By Mikey, Retired LAPD
March 25, 2018
In the summer of 1973, as a rookie copper in Rampart Division, I was learning the ways of the LAPD. Every day was exciting for me. I was assigned morning watch, so I got to work at 2230 for a 2400 roll call.
One night, I was in the locker room talking with another copper when four sergeants swarmed into the room and began taking names and serial numbers. One of the senior officers asked what the deal was, and he was told that he would find out later. At the conclusion of roll call our lieutenant told those of us who had had their names and serial numbers documented to report to the Area Commanding Officer’s (CO) office.
In the hallway were five officers standing outside of the CO’s office. Just as I got in line, an officer exited the office, looked at us and said, “that was B**l S**t!” and stomped off. All the guys before me said pretty much the same as they exited.
Then it was my turn. A sergeant and lieutenant (LT) were in the room. The sergeant stood by the light switch and the LT was behind a desk. On the desk was a lunch box, the kind that is rectangle at the bottom and half oval on the top.
The LT instructed me to approach the desk and put my hands out in front of me. He then told the sergeant to turn out the room lights. I heard the lunch box lid open and suddenly an ultraviolet light came up, illuminating my hands. Barely visible were some very little shiny “flakes.” The LT called the sergeant over to the desk and told him to look at my hands.
“What is that?” the L.T. asked.
My response, “I don’t know, sir.”
“Well, it’s on your hands!”
The sergeant turned the lights back on and I found them both eyeing me suspiciously.
“What’s up” I asked.
Silence. Then, “you can go. What car are you working?”
I replied, “2 Adam 3.”
Something told me I’d be talking to the LT again, very soon. My training officer asked me why I had been in the CO’s office, but I did not have an answer for him.
Sure enough, 15 minutes later, “2 Adam 3, see the watch commander.”
Back at the station, I reported to the watch commander and he told me to go back to the CO’s office and report to the LT. In the LT’s office, I was again asked me again what the flakes on my hands were. This time I had an answer for him.
In a somewhat weak voice I said. “Baby powder, sir.”
“Baby powder?”
I told him that in the summer I used it because I sweat quite a bit.
The LT looked at the sergeant with that “ah, ha” look and said to me, “well then, it should be all over your person.” With that he told me to take off my uniform shirt. So, I removed my Sam Brown put it on the desk, pulled my shirt out and unbuttoned it. The LT told me to pull my T-shirt up and he instructed the sergeant to kill the lights. The UV light came back on and wouldn’t you know it, there were flakes all over the place.
Not satisfied with that, the LT had me take my belt off, and pull my pants down. Oh yeah; this is 1973 LAPD, no union rep, nothing. Just as he is working his way down to my knees, the door came open, I heard a hand being slapped and the light came on. From where my watch commander was standing behind me, how do you think it looked? The LT was practically kneeling down in front of me and my pants down to my knees?
“Young lieutenant, that’s disgusting!” My watch commander shouted. Then to me, “Diaz, get yourself put back together and get out on patrol!” God, I felt so, I don’t know, used?
So, here is why this happened. There had been locker break-ins, so the CO’s adjutant had powdered several lockers with the secret stuff and had a couple of the lockers bugged to set off an alarm if they were disturbed. The night I was there, the alarm tripped, the sergeants arrived, and the baby powder made the LT “hot” and all for nothing.
The next night, my training officer brought in a super sized container of baby powder. All the guys powdered up their hands, banged on every locker, went to roll call to await the dreaded “swarm” of sergeants, but nothing happened.
I stopped using baby powder. Just saying.
At about 9:45 I noticed two gangster-looking males sitting on a bus bench in front of the bank. A short time later, I observed a vehicle in a driveway south of the bank. The car was traveling west from the rear of the bank to the front. The vehicle stopped next to the building and I observed two men, in business suits exit the vehicle. One had what appeared to be a small object in his right hand. Both were approaching the night drop deposit door when the individuals got up from the bus bench and approached the two men.
fell to the ground. One of the gangsters from the bus bench reached down and took the object from the fallen man. Then both gangsters then ran north from the incident. The other man began yelling for help. As I approached the scene, I put out, “officer needs help, shots fired, one victim down!” I identified myself to the uninjured man and discovered the victim had been shot once in the stomach. I had observed a robbery. The men were the manager (the injured victim) and assistant manager of a shoe store that was located two blocks north of the bank and were making a night drop of the funds earned by the store that day.
Damn, forgot all about Ron. So, I went into the bar to get him and the look on his face said, “what, did I do something wrong?” When we exited, Ron saw the air unit, all the flashing lights, the coppers and he turned to me an asked, “is this all for me!?”
As Ed mentioned, he would often park and shut the engine off. I seldom did that, but I found the hardest thing to teach a rookie cop was patience. Wait until the crime occurs before you jump in. An example: we got a call of a possible burglar at an apartment building. We did all the right things, approach with lights off, radio turned down and we quietly approached the building. We peeked around the corner of the building. We saw a suspect step into the bushes next to an apartment window, my probationer jumped out and yelled, “police freeze.” The DA refused to file charges, stating we stopped the suspect before he committed a crime. 
At the time that I worked Northeast Vice, we owned Griffith Park and part of the Hollywood hills. Complaints about lewd conduct occurring in several areas of the park required the unit to enforce these laws so that the public could better enjoy the park, it’s many hiking trails and spectacular views of the city.
Rick, my partner, and I were assigned to work that trail. I drew the short straw and would be the ‘trick.’ Rick hid in the bushes where he could cover me and be a witness to the violation while I stood on the trail, the bait. Soon enough came this rather large individual—about 265 pounds and about 6 feet. I was playing with a twig and my arms were chest level. The individual stood about 10 feet to my right and slowly worked his way toward me. Now, the deal was when the violation occurred, I was to step to the side, Rick would emerge from the bushes, we would identify ourselves, advise the guy why he was being arrested, hook him up and off to jail.
I was laying on my back holding onto the guy when I hear Rick sliding on his butt down the hill, shouting for me to hold on. Then, I heard a “snap,” and I found myself looking at the ground, my left leg out to the side. I let go of the guy as the pain started to get serious. Rick sails past me toward the soon-to-be-arrested violator as I am attempting to dislodge my leg. The boot slipped out of the rut and down I went, landing on my left shoulder.
When you are assigned to patrol on the LAPD, it’s mostly working the field with a lot of coppers. The situation also depends on the watch and division as well as the number of units in the field. In specialized unit assignments, the number of coppers is limited, depending on the task. I worked Northeast Division vice from 1978-1980. We had two supervisors and eight vice officers. In 1979, both of our supervisors took vacation at the same time, so patrol loaned us a patrol sergeant to watch over us. Now this supervisor wanted to make good on his loan, so he was very critical about us “doing it right.” I think you can see where this is going.
The first hooker to go down bought Gary’s accent and his want of “Elpoah.” That was a made-up thing, but the girls knew what he wanted. After a couple of arrests, the word got out. We hit a dry spell, Gary got out, and were about to call it when the sergeant asked me to drive the boulevard to check for any girls.
“G#d D—n it, G#d D—n it, holy s**t, G#d D—n it!!! You, you, G#d D—n it!”
For the last ten years, I have worked Christmas Eve for any young sergeant who should be home with his wife and babies. They don’t know until December 23rd, and then I tell the chosen one, “I got it.” Tonight, is the last one for me. I will be 6L20 watch 3. Start of watch is 1815 until 0700 Christmas Day. I got a true story to tell you about Christmas Eve 1992. Its’ a really good one.
Here is where it gets good, but at the time I did not know it was good. There are several hills in Rampart that allow some cool views of downtown L.A., so I go looking for one to enjoy the view and have that smoke. I found myself going up a side street off Temple Street that I’d never been on before and could see that I was going to have a really neat view of downtown. The street is steep, so I know I will get a great view. About three quarters of the way up I see this small-framed woman pushing a shopping cart up the hill. Well heck, I am there to “Protect and Serve,” so I stop the cruiser and get out to help. The look on her face told me I was the last thing she expected.
I truly, truly miss it, but I’ll share this with you and it is gospel. I intended to work until May 15th, 2008. On May 2nd I turned 60 and my wife and the station threw me a surprise party—kinda cool. On May 3rd, I was on patrol with my best bud, John Schick, yup, that guy. At 2100 hours, on the dot, I am stopped at a red light on Hollywood and Vine. I hear this (I did, ‘cause I was there) “You’re done.”
Doc Moggie and the Burglar
According to the officers, Moggie yelled, “You son of a bitch,” leaped over his desk ran to the seated arrestee and began to knock the hell out of the man. The stunned officers and nurse could not believe their eyes!
At 0740, near our end of watch, my partner and I were northbound Figueroa St. at Marmion Way. We were returning from jail division just having booked a man with a warrant.
A jail division sergeant grabbed the motor officer’s right arm which brings the copper out of his trance. He slowly lowers the now very hysterical queen down who fainted as he fell back onto the toilet in the sitting position exactly where he started.
It was early Summer ’93 and I was working Rampart Day Watch as the Watch Commander with the usual inside staff, a couple of desk officers, an assistant Watch Commander and eight units out on patrol. It was a Sunday, quiet and everything was going well until about 12:30 pm when a patrol unit broadcasted that they were in pursuit of a stolen vehicle northbound on Alvarado approaching the 101 freeway. The pursuit then proceeded onto the Northbound 101 and because traffic was light the stolen vehicle accelerated away from the officers.
Crap. I was getting ill just thinking of the s—t storm this was gonna cause and making notifications. I asked, “How many people were in the car?”
But this was Northeast, not Rampart, in the pursuit. The pursuit wound its way through the hills of Northeast heading toward Rampart, so the lieutenant headed in that direction. The road narrowed and the lieutenant saw the air unit. He realized that the observer in the air unit was screaming, “Shop 592, the pursuit is coming at you; Shop 592, the suspect vehicle is approaching you, “Shop………………” Well, guess who driving shop 592? Yup, the lieutenant. He terminated the pursuit with a classic TC (traffic collision)!