hot dog stand – Thonie Hevron Author

By Hal Collier, Retired LAPD

Every once in a while, you see a news story of a pedestrian who is hit by a car. The TV news shows a pair of shoes in the street. I was first intrigued by why the shoes were left in the street. I sadly learned that when pedestrians were hit by a car they were actually knocked out of their shoes. This is my story of shoes in the street.

As always, I’m working grave yard and it’s about 2:15 AM. I’m driving my black and white eastbound on Hollywood Boulevard as I approach the famous hot dog stand at Hollywood and McCadden. The hot dog stand is famous only to Hollywood cops, bottom feeders and dispatchers. If you needed help and gave the location as the hot dog stand, the dispatcher knew where to send help. Prostitutes, drug dealers and anything else out after 2 A.M. frequent the hot dog stand to ply their trade or support someone else’s tax-free business. When I was walking my foot beat, I made most of my arrests around the hot dog stand. Some even bought the hot dogs, I hear they were pretty good. I never had one, Pink’s had a nicer clientele.

So, as I approach the cross walk I see a pedestrian, about a 20-year-old male, walking southbound. Now, I’m in the #2 lane (2nd lane from the center) which means the #1 lane is unobstructed. I could have gone through the crosswalk without interfering with the pedestrian but I thought this would be a good opportunity to yield and check out the patrons of the hot dog stand. I stopped and my attention was on one individual who seems particularly nervous. He could likely be a candidate for an investigation.

As the pedestrian continued to cross I suddenly hear a car to my left! I only had time to say “oh!” The car hit the pedestrian at about 30 miles an hour.

I’ve heard many stories that when encountering a stressful situation your brain slows everything down. I’m here to tell that is true. I saw the car hit this poor young boy and it was all in very slow motion. I still have that image of that boy being slingshot down Hollywood Boulevard, leaving his shoes in the crosswalk.

The car that just hit this kid immediately pulled to the curb. My partner went and got the driver out and I ran to the kid lying in the middle of the street. He was still alive but not responsive. He died soon after, right in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, his shoes left in the middle of the crosswalk.

My story should end right there but unfortunately it doesn’t. A few days, later I got a phone message from some lady I didn’t know. I called and it was the boy’s mother! She bluntly asked me, “Did my son say anything before he died?”
I lied and told her, “No he didn’t say anything. He died instantly and didn’t suffer.” I still think I made the right decision.

For quite a while after that night as I approached crosswalks I feverishly scanned for pedestrians. Fail to Yield to Pedestrians in a Crosswalk became my favorite ticket. A traffic unit handled the investigation and I never heard if the driver that hit the boy was drunk or what happened.

If there is a lesson to be learned, this is it. Even if you’re in a crosswalk, watch for traffic. I see people on the news all the time in marked crosswalks that have been hit by cars. It won’t make a bit of difference if you’re in the right of way but dead!
–Hal

By Hal Collier, Retired LAPD

This is the conclusion of Hal’s Foot Beat Stories. Leave us a comment if you care to ask Hal about his life in LAPD. And as always, I’m here to answer questions, too. –Thonie

I never expected the foot beat chapter to be this long but once I started, all these memories flooded my brain. Don’t panic, I’m not ready to climb up on roof like those knuckleheads in Louisiana. The fond memories even pushed out the thoughts of the ugly daily news.

I asked for and was given a Morning Watch Foot Beat. I don’t think any other division in the city has a Morning Watch Foot Beat, but then none looked like Hollywood in the late 70’s. When all the other night and strip clubs closed up Hollywood was just getting started.

My Lieutenant didn’t want me making a bunch of misdemeanor arrests, like lewd conduct in the porno theaters or drunks in a bar. That was a job for vice.

I had almost 8 years on the job but felt as if I was on probation. We had to produce or go back to a radio car, handling barking dogs, loud parties and explaining to citizens why we took 3 hours to handle their call for service.

We would clear roll call at 11:30 and park our police car in a taxi zone right next to the Hot Dog Stand. Well, we were sort of a taxi, we just made one-way trips and didn’t charge a fare. We would walk one round of the Hollywood Boulevard foot beat boundaries. La Brea to Vine. After Midnight there wasn’t much open on the east end and a waste of energy and shoe leather. We would spend the next 6 hours in a 3 block radius of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland.

I learned some interesting tactics while walking a foot beat. First, most crooks look up and down the street for a police car, they seldom look on the sidewalk for a foot beat cop. I often could walk right up behind two guys on the Boulevard and look over their shoulder and see them exchange dope for money. I also discovered I could walk right by two suspicious characters, turn down the next corner and circle back through the alley and watch them break into someone’s car.

We did some of our best work walking through dark alleys and parking lots behind Hollywood Boulevard. Another foot beat tactic was dodging vomit, urine and used condoms. Still want my job? I often questioned the wisdom of putting carpets in the Watch Commanders Office. No cop washes the bottom of their shoes before entering the station.

We often saw an empty car alone in a parking lot even when there was lots of free street parking. Run the license plate for wants and bingo, it was stolen. Other times we looked at the ignition, punched ignition meant it was stolen and not reported. Now comes the hard part, you had to keep your eye on the stolen car, go get your own car and then hide it someplace where the suspect won’t see it.

Any cop who spent more than a day in patrol, knows how hard it is to hide a Black & White police car with a light bar. It’s easier to hide a face pimple on prom night.

One of us would stay in the car, and the other was watching the stolen car, usually hiding behind a trash dumpster, with urine and vomit under your feet.

I won’t tell you about all the arrests we made walking a morning watch foot beat but we often led the watch in arrests. Of course, we seldom got tied up handling radio calls.

We often free-lanced and responded to crimes where the suspect might still be in the area. We also didn’t want to piss off the other hard working cops on our watch.

Yesterday’s radio car cop was my partner the next night. If things got busy we would jump into our police car and handle radio calls. I remember once the radio operator tried to assign me a radio call high in the Hollywood Hills. I agreed to handle the call but quoted a long delay, because I was on foot a mile and half from my car.

I was fortunate that I was given good partners to work with. Every once in a while I would get a cop who didn’t want to work or for that matter, walk the foot beat. One night I was assigned this cop who was known for being lazy. I noticed that every half block I found myself walking alone. I would look back and my partner was leaning against a closed business. Once he was sitting on a bus bench next to a homeless person.

His attitude changed when a suspect shot another drug dealer in the face with a shotgun behind the hot dog stand, 30 feet away from where we were standing. He stayed pretty close for the rest of the night. Two nights later we arrested the shooting suspect. I had a snitch who told me which motel he was staying in.

I had a lot of fun walking the Hollywood Boulevard Foot Beat and I got to work with some great partners, J.J., Dan, Stan, Bill, Cliff and a host of other good cops.

Mike Castro walked the Hollywood and Western Foot Beat, (6FB4) with Dave Smith and Ken Hobbs and said it was a great job. Other officers walked a foot beat in Ramp (Rampart) or Central Divisions and all agreed pounding a beat was a fun and rewarding job.

After 3 1/2 years, I was told that they needed my foot beat spot for a new radio car that would handle all the burglar alarms. It was called a code 30 car and was staffed with Officers Jack Myers and Ron Venegas. That’s right, they became the famous Hollywood Burglars. They were the cops that broke into businesses to steal property–on duty. I’d hate to be the supervisor that made that decision. Walking a foot beat was the best of times, that later turned into the worst of times. That will be another Ramblings story.

Today’s Hollywood Boulevard foot beat cops ride bikes or drive around in their cars. It’s just a different time. I was one of the lucky ones who got a little bit of the good ole days.

Hal

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