drag queens – Thonie Hevron Author

By Hal Collier

The fourth part of a planned trilogy.

If you missed the first 3 parts, e-mail me and I’ll send them to you free of charge. Of course I live in California so I’ll have to charge you a tax of $12.96.

My last Ramblings talked about how to identify a drag queen. Now I’m going to tell you how I became a Department expert in a field so disgusting. My background: I worked A.M. (graveyard) watch for the first fourteen years of my career on the LAPD. The hours were roughly 11:30 P.M. to 7:30 A.M. During those hours the prostitutes come out from under which ever rock they dwell. It started out innocent enough. I took a couple of reports when men dressed as women robbed their customers. The suspect usually gave a first name to their new-found love. Usually Steven was changed to Stephanie, Robert to Roberta etc. and there were always an abundance of Bambi’s, well, you get the picture. After a number of reports where Roberta robbed Paul to pay Peter the pimp, I thought that Roberta was driving up Hollywood’s crime stats. All I needed to do was ID and arrest Roberta. KISS—”keep it simple stupid.”

I began stopping drag queens who matched Roberta’s description. I filled out a field interview (FI) card and if possible took a picture. After collecting a few dozen FI cards I needed something to store them in. My wife bought me a green plastic receipt box. It was the perfect size and became known as the “The Green Box.” A few officers called it the “Drowning Rat File.”

Soon the “The Green Box” became two boxes, A thru L was the Green Box an M thru Z was a tan box. Whenever possible, the suspects were taken to the station where we had a strip mug photo machine. Just like you had at the carnival, four pictures for a buck. The “Green Box” became popular not only among officers but the drag queens themselves. If an officer was looking for a particular he/she, he would look thru the “Green Box.” The drag queens wanted to see if we had a good picture of them. One even offered to go to the station for a better picture. The Green Box evolved into two I-Card books. Each individual had it’s own card with all it’s alias’s, DOB’s (date of birth), criminal arrest numbers and a small picture. Once a homicide detective used my Green Box to ID a murder suspect.

I was the keeper of the Green Box or the drowning rat file books. I guarded them with your tax dollars. The information contained hundreds of hours of computer time as well as a who’s who in the drag queen hall of fame. I once used the Green Box as a Christmas list. I checked the current Hollywood drag queens for warrants. I used the wanted queens as a shopping list. Two days before Christmas I arrested and booked the “Ladies” who caused the most crime. It was my present to Hollywood Officers who might otherwise have to take crime reports with drag queens as suspects.

Some of my non-police friends might wonder why I spent so much time and tax dollars on drag queens. It was because of RD’s (Reporting Districts) and crime stats. Each police car is assigned an area which is broken down into RD’s. The officers assigned to an area are somewhat responsible for the crimes in their area on their watch. Sometimes the Watch Commander (W/C) would say “Collier, why is your area leading the division in robberies?” I’d say, “It’s the prostitutes, they’re robbing their customers.” Wrong answer! The watch commander would counter, “Collier, what are you doing about it?” Do you still believe it’s a victimless crime? My robbery statistics and watch commander didn’t say so.

My W/C said I had to do something, so I figured I would move two hundred drag queens out of my area and give my problem to the bordering car’s area. My area was Hollywood Boulevard from Highland to Vine, Franklin to Fountain. I couldn’t drive them west, that’s where the Chinese Theater was. Unwritten rule, no prostitution around the tourist attractions. I’ll just get them to go east of Vine St.

I started telling the queens who frequented my area that if they worked east of Vine I wouldn’t harass them, I mean give them selective enforcement. I even wrote up an east of Vine pass. About a dozen of them started working east of Vine. I would stop by and compliment them on their nice clothes and make-up. I didn’t write them any tickets or check them for warrants. My crime statistics dropped, and crime went up east of Vine. Other officers started giving out RD (reporting districts) maps detailing which areas they could ply their trade.

From Hal's own library — From Hal’s own library

Some officers become department experts in narcotic sales and identification. Me, I became an expert in drag queen recognition. It started out one night when my partner and I saw this guy trolling for a drag queens. We ran his license plate and it returned to a John XXXXX, legal owner, LAPD Credit Union. Oh, oh, my partner recognized the name as a classmate who was now working Rampart Division. We looked at the driver and sure enough it was an off duty cop. After notifying a supervisor we kept an eye out for the cop. A month later a Hollywood sergeant stopped the cop with a queen in his car. He resigned but later requested a trial with a police review board. That’s where I testified as an expert on the recognition of men dressed as women. This was in the 70’s and cops supporting the oldest profession was a no no.

Last entry on drag queens and a kind of funny. This is the very early 70’s and we stopped this young, I want to be a lady at a bus stop. It was about dawn and the normal citizens were coming out and heading to work. After a consent for drug search the queen took off his blouse and then took the dirty socks from his bra. He removed his bra and shoes and placed them on the hood of our police car. I noticed this little old lady sitting on the bus bench. She was watching us and had a “Oh, my God look on her face.” I walked over to her and advised her that it was a man, a prostitute and a drug abuser.

She thanked us for protecting society and got on her bus.

Hal

Prostitutes, part 3

By Hal Collier

The following stories are true and I remind you I never worked vice, or PED (Prostitution Enforcement Detail). I was a street cop who got dragged into the underworld of prostitution. Come to think of it, I got paid, so I guess I was a member of the oldest profession. I just didn’t have a pimp or have to take off my clothes.

This is the third part of a trilogy, or what I thought was a trilogy until I received comments from part 1. I get, “Hey Hal, remember what’s her name or did you ever hear about this or what about the contests?” I also get questions about the “Green Box.” Some of these comments spark a memory, so please feel free to pass along your stories to me.

Lets talk about “Drag queens,” as most street cops refer to them. The politically correct call them transvestites, transsexuals, cross dressers, or a man trapped in a woman’s body. I’m old school and not paid to be politically correct anymore, so I’ll refer to them as Drag queens. If this offends you, I’m sorry. Drag queens may take two or three Ramblings to fully explain. They’re very complex. We’ll see.

My first experience with a drag queen was an eye opening experience. I had a whole three days out of the academy. I responded to a radio call of a stabbing at Franklin and Cahuenga. We get there before the ambulance and see this girl lying on the ground. She’s bleeding from a stomach wound. This other young girl, hysterical, is kneeling over our victim. My partner, a senior officer, tells the second girl to move out of the way. The hysterical girl refuses and pushes my partner. He slaps her across the face and knocks her down. I’m shocked! I was brought up to never hit a woman. Later, I was told that neither of them was a woman. Now, I’m really shocked.

It takes a while and some training to tell who is female and who is male, especially in Hollywood. This training is not a one or two day lesson, it takes years and even decades to become an expert. Some men still can’t tell the difference, or so they say. Unfortunately, I’m considered a department expert. No extra pay, no ribbon to wear on my uniform, like pink sock-filled bras. It was just determined by a couple of captains during a trial board. I’ll explain later.

Guessing a person’s gender is a slippery slope at best. Guess wrong and you get sued, guess right and you still get sued. It’s not an exact science. The first trait I was taught was to look for an Adam’s apple—only men have them. Bet the men check that on your next night out at a bar. Better to find out in a bar than in the backseat of your Chevy. Next, look at their hands, women usually have smaller hands and slim fingers. Third, look at their feet. Did you ever see a man try to fit his size 12 foot into a women’s open toed shoe. The toes bunch together like sardines. Last but not least, women don’t get a 5 o’clock shadow after 3 A.M., well, unless you’re dating a female Russian athlete.

Ok, now you have the basic knowledge for gender classification. You think you know their sex and something goes wrong. I had a partner, Randy, who had booked this drag queen a half dozen times. Always a man, this time the queen had the sex change operation. Male officer strip searches a “now legally female” spells lawsuit and became the lead story on the 5 o’clock news. Drag queens now have the Adam’s apple shaved, electrolysis, and breast implants. Some of these medical changes were paid for with your tax dollars.

During the early years of my indoctrination to the, “women trapped in a man’s body” life style, I saw some amazing sights. Subjects with no breast implants, used to stuff their bras with dirty socks. The wigs they wore still had the shards of glass from the window of that wig store on Hollywood Boulevard. Smash and grab.

Some of the queens put a lot of effort into their dress. Others, like Eddie Johnson, didn’t have their heart into it. I’m going to finish up this segment with Eddie Johnson. Eddie could fill up a whole page but I’ll just hit the highlights with my encounters. Eddie was a young black man who scratched out a meager living as a prostitute. Eddie wore an ill-fitting blond wig and a pair of cut off Levi’s. Eddie passed for a women to only the most inebriated tricks. Oh, by the way Eddie was also an alcoholic.

I once got a radio call of a woman down in the ice plant. It was just getting light and the call was up in the hills near the Hollywood Reservoir. I was met by this doctor on his way to work when he saw Eddie face down in the ice plant. He said the girl was breathing but probably drunk. I recognized the blond wig and cut off Levi’s. I yelled, “Eddie, wake up.” Eddie rolled over and said, “Good morning, officers.”

I put Eddie in the back seat of my police car and headed downtown to the drunk tank. I asked him, “how in the hell did you end up in the Hollywood Hills?” Eddie slurs something like, “last thing I remember I was sitting in the back seat of another police car!”

Last time I saw Eddie was downtown. I had just finished booking someone at PAB when the B-Wagon (drunk wagon) backed up to the ramp. Out steps Eddie, blond wig on sideways and the same cut-off Levi’s. Yes, Eddie was drunk. Eddie moved from the glamour of Hollywood to the alleys of skid row.

Hal

By Hal Collier

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