By Hal Collier, Retired LAPD
The year was late 1984 or early 1985. I remember because it was around that time that I bought new underwear. Just kidding. It was because I got stupid and promoted to Policeman 3+1 and had to leave my beloved AM watch (graveyard). A 3+1 is a community relations officer but don’t misunderstand, I still worked patrol every day and I was assigned to train probationers. I had to attend neighbor watch meetings and had meetings with my captain. Funny thing, when I was on AM watch I was just a senior officer with over 14 years on the job and no one ever asked my opinion on crime or policy. I promote to 3+1 and I’m suddenly asked for my solution to crime problems. I even was invited to supervisor meetings. I was now included as a member of the Hollywood Training Cadre. Maybe I got smart overnight.
Doubtful!
So I’m working PM watch (4PM to midnight) with a probationer who was known as “Zsa Zsa.” She was called Zsa Zsa because she was born in Hungary and had a very thick accent. She would often be heard saying to her partner, “Vell vhat you vant to do now?” Cute the first few times but after hearing it every few minutes it got real old!
I’m working a watch (PMs) I hate and I’m assigned to work with Zsa Zsa. All this for a 5% pay raise. I should have been ordered to submit to a mental evaluation exam. About four hours into the watch we get a man with a gun call, possible barricaded suspect.
Oh good. Maybe I can talk to someone other than Zsa Zsa, even if he has a gun!
The location is a two story apartment building with a courtyard in between. The PR (person reporting) says the guy with the gun is drunk and has been yelling at kids in the neighborhood. The suspect also speaks broken English.
No problem. So does my partner, just from different continents.
My PR has an apartment right across the courtyard from my suspect and is on the second floor. My suspect is on the ground floor. I make my way into the PR’s apt and look out his living room window. I’m looking right down into the suspect’s apartment. Perfect! I have a visual on my suspect and I have the high ground. I also notice numerous empty Budweiser cans in the apartment. I left Zsa Zsa with another officer to try and keep the media out of my crime scene.
I think things are going pretty good when my lieutenant shows up. Now this lieutenant is a good guy and he lets me be in charge. Most lieutenants wanted to screw up your crime scene until it goes sideways then it’s all your fault.
The PR says to me, “Do you want his phone number?”
Uh what do you think? “Hell, yes.”
I call my drunk suspect and in broken English we talk. He is very drunk but speaks enough English to communicate that he means no harm. I use my best crisis negotiations training and tell him, “Hey stupido, put your gun down on the floor and come outside with your hands up!”
He hesitates, so I use my ace in the hole card. “Listen if you don’t come out I’ll call SWAT and they will lob tear gas into your apartment and that might even start a fire.”
He says, “Give me a minute to go to the bathroom.” Now, I’m a community relations officer and concerned with quality of life issues. I told him to go pee then come out.
I’m running downstairs as he’s coming outside. He’s ordered into a prone position on the grass in the front yard. This is going great. I approach and handcuff this desperado. He’s then taken to the closest police car.
My chest is really puffed out as my lieutenant approaches me. He says, “Hal, that was really good police work, but I have to tell you something!”
Uh oh.
“Did you know that when you were handcuffing the suspect your probationer, Zsa Zsa, was pointing a shotgun at your back? You might want to talk to her!”
I’m now speechless.
Zsa Zsa and I took the long way back to the station and we had one of those one person talking conversations, in plain English! My written probationer evaluation for Zsa Zsa that day was longer than the arrest report.
Zsa Zsa made probation and was transferred to a valley division. I heard she later resigned from the department. In 1993, she was arrested and convicted for stalking a well-known news weatherman.
Vel vhat you vant to do now?
Hal
This Ramblings has nothing to do with getting lost but what every rookie had to know, at least in my “olden days.” The first day with a new rookie, the senior officer wanted to get to know his partner. A rookie’s first shift with a senior partner went something like this: 
Tough question, how would you answer? The right answer in the early 70’s was you go after the bad guy after broadcasting my location that I have been shot. Now days we have shooting trauma kits in our equipment bags and maybe if we stop the bleeding, the wounded officer will survive. 
That was a lesson learned after the “Onion Field.”
I was working the Operations West Bureau Violent Crime Task force (OWB-VCTF). Now we were in plain clothes and I hadn’t shaved in three or four days, much to my wife’s disapproval. I was also wearing a wig. I hated long hair and my own dog didn’t recognize me when I came home late at night. We were assigned to a West LA neighborhood where a rash of street robberies were occurring. The suspect would follow home an easy-looking victim, then rob them when they got out of their car. Most were female or elderly.
He’s in the dark, even I can’t see him.
She is still in panic mode.
During my thirty-five years on the LAPD we didn’t have the fancy GPS gadgets that come standard in cars and cell phones today. We sometimes had to ask for directions or depend on our instincts. It helped if you knew which way north was. 
Five minutes later the other Hollywood officer requested a backup on a 415 (peace disturbance) man with a gun. We knew we were close but didn’t recognize the street they were on. 
As you probably know I spent thirty-three years working Hollywood Division and I hardly ever got lost. Well, only a couple of times but I had an excuse. I had a rule, “don’t go south of Beverly Boulevard,” Hollywood’s southern boundary. One time I was assigned a radio call of a “screaming woman” in Southwest Division. The call was at 52nd and Crenshaw, Southwest Division was two divisions away and wasn’t even in my Bureau. I had a vague idea of where 52nd & Crenshaw was—about sixty blocks south of my present location.
Weather was also a factor in some choosing LAPD. Billy was living in Chicago and up to his butt in snow. John was teaching in Michigan and applied at Detroit PD but was told there was a three year wait. His background investigator suggested Southern California police agencies. 
The number one reason: guys were getting out of the military and looking for a job. Quite a few were married with small children and needed to support their family. The majority of the respondents were fresh out of the jungles of Viet Nam—some were drafted, others joined. Doug liked the military but not Viet Nam. Surprisingly, a lot of them were Marines. A few were in military police and infected with being a cop.
The second highest response was they watched Adam 12 and Dragnet on TV. Ed, the oldest, said he listened to Dragnet on the radio, a real generation gap from the rest of us. My son and I used to watch Adam 12 together. He’s also an LAPD cop. I’ve worked with many young officers whose dads and mothers were cops. Keith watched Adam 12 and read Joseph Wambaugh books. [As did I. My father was an MP in the Army then his retirement job was as a Deputy US Marshal. Some law enforcement blood there. Adam 12 was a big show in our house. Years later, the dispatcher, Shaaron Claridge, who did the broadcast in the show opening, was my model for radio procedure. There was no formal training other than OJT-on the job.–Thonie]
