Hitting the hole – Thonie Hevron Author

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?”

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.

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.

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

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

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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