Tag: LAPD

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The Call Box

The Call Box: Improbable Journey, part 3

By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

We learned of the law and evidence, physical training—and we ran. We learned traffic codes, penal codes and more codes—and we ran. We learned how to arrest, when to arrest and who to arrest and we ran some more. We learned how to shoot; when to shoot and who to shoot and we still kept running. We fired tear gas and as it drifted into the heavy brush, we watched as illicit “lovers” ran away crying and still we ran. 

 

Thirteen weeks later, on May 4, against all odds, all 34 of us graduated and were turned loose upon the criminal element of Los Angeles. The LA of 1956 was a world apart from 2016.

 

There were few freeways. The Harbor Freeway had only made it to Adams southbound. The Valley had one division; Van Nuys ran out of City Hall. There were no seat belts in the cars, air support, K-9’s, mounted unit, or SWAT. Motor officers wore soft hats while we wore shoulder straps and carried .38 revolvers. There were no computers, portable radios or DNA. The wages were meager, but who cared? We were the best of the best—we were Los Angeles police officers. Bill Parker was chief; we were young and invincible. 

 

In March of this year, 8 of the 11 survivors gathered to celebrate 60. Conversations were subdued as though we marveled at where we had been, what we had done, and who we had become. We raised a glass as I read the names of those gone before and toasted those present.

 

The feeling of camaraderie and sense of nostalgia was almost palpable as though we were surprised to be there.

 

 

 

So who were we and what had we done and become? We produced captains and lieutenants. One chief of police, (Culver City)] who became the longest serving chief in California. One of us became “Mr. Robbery” with over 50 years on the job, most of it as a robbery detective. We served in all capacities—some became famous, but most unsung.

 

 

Three of us got shot, one twice—what are the odds? We produced heroes and nobodies. We laughed and cried at our victories and defeats. We mourned fallen comrades and celebrated togetherness. 

 

We were gray warriors living on memories of deeds past. We were the 8 percent. Did we really make a difference? I like to think so.

 

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The Call Box

The Call Box: Improbable Journey, Part 2

By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

I was “home” just long enough to earn plane fare and some new clothes. They say “home” is where when you go there, “they” have to take you in. Well, here I am three years later right back in North Branch, but not for long. The nearby town of Jeffersonville, aka “Jeff” offered the only local chance of a job. I convinced the owner of Seager’s Coal and Feed that I knew how to drive a large truck. You know—8 or 10 speed stick shift. How hard could it be? Right?? After a few misadventures, I was able to fake it for three months, long enough to save the money needed. I delivered chicken and cattle feed to farmers and using a different dump truck, delivered coal to families. For those of you who have never had a coal-burning furnace the coal was loaded in a dump, truck which backed up to your basement window. Then I attached a chute to the truck with the other end going into the window to the coal bin. Viola! All went well except for one very minor mishap when I knocked the front porch loose from the house. It separated about 8 to 10 inches. So, I simply backed the truck up to the porch and pushed it back into place. As of this writing, I don’t believe it has been discovered.

 

By early November, I was ready, a new suit case filled with civilian clothes and a plane ticket to California. I flew first to Oakland to visit my older brother for a few days. Then, being overly anxious, I took the train to LA. 

 At the academy

The money I’d saved was a Godsend as I was running out of funds and had been eating several day-old bread and cheese whiz. We were sworn in and began the learning process to become police officers. Also in progress nearby was a class of “policewomen” recruits, about 8 or 9. They were kept apart from us and we only occasionally caught glimpses of them (no comment).

 

We learned of the law and evidence, physical training—and we ran. We learned traffic codes, penal codes and more codes—and we ran. We learned how to arrest, when to arrest and who to arrest and we ran some more. We learned how to shoot; when to shoot and who to shoot and we still kept running. We fired tear gas and as it drifted into the heavy brush, we watched as illicit “lovers” ran away crying and still we ran. 

Part 3 of Ed Meckle’s Improbable Journey will post here on December 7th, 2016.

 

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The Call Box

The Call Box: Improbable Journey, Part 1

By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

 

I am a sergeant of Marines stationed at Quantico, Virginia. It is the first week of August 1955 and I am awaiting my discharge on the 12th when my three-year tour of duty will be up. Moving north along the Atlantic seaboard is hurricane Connie, due to arrive here on August 12th. Several months prior, I’d read an article in the USMC magazine publication, Leatherneck, which followed two former marines through the LAPD academy.

 

In answering my inquiry, the LAPD was not very encouraging, advising me they accepted approximately eight percent of applicants. And don’t bother to come to LA unless I had a backup plan. I was not discouraged as I had could always get whatever I went after. My current assignment with the military police had sparked my interest and I eventually headed to LA. 

 

Where I began my journey

On August 12th, 1955, Connie arrived and I left, headed home. Home was North Branch, New York, a dairy farming community not large enough to qualify as a village. So, we were a hamlet. Is that cute or what?

Three years prior, I had graduated from Jeffersonville Central School, graduating class size 7. The population was 244 and the story went that the number never changed since every time a baby was born, some guy left town. The way the system worked was, you married your high school sweetheart, moved in with your parents, waited for them to die, then took over the farm.

 

My problem was no farm, but a general store which I helped my mother to run. Another complication—there was no one I was interested in marrying. The Korean War was on, as was the draft. I had no desire to go to Korea with the Army. My older brother had been a WW II Marine so my choice was obvious. 

 

 

 

As luck would have it, when I graduated boot camp I was tall, slender (sob) and looked very good in uniform. As a result, I was assigned sea duty for two years aboard the largest war ship afloat at the time, the USS Coral Sea, CVA 43. I spent the next two years cruising the Mediterranean. 

 

 

At the end of WW I, the song, How Are You Going to Keep Them Down on the Farm After They’ve Seen Paree? was very popular. Even in 1955, the song held truth. I didn’t quite make it to Paris and you know about the farm but you get the idea.

Part 2 of Ed Meckle’s Improbable Journey will appear here on November 30, 2016.

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: D/O Sheets

By Hal Collier, Retired LAPD

When I came on the job and was learning the difference between my elbow and a hot rock we had Pin Maps. Pin maps for the non-police are maps with different colored pins. Each color pin represents a type of crime. Robbery, burglary, GTA’s (Grand Theft Auto), etc. A colored dot on the top of the pin indicated what watch the crime occurred. The pins are placed on the streets where the crimes occurred.

Now, being a rookie I would study all the different colored pins and try to figure out just what the hell they represented. One night my training officer caught me studying the pin map. He told me to quit wasting my time. He said they’re only good if their kept up to date which ours weren’t. He said no use in studying crimes that occurred six months ago. He told me the detectives were responsible for updating the maps but they were too busy taking two hour lunches.

He wasn’t very fond of detectives.

 

do-sheetHe introduced me to the D/O Sheet.  D/O stood for Daily Occurrence Crime Sheet. See attachment. The D/O sheet was typed daily by our record clerks as they were called in the dark ages of the LAPD. I think they’re called Clerk Typist now days. They got the crime reports straight from the Watch Commander after approval. They would list the location, time, suspect description, vehicle description with license info and a brief narrative of the crime. If you look at the Kidnap/ Robbery crime in the attachment you’ll see that the SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army) committed the crime May 17, 1974 in Hollywood.

 

The D/O sheet was passed out in Roll Call. It was only useful if you read it. Some of the old timers sitting in the back row made paper airplanes out of them and had contests to see whose flew the closest to the Watch Commander. Their theory was, “I don’t need any paper to tell me how to make an arrest.”

 

Because of my training officer I became a D/O sheet fanatic. I’d get mine before roll call and have all the important information recorded in my officers’ note book. In the beginning, I looked for crime patterns in my car district. Later, I would look for crime patterns anywhere in Hollywood Division. I just loved arresting bad guys. Loved that adrenalin rush.

 

My first success was not so worthy. I spotted a car listed on the D/O sheet. I practically caused my training officer to have a potty training accident when I yelled out, “That car’s wanted.”  It turned out the crime was a misdemeanor and California law states you can’t arrest a misdemeanor weeks after the crime. We did ID the criminal and made more work for our detectives. My partner advised me to narrow my D/O sheet scan to felony crimes where we could actually arrest the bad guy.

 

For years after that I could be seen with a folded D/O sheet stuffed into my sap pocket. I never carried a sap. Flashlight in one sap pocket, gloves and D/O sheet in the other. It was my quick Google reference, decades before Google was invented. I found the D/O sheet so informative I would read it in roll call when the W/C was trying to tell me how to do police work.

 

Next: the D/O sheet pays off big time.  –Hal

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The Call Box

The Call Box: My Shadow World

By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

As I write this I realize I live in a world that no longer exists. It is bits and pieces, fragments of memories and dreams, half-forgotten, half-remembered, faded photos of friends and events, of people and places of long ago, of adventures lived, tales told and experiences shared. It is of lives loved and lost, of friends long gone, the sights and sounds of a city, vanished. It is of sacrifices great and small, some known, most unseen. We marvel at where we have been, what we have done and who we have become.

 

The nights were dark and home to the unknowns. Only we stood at the gates. We shared the companionship of the finest people on this earth. I live with the knowledge that there may not be tangible proof of my efforts or even of my existence, but I rest knowing that I left something much greater behind. My service to my fellow man but mostly to my companions. I left it better than I found it. I was part of a select group to take part in a great venture that most never experience or even know exists.

 

I had a front row seat to the greatest show in the world. Who was I? A member of the world’s finest…

 

…the Los Angeles Police Department.

 

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Cops’ Days Off

By Hal Collier, Retired LAPD

How many non-police folks think that days off can be a subject? In the business world, it’s weekends and holidays off. You can plan an anniversary dinner a year in advance if you’re still married in a year.

Cops are lucky to be able to plan a week in advance.

Well, let me tell you—figuring days off has become a science for officers in large departments. Some smaller departments have a mandatory watch rotation. Six months on days, six months on nights and six months on graveyard. They also have set working days, 3/12 (3 days of 12 hours) shifts will work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and have the rest of the week off. You could also work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for six months. Figure that into your child care—that is if you can find the time to make a baby! I barely got the next day off when my son was born. You sometimes have to make a reservation just to see your spouse.  Now days they have bonding where the father (cop) takes weeks off to bond with the newborn child.

 

Some bonding men went fishing without their child? Pigs!

 

 

I’ve almost lost you, huh? In the LAPD, a lot depends on what watch you work. If your working days or PM’s it a little easier to figure out what days off you have. If you have Tuesday, the 16th, then you have Tuesday the 16th off!  If you work grave yard and you have the 16th off, you go to work the night of the 16th. Huh? That’s right. When we were on eight hour shifts, Morning Watch started at 11:00 PM on the day before you show working. Back to the 16th. You get invited to a party on the 16th, you need to take the 17th off or leave the party early and no drinking of an alcohol beverage. Some officers never got it straight! I had a former retired partner, Leo, tell me that he still had cop nightmare dreams about submitting days off. Bet you thought that a shooting was stressful!

 

In the LAPD, you submitted a request for days off. You got nine days off for every 28 days you work and submitted your request a week in advance of your next work period. That’s right, you had to guess what you were going to do 28 days from now. I use to sit down with my wife and discuss what days we need off for the next month. We studied over school calendars, appointment calendars, birthdays and most important Court Subpoenas. Nothing worse than going to court on your day off.

 

Here’s another quirk: you submitted your days off with the other two members of your car and the other officers on your watch. You were asked to balance your car, which means two of you working every day. That only worked if the entire watch balanced their car. I never saw that happen in 35 years. Everyone wanted that three-day weekend. So you submit your days off after careful planning with your wife, doctor and vet. Oh, don’t forget your child’s preschool play that you can’t miss, again! You turn in your days off request and cross your fingers.

That never worked either.

 

Next—a rookie sergeant has the outcome of your next month’s days off on the eraser of his pencil.

–Hal

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The Call Box

The Call Box: Doin’ Hard Time, part 2 At the Gray Bar Grill

by Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

The Gray Bar Grill, as I mentioned, was our in-house restaurant. It did a big daytime business due to all the court personnel but was quiet at night. It was the only place to get a sandwich, soup or salad as the area was pretty isolated. The chef was of course a trustee who was selected by the officer in charge of placing prisoners in the right jobs. The fare was average at best but cheap (very cheap) but there were bright moments. Whenever the Department of Fish and Game made a seizure of illegal lobster, venison or whatever game, it was donated to the jail system. How about lobster bisque or lobster salad or tender venison for $1.50? Abalone anyone?          

Speaking of trustees, they ran the place. You heard right, they ran the place. All were lifelong alcoholics who spent most of their life behind bars. Some, when arrested and asked their occupation had it printed on their booking slip— “trustee, 3rd floor.” Each floor usually had only one or two officers but six-eight trustees, who knew the system, right down to the forms to fill out—which they did. I had an elderly trustee (all were in their 50s to 60s) who claimed to have done time in San Quentin with Caryl Chessman, the notorious “Red Light Bandit.” He also claimed to have secretly typed the manuscript for his novel Cell 2455, Death Row. His name was Knudsen and he was missing two fingers on one hand and typed as fast as anyone I have ever seen, all on a manual typewriter.

 

The first floor also contained the receiving section where busloads of misdemeanor prisoners arrived on a regular basis. They were placed in huge holding areas and then appeared in arraignment court (Division 30 and 31) They came through by the hundreds. Everybody knew their job and everything moved smoothly until…

 

A couple of officers on the AM shift thought it would be funny to hold court themselves. They opened the courtroom. One donned the robes. And they took guilty pleas and sentenced some of the bleary eyed drunks. It would have gone unnoticed until one prisoner the next morning objected to his real sentence of thirty days, claiming the judge last night only gave him fifteen days.

As you can imagine some tail feathers got burned on that one.

I did less than a year until I got a transfer to patrol. Looking back it wasn’t as bad as I made it sound. It sort of eased me into dealing with the “public,” so to speak.

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Writer's Notes

Check Out The Thin Blue Line

Intent to Hold

ad-in-thin-blue-line

By Thonie Hevron

The September 2016 issue of the Los Angeles Police Protective League Thin Blue Line will feature an ad for my books, By Force or Fear and Intent to Hold. Designed by Michelle Wing of Las Cruces, New Mexico, I think it blends the covers nicely with a minimum of text. I’m marketing to cops here so I have to pander to a short (microscopic?) attention span. I know. I suffer from the same.

My advertising budget is limited so I decided to spend my bucks where I’d like to find readers. The Thin Blue Line newsletter reaches over 18,000 active and retired LAPD personnel. My books are not fine literature—I have no illusions about them. They’re entertainment, pure and simple. There’s action and adventure steeped in the procedural, authentically rendered world of law enforcement. And just a touch of sex? No. Romance? No. But there is an undeniable attraction (although the characters spend a lot of time denying) based on the premise that they’re partners who trust each other.

If you’re associated with LAPD and receive this newsletter, look up my ad. See if you think it’s as terrific as I do. And feel free to share!

Thanks,

Thonie Hevron
Thonie Hevron

 

 

Thonie

Website: http://www.thoniehevron.com

 

 

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The Call Box

The Call Box: Welcome to the 19th Century, part 3

 

 

 

By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

Ward transferred to a staff job and Hal went to the day watch. Years later he would become one of the first helicopter pilots when “air support division” was formed. [see The Call Box August 16th for more on Ward Fitzgerald and Hal Brasher].  

 

3A15 was now “my” car [see The Call Box August 24th for more on 3A15].  George Flanders soon transferred to motors, and Frank (Isbell) and I worked with a succession of newbies. When we were together though, we were the perfect partners. Frank was a year or two older and from Corpus Christi, Texas, a former Marine (as was I) and an all-around good guy. He had a good sense of humor and was smart as a whip (he made captain before retiring). We developed an easy relationship when on the street.

 

Eye contact with each other was important because a certain facial expression conveyed a message. We had code words to pass information without alerting the person or persons we were talking to. Just a look conveyed a message. He was a great street cop and a great partner.

 

The police unit or patrol car

All cars in our division were two- or three-year-old four door Fords, Chevys or Plymouths. All were standard transmission. They actually had one unit with automatic transmission. The officers assigned had to do a report every week to see if it was suitable for police work. Honest.

 

At age two or three they had been on the street 24 hours a day unless pulled for service. And they were tired. They were the most inexpensive cars the city could buy. They also did not have seat belts. I think oversized springs was the only concession to street work.

 

The emergency lights were two round non-flashers mounted on the roof with a siren between them. Both were activated by pulling two buttons on the dash then operating the siren with the horn ring. The car was so under powered that as the pitch of the siren went up the car slowed down.

 

Again, honest.

 

 

Most of the cars had a string tied to the dash buttons running to the shift lever so they could be activated by pulling on the strings. Hi-tech. The “hot sheet” which was the list of stolen vehicles, was displayed by bending a paper clip and hanging it from the dash, where it swung freely.

 

Frank used to envision something like a TV screen in the cars that would give us up to date information. Yeah, right!!

 

This was when computers were in their infancy. After we left patrol we worked together several more times but that is for future stories.

 

As to the mystery building glued to the east end of the station, I never could find anyone to explain it. It was made of faux logs, was approximately 20’ by 20’, painted a bilious yellow, and it had once been a hamburger stand. It now served as the office for the Vice Squad.

 

More on that later…

 

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The Call Box

The Call Box: Welcome to the 19th Century, part 2

By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

Ward Fitzgerald and Hal Brasher were both WWII vets. Ward served with the Navy in the Pacific while Hal piloted B-26 Martin Marauder bombers in North Africa. They were both laid back, calm, quiet and had seen it all. Each old enough to be my father and they took the time and patience to teach me how to be a street cop. They knew everybody in their area and everybody knew them.

 

Normally, three officers would be assigned to each unit [car]. With one usually day off, etc, the other two partnered up. When all three of us were working, I was assigned to another unit. When that happened, I got to know the other guys on the watch and see different parts of the division. I recall one night, pulling up to the gas pumps prior to going on patrol with a new partner when I saw him hugging a trustee [each station was assigned jail trustees to shine shoes, clean the coffee room, pump gas, or whatever].

 

I gave him a questioning look and he told me the trustee was his father doing time for DUI and that his mother asked him to keep an eye on dad [shades of Mayberry].  My regular unit with Ward or Hal was “3 A 1 5.” The “three” being the designation for university, the “a” for a two-man patrol unit, and the “1 5” was us. There were a lot of other “3 As” but we were the only “1 5.” Our patrol area was the north west portion of the division. An area known then as now known as the Normandie/Adams area. In the late 1800s and very early 1900s the area was [slightly] elevated was populated by grand mansions inhabited by the rich and famous. It became known as “Sugar Hill.”

 

 

We were the Sugar Hill car. By now however, the area had fallen on hard times and some of the mansions sat vacant while others had been converted to boarding houses or “flop houses.” Some stood as though in a pose of embarrassment, resembling elderly matrons ashamed of themselves and their surroundings. We were a night watch unit and the division came alive with a different persona at dusk.

 

I was taught to slowly drive the darkened side streets with lights off and windows down. We cruised back alleys and sometimes would stop and just listen. I learned the difference between “looking” and “seeing” and “listening” and “hearing.” I learned how to talk to people, to read body language so it became second nature to me to “see” and “hear” things.  I was quizzed on things we had just done, and sometimes to see if I had picked up on the subtleties of something that we had encountered. I grew confident until the powers that be decided I should work with two younger guys. Thus Frank Isbell and George Flanders came into my life.

Next Wednesday, August 31st will post the last installment of Welcome to the 19th Century by Ed Meckle