped up gangsters in County--especially when the slightest touch of the brakes pushed the hoodlum's chops and snoot into the sharp metal screen, and the accompanying acceleration then peeled them away, leaving the pattern branded on his mug.
and so it rested in Santa Monica, where Tom Hayden once sat in City government and lived with Jane Fonda on Beat 2, until March 14th of this year, when the Santa Monica City Council, finally gave the thumbs up on a return to black and white police cars.
But this particular good turn for the police didn't just come out of right field. It came, rather, from the long time campaigning of Chief James Butts, a tireless proponent for returning the cars to black and white--for the cops in cars.
The Chief, in his March 15th memo, expressed the comments of the city councilors he'd heard, "It's not the color of the cars, it's the people inside them." and went to say that it all came about, "because of our past performance, community engagement and professional deportment," giving credit to the cops where credit was due.
When I first went on the job I remember an old cop asking me what color cops were. When I hesitated, he told me, "We're blue, son. Ever last one of us."
It seems like the Santa Monica City Council has finally figured that out. Thanks, Chief.
Colors.
Where do I sign?
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2024 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2024 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement