Category: Ramblings by Hal

After over 3 decades in LAPD patrol, Hal Collier has learned a thing or two. Take a look at some of his stories–you’ll be glad you did.

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Ramblings by Hal

Prostitutes, part 2

Vallejo, Ca. prostitute photo by sfgate.com
Vallejo, Ca. prostitute photo by sfgate.com

By Hal Collier

The following stories are true and come from the annals of my memory.  On the police department, we have shifts, some over- lapping to cover busy times.  Prostitutes have the same kind of shift.  Most people think prostitutes only work late at night.  It’s really a matter of supply and demand.  The demand is higher late night/early morning.  What most people don’t know is that prostitutes work split shifts.  I think they have a poor union.

 

The following is not new for any cop who’s worked the streets for any time.  Some girls work the morning rush hour.  Yea, that’s right— some men drive right by the Starbucks and pick up a prostitute for their pick-me-up before heading into the office.  Wash your hands after shaking his hand.

 

Then there’s the lunch crowd.  That’s right, your fellow employee or boss goes to lunch and comes back and acts like he hasn’t eaten all day.   There’s even the going home group, nothing like a quickie before going home to the little woman and kids.  Bet you’ll never look at a soccer dad at practice the same way again.

 

Then the real business starts.  That’s right, the night trade.  That’s when hundreds of girls appear.  Some of their customers are regulars; others just had a fight or breakup with their wife or girlfriend.  A lot of customers just left a bar or strip club.  Anyway, a little alcohol and thinking with the wrong head and streets of Hollywood are crammed with demand and looking for the right supply.

 

When a trick gets robbed or his wallet stolen, he thinks he’s going to fool the cops with a lame story.  The following are a few that I heard.

 

“Officer, I just got robbed by this lady on Sunset!”

“I was driving on sunset after working late and this girl needed a ride for three blocks.  She stole my wallet.”

“She took it right out of my pants pocket when we were looking at the moon.”

“Officer, this girl with a husky voice and large hands stole my wallet at Highland and Yucca.”  I told them that the girls at Highland and Yucca were not girls they were drag queens.  Some were surprised and some knew.  I always looked for their reaction.

 

Here’s one of my favorites.  “Officer, I was driving home and I got really tired. I checked into this motel to take a nap before driving home. I napped for a 1/2 hour and when I woke up my wallet was gone.”

 

Yea right, the price of a motel room—$100, a half hour nap and finding your wallet stolen.  Cancelling all your credit cards and making up a better story to tell your wife—priceless.

 

Some were more honest.  “Officer I picked up this girl and we went to a motel room. I got undressed and she told me to go take a shower.  When I got out of the shower she was gone and she took my pants and wallet.”

“Officer do you have a pair of pants I can borrow, I can’t let my wife see me like this?”  You’ve got to be kidding me, like I carry around an extra pair of pants in moron size!!!

 

I used the same line for most of these so-called victimless crimes.  “You came to Hollywood to get ‘screwed’ and you got ‘screwed.’”  You can exchange ‘screwed’ for the word I really used.  Bet you won’t hear that at a Neighborhood Watch Meeting.

 

Here’s another way to get ripped off while taking a half hour nap.  I had a snitch who told me of a prostitute who would get a client and tell him to park on the side street.  Leave your wallet under the front seat of your car, there’s some crooks around here.  She would walk to the motel and tell an accomplice what car her latest love was driving.  He would break into the car and steal the wallet.   I staked out on this information and caught the wallet thief.

 

I’m an old dog but I can learn new tricks.  I started getting calls of men having their wallets stolen at Sunset and Orange.  This was a favorite hangout for prostitutes.  The girls would work the street corner and the pimps would sit inside the IHOP and watch their employees.

 

Photo by bbc.co.uk
Photo by bbc.co.uk

The story usually went like this:  A lone male would drive up Orange and stop at the red light.  These girls would run out and reach in the open window and rub him, you know where, trying to get him to agree to a date.  One of the girls would remove his wallet.  All the girls would then disappear.  After numerous reports that were the same I decided to investigate.

 

One rather busy night I parked my police car a block away, climbed a fence walked through a parking lot and crouched down behind an ivy-covered fence.  I was only twenty feet away from this gaggle of prostitutes.  I’m sure there is a better name for a group of prostitutes, but gaggle seem appropriate after listening to them jabber for ten minutes.  It was like geese flying south for the winter.

 

Ok, I’m crouched down and watching the girls.  This car drives up to the red light.  The girls spring into action.  Four of them run up to the car.  They’re talking dirty to the man driving and leaning into the car.  Soon one of the girls yells, “cops,” and they all run off.  The man drives away and I watch as the girls go through his wallet, dividing up his money and credit cards.  The man was a victim, but with some responsibility for the crime.  Don’t drive around Hollywood with both windows rolled down unless you want your credit card used at IHOP by a pimp.

 

Next, Drag queens.         Hal

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Soiled Doves, part 1

 By Hal Collier

 

The following stories are true and are my recollections and certainly don’t reflect the views or opinions of the LAPD.  Those of you have followed my stories must have known that I would eventually write about prostitutes.  How could you write about Hollywood without bringing up the subject of prostitution?  Hollywood is the prostitution capital of the world.  Just about every city has prostitutes and an area, kind of like an auto mart, where you can go and pick out the model of your choice.  Hollywood is synonymous with prostitution, the world’s oldest profession.

 

I’m not an expert on prostitutes. I never worked vice, or (PED) Prostitution Enforcement Detail, but you can’t work Hollywood patrol for thirty-three years without some contact and stories.   Prostitutes can be broken down into numerous categories: Men seeking women, men seeking men, men seeking men dressed as women, men who claim they didn’t know it was a man, yea right, AKA Drag Queens, and women seeking women.  I’m not even going touch the different fetishes that are out there, or hotel, or outcall prostitutes.

 

Well, okay, just one fetish.  I saw this trick circling the block looking at all the female prostitutes.  There was this one girl that was quite good looking.  This trick drove right by her and picked up a rather heavy set girl that was testing the strength of her spandex wardrobe.  Some guys just like “a little junk in the trunk.”

 

In the early days, most of the prostitutes knew that blue suit cops couldn’t arrest them for prostitution.  Oh sure, we could write them tickets for standing in the roadway and book them for any unpaid tickets, but who wanted to spend the next three hours booking a female at Van Nuys or Sybil Brand Institute?  Our Vice Unit, the largest in the city, could only arrest so many prostitutes a night and those they did arrest were soon bailed out by their pimps.  The prostitutes also knew that vice officers had Sundays and Mondays off.  Some of the prostitutes who actually graduated high school would call the vice office and if no one answered they would go to work without fear of being arrested.

 

I remember the prostitutes used to stand on the boundary line between the city and county, in front of Bullwinkle on Sunset.  If they saw a Hollywood police car they would move to the county side, if it was a sheriff’s car, they would move to the city side. I notice that they preferred the city side, so I asked one girl why.  She told me that LAPD writes us tickets and books us on our warrants but the sheriffs make us put our hands on their car window ledge and they hit our fingers with their metal flashlights.  Bet you never heard that on ABC News.

 

We had a new captain who wanted to know just how bad the problem was.  He wouldn’t come out at night and see for himself so he sent a sergeant out to do a whore count.  The sergeant made a drive on Sunset Boulevard from the county line, where Bullwinkle stands, to Normandie, Hollywood’s eastern boundary.  He counted over three hundred girls. If you figure in the ones that were already on a date in a motel or on car date, the number is higher.  Tax them and reduce the deficit in six months.

 

The problem was so bad at one time, that I was enroute to a high priority radio call.  I was driving westbound Sunset Boulevard at Vista.  I look over at the Denny’s and see a prostitute leaning into a car stopped at the stop sign.  She is performing the kind of sex that Clinton denied getting in the Oval Office.  Think about it: you go to the theater, tickets $90, night club & drinks, $100, late meal at Denny’s $40.  Watching a prostitute give some motorist oral sex right outside your booth, priceless.

 

A lot of non-police think prostitutes look like Julia Roberts in Pretty Women, or Melanie Griffith in Body Double.  Quite the opposite, even the whores classified themselves.  The west end prostitutes were usually a better looking, better dressed and of course more expensive dates.  The east end whores were referred to as “Mud Ducks.”  They were the Wal-Mart variety, little quality, but a lot cheaper than Saks 5th Avenue.  They seldom bathed, or put on clean clothes and usually were supporting a drug habit. I suspect that most had STD’s.  Mud Ducks were not allowed to work the West end.

 

Next, I’ll talk about some of the great stories I heard from tricks when they want to make a crime report about how they lost their wallet.

Stay tuned.

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Complaints, part three

 

By Hal Collier

  

IA logo

The following story is true and my last chapter on complaints.  I spent thirty-four+ years on the LAPD and received my share of complaints.  Some I did, most I didn’t do, and a few I was accused of, I wasn’t even there.

 

Serious complaints were handled by I.A. (Internal Affairs).  They were cops just like the rest of us but some I.A. guys thought of us as the enemy.  Almost any cop who wanted to promote did a tour of I.A.  It looked good in their personnel package.  I don’t know if they were rated on how many complaints they sustained (officer found guilty) but some of their tactics were suspicious. 

 

I was a young officer and arrived at work one night after a few days off.  In roll call, I discovered I was assigned to the jail.  Officer Gary Hines thought he was working the jail and dressed for jail duty so we swapped assignments and I worked the desk.

 

Months later, I was told that I’m a witness on a very serious excessive force complaint.  The I.A. cops always told you: “you’re just a witness,” or in today’s language, “a person of interest.” To I.A. it was synonymous with accomplice.

 

IA interviewSergeant Carlson comes to Hollywood to interview me.  He takes me into the captain’s office and sits me down.  He doesn’t smile and opens his briefcase, inside is a tape recorder.  He shows me a work sheet that shows I’m working the jail on the night in question.  I check my officer’s notebook and I see that I marked jail on said date.

 

Sergeant Carlson turns on the tape recorder and begins the interview.  The complaint was that Officer Jack choked out an arrestee in the jail during the booking process.

 

Now, anybody that knows me very well, knows that I have a very good memory.  For the life of me, I can’t remember the incident.  Sergeant Carlson looks at me like I’m the biggest liar in the L.A.P.D.  The old Hollywood Jail wasn’t that big and if anybody got choked out I would have known.

 

After numerous questions and my denial of any knowledge of the incident, Sergeant Carlson pretends to turn off the tape recorder.  He then asks me, “Is there anything else you want to tell me about the incident?”  This time, he’s smiling like were old friends.  I stick to my story and plead ignorance, not a big stretch for me.  As I’m walking out of the captain’s office I look back and see Sergeant Carlson turn off the tape recorder.

 

A few weeks later, I run into Gary Hines in court and he reminds me that we switched and he worked the jail that night. One month later Sergeant Carlson promoted to Lieutenant and transferred to Hollywood. 

 

We never trusted each other.

 

My most serious complaint involved a pimp name “Bobo” and two other black men who picked up a drunk white valley girl at a club.  They took her to their apartment on Beachwood Drive in Hollywood.  After repeated sexual assaults and beatings, the girl escaped and ran into the street, screaming.

 

Dave and I were working the Hype car and our hours were 8 PM to 5 AM.  We responded to the screaming women call and were told that the suspects were last seen northbound on Beachwood in a car.  We stayed with the victim as other cops searched the area.  As luck would have it, the suspects drove back down Beachwood and were arrested right in front of us. 

 

Dave and I drove Bobo and his accomplices to Hollywood station.  We found the victim’s keys under the back seat of our police car.  We tucked Bobo and his friends in a holding tank and went home.

 

A week later, I went to court and testified about recovering the keys in our police car.  For the next few months I was subpoenaed and attended every court hearing.  The jury found Bobo and friends guilty and sent them to prison.  The presiding judge had a question about why Bobo and accomplices were bloody in their booking photos and ordered an Internal Affairs investigation.  Bobo and his cell mates were interviewed and all pointed me out in a photo lineup.  They claimed that I beat them up in the police car on the way downtown to be booked.  That was hours after I went home.

 

Two I.A. sergeants come to Hollywood station to interview me.  They show me the face sheet of the complaint and point to a “PF” initial in the corner.  It represents where the D.A. has said if true there’s a prima fascia case against me for assault under color of authority.  In laymen’s terms that means if I’m guilty, I go to prison.  I can’t go to prison, my son hasn’t graduated 6th grade yet.

 

The sergeants read me my Miranda Rights, which was then unheard of.  They show me pictures of Bobo and his friends after booking.  They have bloody shirts, swollen eyes and fat lips.  When I left them in the Hollywood holding tank they were wearing clean shirts and no visible injuries.

 

Now, I’d like to tell you these two sergeants were smart, but I can’t.  They asked me if I beat them up.  I asked when they were booked at Jail Division.  They said after 10:00 A.M.  I showed them a copy of my daily log and pointed out that I went home at 5:00 A.M.  I then pointed out a photo lineup of the three suspects taken at 8:00 A.M. by the investigating Detective.  Bobo and friends are not beaten up.

 

I look these two I.A. Investigators in the eye and ask, “Do you think I waited around 5 hours on my own time to beat them up.”  They then ask, “Well then, who beat them up?”  I’m exasperated and answer, “How the hell would I know? I’m home in bed.”  These two rocket scientists are going to interview my partner, Dave Balleweg who is off IOD (injured on duty) and living near Yucca Valley.  They call ahead and get directions and set up an appointment.  An hour after the appointment time is past, they call Dave and are lost somewhere near Indio, Ca.  These two are going to keep Dave and me out of Prison. They can’t find Yucca Valley with a road map and directions.

 

Jail-Fight-e1321280138991Later, I was told that Bobo and his accomplices got into a fight in the holding tank and beat each other up. I’m not going to prison, so I don’t have to bulk up to protect myself from a cell mate named Peaches.  They picked me out of the photo lineup because I attended every court appearance.

 

Two short complaint stories.  “Mike” responded to a “burglar there now” radio call.  They detained a couple of guys as suspects.  One was acting like a complete “asshole.” He was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car.  After interviewing everyone and determining that no crime occurred, Mike said, “I guess I’ll have to let this “Knucklehead” go. 

 

Well, the “Knucklehead” complained that he was insulted by the remark.  That’s right, I was assigned to interview eight to ten witnesses and spent dozens of hours investigating this terrible miscarriage of justice.  I tried to rationalize that a “knucklehead” was a motorcycle and not misconduct, but the department wouldn’t buy it.  Mike received a reprimand.

 

photo by utahcriminallaw.net
photo by utahcriminallaw.net

Last one: this officer stopped this nicely dressed lady for running a stop sign on her way to work.  She didn’t want the ticket and wanted to make a complaint against the officer for using profane language.  I was called to the scene.  This particular officer was known for using swear words in a normal conversations.  I was a little worried for him. 

 

When I interviewed the lady she was very prim and proper and obviously well-educated.  Of course, she denied running the stop sign but was more concerned with the officer’s language.

 

I next interviewed the officer and he smiled and said, “Sarge, I have everything on my tape recorder!”  I listened to the tape and this was no lady, she swore like a drunken sailor.  The officer was very professional, he didn’t even call her a knucklehead.

 

I played the tape for the violator and she blushed at first then want to make a complaint against the officer for taping her conversation.  I told her the Police Department encouraged officers to carry tape recorders to avoid just such complaints.  She called me a bad name and drove off.

 

Chief Parks was not asked to come back for a second term and some of the complaint procedures were changed.  Frivolous complaints were made into short form.  One day, I stayed home and completed eight short form complaints in four hours and got paid for eight hours.  I didn’t even have to dress and shave for work.  I was also able to write off my computer on my taxes.

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Complaints, Part 2

Be sure to check out Just the Fact’s, Ma’am on Tuesday, April 1, 2014 for Marilyn Meredith’s guest post on her research for her Rocky Bluff PD series.

By Hal Collier

Undated photograph of former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates is shown in this photograph released to Reuters
Undated photograph of former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates is shown in this photograph released to Reuters

The following stories are true and are from the annals of the Los Angeles Police Department.  As in the previous Ramblings dealing with personnel complaints I will only use first names.  I’d like to stay away from political opinions but the Los Angeles Police Department became a political party when they ousted Chief Daryl F. Gates.

 

In the days of reason, the Chief of Police was picked by the Police Commission, who was appointed by the Mayor.  Once selected as Chief he was in for as long as you wanted.  He was protected by Civil Service and could only be removed if he committed a crime or retired.

 

Back then, the mayor was a friend of the police department and supported the chief.  After the riots, everyone blamed the police and Chief Gates.  Gates was forced to retire and the politicians took over.  The mayor hand-picked Police Chief Willie Williams. It was a big mistake.  He was always in Las Vegas gambling and couldn’t even pass the California Police Officers Standard & Training (POST) a requirement to carry a gun or be a cop in California.  No problem, he was the mayor’s pick.  After five years Willie was not asked to come back.  The new chief was selected from inside the department, Bernard Parks.  He was a strong disciplinarian and he was going to clean up the Police Department.

 

Parks’ first directive was that the Los Angeles Police Department would take all complaints and investigate all complaints.  It didn’t matter how ridiculous or outrageous the complaint was: take the complaint and assign a supervisor to investigate it.  Parks once said department morale was not his problem.  Well, morale took a dive and experienced cops left the LAPD in droves for other departments.

 

Mayor Richard Riordan provided by University of Southern California via voxxi.com
Mayor Richard Riordan provided by University of Southern California via voxxi.com

Now, I’d never imply that Hollywood has a few nut cases but I once took a complaint from a lady who claimed that Police Chief Parks and Mayor Riordan were doing “The big nasty” in her attic and they filled her walls with cocaine.  When you stop laughing, think about this.  I wrote up the complaint and passed it through channels to be investigated.  I’m sure it was not taken seriously but as a supervisor we were not given the discretion to “round file” (trash) these complaints.

 

Chief Parks decided he would check to make sure we took all complaints.  He directed I.A. (Internal Affairs) to call in bogus complaints and then check to see if we took the complaint and submitted it for investigation.  I had no problem with taking the false complaint which took an hour to type out, two hours if spell check was broken, try and find a hard bound dictionary in today’s computer age.  What I didn’t understand was why the complaint came back and a Hollywood supervisor spent hours investigating an incident that never occurred.

 

I once took a false complaint called in about an unknown officer calling a traffic violator a “dumb ass.”  I took the complaint and it went downtown.  A week later it returned for investigation, but it had the same allegations, date and time, but occurred in the San Fernando Valley, fifteen miles from Hollywood.   Now, this bad officer really got around.  I laughed that the Internal Affairs Officer mixed up the paper work.  Yea, I still had to investigate the complaint and spent another two hours of the tax payer’s money.

 

I once was assigned a complaint that involved a Hollywood Officer who was arrested for drunk driving in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve.  It also involved a traffic accident with three college girls from Colorado.  Some of my colleagues thought I was lucky, a trip to Las Vegas and Colorado on city expense.  Ha, if there were trips involved the complaint never would have been assigned to me.  I handled most of the investigation from the beautiful Hollywood sergeants’ room on the telephone.  The farthest I traveled was to a McDonalds’ near USC to interview the officer’s girlfriend.

 

Most days, Hollywood had one or two field supervisors.  A field supervisor is supposed to be in the field keeping the patrol officers out of trouble.  Half the time they were in the sergeants’ room typing up false complaint investigations.  Ok, I’m going to slowly back down off my soap box.

 

Of course, there were the chronic complainers.  James Woodard comes to mind.  He lived about two blocks from the station and hated everyone, neighbors, passing traffic, but especially the police.  He once wrote a letter to our captain, commending me for being professional and complaining about two other officers.  The next week he wrote a letter demanding my letter of commendation be removed from my package and a complaint filed against me.

 

This isn't Hal but it couldn't have been used as proof anyway. Photo courtesy of bigbearbassfishing.com
This isn’t Hal but it couldn’t have been used as proof anyway. Photo courtesy of bigbearbassfishing.com

I was once the subject of a Woodard complaint for an incident on a certain date and time and I wasn’t even in the county that day.  Yep, some poor supervisor spent hours investigating and interviewing me.  The pictures of me and the fish I caught at Big Bear Lake on the day in question was not considered proof.

 

I’ll never forget my first complaint. I had about two weeks out of the academy.  My partner, myself and two other officers were accused of stealing some guy’s money.  Being the probationer, I was taken into the Captains Office and stripped down to my underwear and socks while a sergeant went through my clothes and wallet.  Another reason to wear clean underwear.  Police officers rights hadn’t been invented in 1971.

 

This one involved the first time I was sued.  Some felon claimed that he was beaten by unknown Hollywood Officers.  Of course I was listed as “et al” meaning all officers, but I was being sued for $1,000,000.  I went home and told my wife we were being sued for a million dollars.  Her remark was, “Hal, we don’t have that kind of money!”  I suggested I might work some overtime, sell an organ or sell our child that was going through the terrible two’s.  The law suit was dismissed.

 

Next some more crazy complaints and a couple of very serious complaints lodged against me.

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Officer Complaints, part 1

By Hal Collier

“Any officer who spent time in the streets got complaints, fact of life.”–Hal Collier  

 

The following stories are true and because of the confidential nature of personnel complaints I will not use last names.  Some cops will recognize themselves and others will remember the described incidents.  Non-cops will think some of these complaints are ridiculous and a waste of the tax-payers money.

 

imagesFirst, the legend.  A female, with questionable mental capacity, accused an LAPD officer of stealing her ovaries.  That’s right—the department took the complaint but the investigation stalled when the female refused have surgery to see if her ovaries were missing.

 

When I graduated from the police academy I was sure that I wouldn’t get any complaints.  That lasted two weeks.  I was accused of something I insisted I didn’t do.  Funny, the department didn’t take my word as proof.  After a lengthily investigation, the complaint returned, “not sustained.”

 

LAPD complaints had four results, Sustained= Guilty; Not Sustained= we can’t prove it either way; Exonerated= not guilty; and Unfounded= which meant it was a false complaint.

 

Funny thing about complaints that return ‘Not Sustained’.  The department had the theory that where there’s smoke there’s fire, which translated into ‘Not Sustained’ which meant you were probably guilty they just couldn’t prove it.  Too many ‘not sustained’ complaints showed a pattern of misconduct.

 

Any officer who spent time in the streets got complaints, fact of life.  You arrest some dirt bag and send him to prison for the next three to five years, he’s not going to be your BFF.  He’s going to make an allegation of some sort.  Young officers who have the ambition to promote up through the ranks, leave the streets as soon as possible.  No complaints, no speed bumps on the road to the top.  Some of those on the top were the same ones who decided policy or the discipline you if you got caught calling a non-tax paying citizen an anal orifice.

 

Not all our brass fell into that category.  I once saw a video tape of a Deputy Chief and Commander taking care of business at the rear of Sears during the riots.  The Deputy Chief was butt stroking looters with a shotgun as the commander was clearing the parking lot with his revolver. 

 

I was also fortunate to have good leaders who gave me minimum punishment when I screwed up.

 

Dance: Residents of Mitchell Housing Projects flirt with Officer Devine in Mott Haven neighborhood photo by gold-silver.us
Residents of Mitchell Housing Projects flirt with Officer Devine in Mott Haven neighborhood
photo by gold-silver.us

Some of the more ridiculous complaints were, “My neighbor, a cop for your department, doesn’t mow his lawn every week.”  Another said the cop was ugly, I knew him it was true but wasn’t misconduct.  Many had to do with a cop dating a female, having sex, then not calling her back.  That’s just the way some men are, jerks but not misconduct.

 

Occasionally the female would claim rape.  A whole new set of headaches.  The District Attorney wouldn’t file charges against the officer, but by the time the department was through with the officer, he wished he had gone to jail.

 

Some of the minor offenses included fail to appear in court and fail to qualify on the gun range.  Each of these sustained complaints could result in one to two days off without pay.  How many days off you got depended on repeat offenses.

 

In my early days with the LAPD, supervisors were allowed to determine if a citizen’s complaint was valid.  The lady who called and said that when she opened her bathroom medicine cabinet this officer was inside looking at her.  She was told to take her medication.  No complaint, no lengthy investigation.

 

Later, when a new chief was appointed by the political powers in Los Angeles, he dictated that all complaints would be taken, no matter how frivolous.  They would all be investigated, no exceptions.  To make sure you documented all complaints, the department called in fictitious complaints.  The next chapter will include some of the complaints I took and some I investigated.

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: AM Watch, part 5

 

by Hal Collier

Click on the link in paragraph third from the bottom to read about how cops are trying to improve issues surrounding tired cops.

Who knew that working Morning Watch was so involved?  Morning Watch was that 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM shift. There’s also a reason it’s called “Grave Yard.”  As I said previously some cops never worked Morning Watch or worked it so seldom that still believed the human body was meant to sleep in the dark.  I once had a day watch officer, Bob Plassmeyer, come up to me, shake my hand and thank me.  I asked why and he replied, it’s because of guys like you that I don’t have to work Morning Watch.  Thanks Bob, but I’d rather have a gift card.

photo from wtaq.com
photo from wtaq.com

I loved Morning Watch. It wasn’t too hot in the summer and when it got cold you wore thermal underwear.  It was basically you and the bad guys.  Patrol cops seldom saw the brass and supervision was a little more lax. One of the drawbacks was that you were always eating breakfast.

When I graduated from the academy I was assigned to Morning Watch and I was ignored as far as watch changes. In fact my first fourteen years on the job I worked Morning Watch.

I’m a little ashamed to admit it but I first told my wife I didn’t have enough seniority to ask for a change of watch.  If I worked overtime, I would complain that day watch sucked and I would hate it.  I think she knew.  She just wanted me to be happy.

There were some preparations that had to be made if you’re going to sleep during the day.  First, you had to buy blackout curtains for the windows.  Another option is aluminum foil on the windows. The foil not only kept out the light but it kept the room cooler in the hot summer months.  If you were a little crazy as some suggested, the foil also kept out the radio transmissions from outer space.

A window air conditioner was another good investment. It not only kept you cool but it blocked out the noise of the neighbors barking dog.  The third and the hardest preparation was your beloved family.  Some cops think that the officers who worked Morning Watch were the ones who suffered.  It was their families who suffered.  My wife often packed up the kids and left the house for at least four hours so I could get enough sleep to get through the night.

Sleeping in shifts became normal.  You get off work at 7 A.M. go to bed for a few hours then get up take your children to one of the many programs you signed them up for, go home sleep for a few more hours, get up and go to work.  Then, there were those hot summer days, even with an air conditioner you just couldn’t sleep.  Sleep a little in the morning, then sleep a little in the evening.

imagesWMA3EG59Every so often, you were so tired that you slept all day.  I once got up at 5 PM well rested.  My wife asked if the next door neighbors jack hammering up their sidewalk kept me awake.  I never heard them.

Anyone who doesn’t know cops will never understand the next phenomenon unique only to Morning Watch cops and alcoholics.  That’s right drinking alcohol while the sun is rising in the East.  Most cops rationalize it like this: businessmen get off work in the evening and stop by a bar for a drink to unwind.  Some go home and have a drink before dinner.  Morning Watch cops do the same thing. They get off work and have a drink to unwind, then they go to bed.  The only difference is the looks you get when you stop at the store to buy a six pack of beer on the way home.  I once saw six Vice Officers who had worked overtime waiting in front of a 7-11.  By law, they couldn’t buy beer until 6 A.M. and they were ten minutes early so they waited with the above mentioned alcoholics.

I’d get home at 7:30 to 8:00 in the morning.  My kids would be up and meet me at the front door.  We would discuss world events and I’d have a beer while watching cartoons and eating a bowl of Raisin Bran.  One morning, I was on a day off and my son Bob brought me a beer for breakfast.  Try explaining to a 4 yr old that his father doesn’t drink beer in the morning on a day off.

In December 2011, a study was released by Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital which reported that about 40% of police officers in the U.S. have a sleep disorder.
In December 2011, a study was released by Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital which reported that about 40% of police officers in the U.S. have a sleep disorder.

Even as I gained seniority, I worked Morning Watch.  I found that Morning Watch cops in Hollywood were there to do police work and I liked that.  My last years, my age and body caught up with me.  I found it harder to read drivers licenses in the dark, even with new glasses.  The end took three months.  It started with sleeping during the day.  After four or five hours, I would wake up and couldn’t get back to sleep.  This happened before and after a few days I was so tired I could sleep eight hours.  After starting my third month of only getting four or five hours of sleep a day I came to the conclusion that sleeping during the day was for the younger crowd.

I used my seniority and went to Day Watch.  I stayed on Day Watch until my retirement.  Once, my captain called me at home on a day off and asked me to go back to Morning Watch.  I refused and explained that I had done my time and my wife had already spent too many years sleeping alone.  My seniority protected me from watch transfers and I finished out my career sleeping in the dark and drinking beer at sun down.

I loved the years I worked Morning Watch and had a lot of good memories.  I worked with some of the best cops on the LAPD and made friends that last today.  Morning Watch was not for everyone but it sure worked for me for a long time.

Hal

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: AM Watch, part 4

By Hal Collier

Here is another Ramblings story about working Morning Watch.  Those cops who spent most of their time working Day or Pm Watch will scoff at sleeping on duty, but try sleeping in the day with small children in the house, or the sounds of everyday street noises.

 

Some officers who refused to park and sleep, fell asleep at the wheel.  Some hit parked cars and more than one cop fell asleep at the wheel of a police car while stopped at a red light.  They were usually awakened by some citizen knocking on the driver’s window, yelling, “Officer, are you all right?”

 

Albany, NY cop sleeping in car.
Albany, NY cop sleeping in car.

Remember, I mentioned how hard it was to hide a black and white police car? Well, hide one with the intention of closing your eyes and catching a quick nap.  First and foremost, you need to find a location where some terrorist or dirt bag won’t find you.  Second, you need to find a location that the new sergeant who’s trying to make a name for himself, can’t find.

 

Third, don’t park in a spot that some citizen will find and call the Watch Commander to complain about how much he pays in taxes not have cops sleeping on his dollar.  I’ll bet you didn’t know this much thought went into grabbing a quick nap, did you?

 

Usually, the senior officer picked the spot.  It had to be close to the center of Hollywood, in case you had to respond to an emergency call or meet that pesky sergeant.   If you were buried high up in the Hollywood Hills, it would take you a good half hour to get to Hollywood Boulevard and then you had to explain where you were.  If you were too close to Hollywood Boulevard, a transient, looking for recyclables, would be knocking on your window asking if you had any cans in the back seat.

 

Hollywood Bowl parking lot (top)
Hollywood Bowl parking lot (top)

One of the best spots was in the Hollywood Bowl parking lot. It was close to Hollywood Boulevard yet out of public view.  Across from the Bowl was the Odin parking lot.  In the back of the lot was a ramp that opened up to about twenty parking spots.  It might have been for employees working during the Hollywood Bowl season.  Anyway, it was out of sight and had large trees lining the parking lot.  If you backed into one of the spots you had a steep hill at your back and a view of the ramp in front.  I only mentioned the trees because in later years the police helicopter couldn’t see your police car from the air.

 

One night there were four police cars in the Odin lot, each taking turns sleeping and handling radio calls.  The rule was the first police car in the Odin lot had to chase out the homeless but he got to log it as extra patrol.  Another good spot was an upper lot at Universal Studios.  It was remote but a fair distance from Hollywood Boulevard.  It was also patrolled by the sheriffs.

 

Odin was the best. Now, I’ll describe some of the worst.  I mentioned the short one block alley on Cahuenga West, my partner picked to rest before eating.  The SLA dropped off their propaganda tapes at radio station KPFK a block away in 1974.  Sometimes a cop would pick a dead-end street up in the hills, only trouble was that all the prostitutes liked those streets as well to complete their business transactions.

 

One ingenious officer, (Mike Brambles) found what he thought was the perfect spot.  They were building brand new houses right under the Griffith Park Observatory on Los Feliz.  The houses were almost completed and he discovered that he could back his police car into the garage and close the door.  He just needed to be awake and gone before the workers arrived.

 

This night, the officer was working a report car, which means he was alone.  It was slow and he backed into a garage and closed the door.  He was careful to shut the engine off so he didn’t asphyxiate himself.  He woke up before the workers arrived but not before a truck dumped a load of sand in the driveway blocking the garage door.  He frantically called a friend to bring him a shovel so he could dig his car out of the garage.  True story.

 

LA Coliseum tunnel
LA Coliseum tunnel

There is a legend of two officers parking their police car in a tunnel at the Coliseum.  It was so tight that they couldn’t open their car doors.  The car battery died as they slept and they had to break out the rear car window to escape. Truth or legend?

 

The officers were not the only ones who slept on duty.  I was working with this brand new rookie and at about 4 A.M., we needed gas.  I pulled into the police garage which was across the street from the station.  As I pulled up to the gas pumps, I noticed a sergeant’s car parked between two other police cars.  The rear door was open and a pair of feet were sticking out.  The rookie also noticed the feet and thought we should investigate.  I asked him if his old employer was holding his job for him.  He replied “no” and I advised him pump the gas and clean our car windows and mind his own business.   He made probation and later he was my lieutenant.

 

Another time, I had this probationer who had a little problem with priorities.  He shows up at work and as we leave the station, he tells me, “We have to take it slow tonight!”  He goes on to tell me that instead of sleeping, he went to a Doobie Brothers Concert in Santa Barbara. I reminded him that if he fell asleep he might need his old job back.

 

Flip the coin.  I make sergeant and am transferred to Southeast Division.  That’s right—Watts.  Now, one of the first lessons you learn working Watts is don’t sit in your car, even to write in your log.  The less friendly inhabitants had a tendency to take pot shots at the cops.  As I described in a previous Ramblings, Morning Watch in Watts was very slow.  Watts was nothing like Hollywood.

 

I knew the cops were Hitting the Hole but I just wondered where and why I wasn’t invited.  Of course, the reason was that when you promote you become one of them instead of one of us.  It was just as well—I might miss watching the sun rise over the Watts Towers.

 

I had a former Hollywood cop approach me in the parking lot at end of watch and tell me how they turned over every rock and just couldn’t find anything to arrest.  I laughed and asked to see his log.  They showed ten miles all night.  I smiled and told him that if you Hit the Hole for half the night, you should drive up and down the freeway a few times to put extra miles on the police car.  That way, it didn’t look like you were parked most of the night.  His eyes lit up and he knew that I knew. Then I told him, “I know what you were doing. I just don’t know where.”

 

I was driving around Watts one very quiet night and couldn’t find anyone doing any police work. I was southbound on Figueroa in an industrial area that bordered the Harbor freeway.  An emergency call came out and as I was making a U-turn I almost got run over by the entire watch exiting from behind a closed warehouse.  I took that secret with me when I left Watts a few months later.

 

The next Ramblings will be the last on working Morning Watch and it will give some of you a different perspective of Morning Watch Cops.        Hal

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Hitting the Hole, Part 3 of Morning Watch

Here in Northern California, we called ‘Hitting the Hole’ something else–‘hitting the wall’. It’s when you’re so tired that you can’t keep your eyes open. If you’re in Dispatch, you normally cannot get up and walk around. You’re tethered (literally and figuratively) to the radio console. Imagine calling 911 and no one there to answer. Anyway, until Hal wrote about this, I didn’t know there was any other way of expressing it. Anybody heard any other terms for it?

—Thonie

By Hal Collier
If you’re still awake from my last Ramblings about working Morning Watch, this won’t put you to sleep! I’m going to talk about “Hitting the Hole.” It’s not what the non-police might think. Hitting the Hole was cop talk for catching a few winks in your police car on duty. Hitting the Hole may take two Ramblings—after all I worked nineteen years of Morning Watch.

I don’t know of any cop that never hit the hole on duty or any division that officers didn’t do it. In some divisions the officer and supervisors hit the hole together.

I can just hear the citizens and politicians yelling about our tax dollars paying the cops to sleep. Before you call for an investigation, I’ve seen some of our politicians asleep during civic meetings. Don’t we pay firemen to sleep every day? I could show you pictures of city workers sleeping in their trucks and these are all during the day after a night off.

I’m not going to justify sleeping on duty but sometimes your body just needs sleep. I’m going to give you an example. A cop works Morning Watch, he works all night, gets off at 7:00 A.M. He has to be in court at 8:30 A.M. He jumps into his court suit, grabs two cups of coffee and drives downtown. He checks in with the district attorney and discovers that the court has a full calendar. The officer is told that his case is low on the list of cases to be heard. The office slumps onto those hard wood benches and listens to numerous cases. The district attorney tells the officer his case won’t be heard until after the noon break.

After the noon break, the district attorney advises the officer that the defendant’s attorney has a trial in another court and yours might be the last case heard. Ok, it’s 3 P.M. and the officer spends ten minutes on the stand and is excused. The officer has now been up for over 24 hours. He drives home in rush hour traffic, grabs a quick bite to eat and tries to sleep. He has to be back at work in 4 hours.

Craig Bushey said that after a few days in court and working Morning Watch he was stopped twice by the same officer for possible DUI, on his way to work. Just tired, but the CHP officer asked Craig to take another Freeway to Hollywood.

Have you ever been really tired and know that you have to get up early? You look at the clock and think, if I get to sleep right now I’ll get four hours sleep. Thirty minutes, later you recalculate: if I get to sleep right now, I’ll get three and half hours sleep. You finally fall into that deep sleep. Then your alarm, or in my case my wife, wakes you. It’s time to get up and go to work. Your eyes burn and your head aches.

cops at Briefing photo by Columbia Tribune
Cops at Briefing
photo by Columbia Tribune

You sit in roll call and try to stay awake. The Sergeant is passing out court subpoenas and he stops in front of you. Crap, you have court in the morning. Some might think this was a rare occasion, but it happened to me numerous time. I once spent three nights working and then three straight all day in court. Thank goodness that I was young and indestructible.

Some officers didn’t have the all-day court excuse. I knew one officer who was building a house with his father. He worked all night and the spent half the day doing construction work. Actually, he didn’t do much work in uniform. Other officers worked off duty jobs, like on movies, and didn’t get much sleep. The other group was just plain hung over. I remember a few nights where my partner was not in Roll Call. He met me in the parking lot and told me I was driving tonight.

Here’s my disclaimer. I hated hitting the hole. I had this fear that some terrorist was going to sneak up on our police car and shoot both me and my partner as we slept. I hope I die in my sleep but I didn’t want to in my 20’s and in a city car bought at the lowest bid.

When you’re on probation you do what your partner says and you keep your mouth shut. Most Hollywood cops only hit the hole for an hour or so. I often tried to convince my senior partner, let me drive up in the hills and you can sleep. I knew all the streets in the Hollywood Hills, including all of Laurel Canyon, before I got off probation. I could drive for an hour in the hills without getting lost.

I’m going to give you a few examples of my falling asleep on duty. I had a training officer, Rick Morton and we worked hard until about 4 A.M. when the radio calls died down and the dirt bags were either already in jail or had crawled under their rocks.
Rick always drove and he would park in this Cahuenga West alley that only ran for one block. He took a short nap and I caught up on the log. After he woke up, we would eat at Candy’s restaurant on Cahuenga West around 5:00. My story: I had been in court for three days and had about ten hours sleep in that time period. We parked in the alley. I was exhausted and thought to myself, “I’ll just put my head back on the head rest and close my eyes, just for a few minutes.” Well, you guessed it—I was sound asleep in minutes, no counting down the time.

Symbionese Liberation-Army photo from tamieadaya.com
Symbionese Liberation-Army photo from tamieadaya.com

I was in that deep sleep when a trash truck pulled into the alley behind us. I didn’t hear it drive in, I didn’t hear it roll out the Dipsey dumpster, I didn’t hear the motor where it raises the dumpster. When the trash truck dumped the trash with a loud bang, I shot out of my seat and banged my head on the ceiling of the police car. My heart was racing and Rick was telling me to calm down. Later I learned that a block away the SLA was dropping off their propaganda tapes at a radical radio station KPFK. Great sleeping spot, Rick.

Another night, Rick bought a rape report call. The rape occurred a week ago so it was only a report. That’s right, I’m going to write the report. We interview the alleged victim, who I suspect only reported the crime when the check bounced. We got the Readers Digest version of her account of the crime and Rick told me to have her sign the report. We then drove to an upper parking lot of Universal Studios. Rick slept while I wrote the report in my lap with a flashlight.

Another time Rick had actually gotten a good days sleep and offered to drive while I caught a few winks. I woke up to Rick singing Elvis songs over the police car PA system. I looked out the window and saw Beverly Hills street signs. Rick was a good cop but couldn’t sing.

Picking a proper “Hole” was an art and you often had to change locations. Next Ramblings, I’ll reveal for the first time some of the favorite sleeping “Holes” of Hollywood cops in the 70’s.

–Hal

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Court, Sleeping and the Job

By Hal Collier

On my last Ramblings, I described trying to adjust to sleeping in the day time and working all night.  Most cops hated Morning Watch, but I soon fell in love with the police work that can be accomplished while the city slept.  It must be in the genes, my son has worked Morning Watch for the past 15 years.

 

On Morning Watch you didn’t have to deal with the regular city traffic, you just had to dodge the drunk drivers.  You don’t have the petty disputes between neighbors, “her cat digs up my daises.”  The best part, the brass was home asleep and not out interfering with the way you handled a radio call.  I spent two years on Morning Watch before my captain could put my face to a name.  That was a good thing.

 

Hollywood in the 70’s was a lot of fun.  You hit the streets at 11:30 PM.  You cleared for radio calls and immediately got five calls, the max.  Apparently the PM watch officers had been submarining to get off on time.  They only had a two hour window before the bars closed.

 

In between racing from call to call, a few “hot shot” radio calls would come out.  To non-police friends, a “hot shot” call was an emergency call demanding immediate attention. Robbery, rapes, drive by-shootings, you know the usual dull stuff.

 

Tiny Naylor's back in the day
Tiny Naylor’s back in the day

On a slow night, usually midweek, you could sneak in a cup of coffee at Tiny Naylor’s.  Tiny Naylor’s was a drive-in restaurant where you got car service—you know tray on your car window.  I can’t tell you how many times I had to set the tray on the ground because we got a hot shot radio call.

 

Weekend nights were very busy and we rushed from call to call until about four A.M.  When it slowed down, you had a chance to catch up on your log.  Again for the non-police friends, a log documented when you got the call, when you handled the call and what time you cleared the call.  It also documented what you did and who you talked to.  Now during a busy night your log was written on a small 3×5 inch scratch pad and you had to transfer it to your log later.  Many a busy night the whole night’s work was on small scraps of paper.

 

Working Morning Watch in Hollywood was like always being in the front of the line at Disneyland rides.  Sometimes after work it would take an hour for the adrenaline to leave your body.  I can’t believe they are paying us for having this much fun.  There were some draw backs—ok, a lot of draw backs.  Some cops couldn’t sleep during the day.  Hell, some couldn’t stay awake for the ride home.  Many a Morning Watch officer owes his life to the guy who invented the freeway lane dots known as Botts Dots.  They woke him up just before he drifted off the freeway.

 

LA Criminal Courts Building
LA Criminal Courts Building

The biggest curse was probably court.  Work all night, change into your Brooks Brother suit—you know the one with the C&R tags and drive downtown.  You could wear your uniform, but then you became an information officer.  Officer, can you tell how to get to?  Sometimes citizens lined up to ask you directions or questions.

 

In the early 70’s court was in the old Hall of Justice. I remember walking past Charlie Manson’s girls during his trial.  Soon after, they built the Criminal Courts Building (CCB) across the street.  The new court house had a check-in and officer waiting room.  If you got there early, you could lay down on the two couch like seats.  If you got there late, you had to sit in a stiff upright chair.  Now, some cops could sleep anywhere.  They removed their suit coat, shoes, gun and laid down for a nice nap.  Me, I found out early, no matter how tired I was, don’t lie down and close your eyes.  After an hour asleep I was like a drunk at a Led Zeppelin concert.

 

Court could be a thirty minute visit or an eight hour ordeal.  Ok, spend all night working, leave work for the drive downtown to court.  Spend eight hours waiting for your case to be called, only to be told at 4:30 PM come back tomorrow.  No problem, I’ll race home in rush hour traffic, eat a drive thru hamburger and grab a quick three hour nap and go back to work.  This was not a rare instance but a regular occurrence.

 

I once had a partner, Mike Brambles, who had been up for two days between work and court.  He fell asleep in Judge Lang’s Court, Division 38.  Not just asleep, but he fell out into the center aisle, passed out on the floor.  Judge Lang put him to bed in his chambers until end of the day and then sent Mike home.

 

Another time I had worked three nights in a row with court.  I walked out of court as the sun was setting.  I walked the three blocks to the Music Center where we had to park.  I was in a daze and couldn’t remember which level I parked my truck, eight hours earlier.  I found it after walking down two levels and everyone else had already gone home.

 

Just about every Morning Watch cop had a court story that the general public doesn’t know about.  Next I’ll write about “Hitting the Hole!!

 

Hal

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Sleeping and the Job

Hal Collier’s next 5 posts will be on Graveyard Shift and how it impacts a the life of an emergency service worker: Dispatchers, Medics, and Firefighters all have to live this way. Firefighters can sleep on the job sometimes but my husband came home dog tired many times because he was up all night on fires or a multi-casualty incident (known as MCI’s in the biz…) of varying types. On another note: I never could split my sleep the way Hal describes. After work, I fell into bed and slept (mostly) 6-7 hours. I also never could have a beer at 7 am. But everyone has their method of coping with the conflicting body rhythms of a graveyard shift. Some don’t cope as well as others. At Petaluma PD one night, a new dispatcher–a cocky young man–insisted to his partners that he never slept on the job. That was until a co-worker tied his shoelaces together one night. The co-worker arranged to have one of the officers flip on his siren and open his mic at the same time. Well, that young dispatcher learned to be cautious of his boasting in the future.

–Thonie

 

 

By Hal Collier

I have been writing my Ramblings for over three years and get a lot of comments.  Some encourage me to keep writing, some suggest that I’m verbose (wordy).  Some suggest that I take up knitting.  Some claim that they never committed anything that might be misconduct and they always were professional.  Of course memories fade, I will always be 160 lbs.

 

I leave everyone’s memory of their career to themselves.  Me, I did some things for entertainment that the department might not like.  I didn’t commit any crimes but I played practical jokes that today would be considered a hostile work environment.  I also accepted a free cup of coffee or a bag of sunflower seeds.  I ate at restaurants that gave cops half price meals, all against Department rules.  I did wear my seatbelt and stopped at stop signs.  I was laughed at for stopping at the stop sign at the police academy.

 

 

Photo by dreamstime
Photo by dreamstime

Working AM watch was living like an owl.  You work all night then sleep during the day.  At night, you go hunting for prey then return to your nest.  As I’ve mentioned numerous times, I worked a lot of Morning Watch as AM watch was called.  Of my thirty-five years on the LAPD I worked Morning Watch nineteen years.  In the beginning, it was the department’s idea.  Later, it was mine.  I fell in love a second time! 

 

I graduated from the Police Academy on a beautiful Friday.  Saturday night I was working Hollywood Morning Watch.  Morning Watch started at 11:30 P.M. on the day before you were scheduled to work.  It was confusing at first but I figured it out. But try explaining to a non-police person.  If you’re working on Monday the 2nd, you go to work at 11:30 PM on the 1st.  You are invited to a party on the 9th.  Don’t take the 9th as your day off, you have to take the 10th.  Got it? Some never figured it out.

 

My first day, I figured I needed to take a nap before work.  Last thing a probationer needs to do is fall asleep during his first day on the job.  I hope four hours will get me through the night.  Ok, I’m more excited than a five-year-old on Christmas Eve and I’m going to take a nap.  OK, I’m a rookie at sleeping in the daytime.  I lie down and toss and turn for three hours.  It’s no use-I’m wide awake.  I yawn on my way to work that night.

 

 

Copper Skillet
Copper Skillet

I found out that a Saturday night in Hollywood is not dull or slow at all.  We race from call to call, stop a kid from committing suicide.  At 4 AM I’m sitting in the Copper Skillet eating breakfast.  I drive home as the sun is rising and people are going to church.  I get home and take off my uniform.  I didn’t get a locker until I had been in Hollywood for over a month.

 

I’d spent an hour telling Terri, my wife, about every minute of my first night, including the pancakes I had for breakfast.  Then, I went to bed and spent a good four hours sleeping.  I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.  Later in the evening I got another two hours of sleep, and went to work.  This sleeping in the daytime might take some practice.

 

Two days later, I get a few days off. Yea, that’s right a Wednesday, Thursday.  You didn’t think a rookie was going to get a weekend off, did you?  So after work, you are tired but it’s your day off and you don’t want to sleep it away.  You try to stay awake but by 6 PM you’re asleep on the couch.  After seven hours of sound sleep, you now wake up well rested.  The only problem is it’s 3 AM.

 

I needed a new method.  After all those years, my system was take a four hour nap before work after a day off.  I sleep four hours after work with a day off ahead.  This worked for me and after a while I had no problem sleeping during the day.

 

Of course no system is perfect.  During the first year of my probation, Terri was working and I had the house to myself, except for my dog and the telephone.  The dog barked at the door to door salesmen, as well as the mailman. 

 

phone ringingThe telephone was a different story.  Non-police friends would call during the middle of the day and say, “Hey Hal, what are you doing?” 

“I was sleeping, I have to work tonight.” 

Non-police friends soon become non-friends.  They just don’t understand and who wants to go out on the town on Wednesday night?  Cops are accused of only hanging out with other cops and that’s part of the reason.

 

Another time I was exhausted and was in a deep sleep.  The phone kept ringing so I got up and answered it.  “Hello this is the LA Times and I’m offering you a 1 year subscription for half price.” I lost my usual congenial personality.  I told him where he could put his rag newspaper and if he wanted help, I’m off Thursday.

 

Another time I was sound asleep and I hear my 2 year-old-son running down the hallway toward our bedroom.  I hear Terri yelling, “Bob, don’t wake up your father.”  Bob runs faster than Terri and threw a metal Tonka Dump Truck, onto the bed. It hit an area 8 inches below my navel.  See if you can get back to sleep after a shot to your ????.

 

Next I’ll talk about court, days off, and split shifts of sleep.     Hal