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Roll Call

Roll Call: Rampart and the Baby Powder Caper

68 Plymouth Belvedere labeledBy 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?” 

 

 Johnsons_Baby_Powder_1,5_OZS_talc,_pic1I 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.

 

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More Street Stories Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings, Supervisors, part 2 of 3

By Hal Collier, LAPD Retired

We are happy that 35-year veteran Hal Collier is sharing his ‘stories behind the badge’ with us.

 

Again, these are my suggestions on what makes a good supervisor and they certainly don’t reflect the opinions of the LAPD.

 

I use to think that the LAPD needed a promotion tree with two forks.  One tree fork was for the building boys who promote, they can stay inside and read and write policy books. That’s fine, if that’s your wish. The second tree fork was for street cops who had experience in patrol and knew what worked regardless of what the psychologists said. I once expressed my two forked tree theory and found myself peeing in a cup and taking a Rorschach exam. After that I kept my opinions to myself, my first step in being a good supervisor.

 

“I’d like to intervene, but I haven’t completed the appropriate paperwork.”

A good supervisor also needs to have a good working knowledge of the department rules. The LAPD manual has so many rules and regulations that you never can know them all but know the ones that apply to field situations. Only a building boy will care how many copies of a LAPD form 15.7 are needed. That’s because they ask those kind of questions on the promotional exams. This will save you and your officers from complaints or worse yet, termination and jail!

 

One of my pet peeves was sergeants who were never in the field. I remember one sergeant who was always downtown at headquarters looking for a job to get out of patrol. The officers knew where the sergeants were and what they were doing, most of the time. If the cops have mischief in mind, they don’t worry about being caught. If the sergeant is in the field, they might have second thoughts about bending the rules. Sergeants should show up at the routine calls once in a while. The cops won’t expect you. If they ask why, I would tell them I was bored. You’re also available for help if they want it. But just let them do their job and only step in if they ask or are doing something illegal. 

 

Be fair to everyone! That’s means even if you don’t like them. I once watched the watch commander tell the roll call that there were a few days that we were over deployed and officers could take a day off with their accrued overtime. Right after roll call, an officer walked up to the watch commander (WC) and asked for a day off.  The WC (without even looking at the time book) denied the request. He didn’t like the officer. That WC was not a favorite of the officers or mine either. I hated sergeants that played favorites.

 

Ok, here’s a tricky one. One of my training officers use to keep a log of a sergeant’s misdeeds. You know—date, time, location and the violation of department rules. He called it insurance in case he didn’t want this particular sergeant to write him up for his own violations. If you bend the rules in front of an officer, you are theirs. Trust me, they’ll bring it up when the department is trying to fire them. Drowning rats have no friends. Be on time. I remember one sergeant wanted to write up an officer for being late to roll call. The officer reminded the sergeant that he was late more than he was.

 

I was a new sergeant in Watts and working graveyard. We had long quiet nights and I couldn’t find any of our officers in the division. Having been an occasional member of hitting the hole (sleeping) in Hollywood, I knew what they were doing, I just didn’t know where. One night I was driving down Figueroa in the industrial section of the division. A hot shot call came out and before I could turn around I was almost run over by half the watch. They came from behind a big building. Now here is the dilemma: If I confront the officers and do nothing, I’m an accessory and they have me. If I write them all up, I’ll have no back up. It’s not a major violation and the other seasoned supervisors probably already know about it. I kept my mouth shut and took the information with me when I transferred a few months later. They might have asked me to join them.

Wait, I forgot. I’m not one of them anymore.

 

Next, the last installment!       Hal   

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings, Supervisors part 1 of 3

Part 1 of 3

 

I was recently asked by a close partner to give her some advice for her husband. He was getting close to promoting to sergeant and wanted to know what makes a good sergeant. Now, I’m not an expert and I’m not even sure I was a good sergeant. It would be a tossup between what the brass thought and what the field officers thought. The following opinions are mine and mine alone.

 

My background: I worked twenty-two years as a street police officer, my choice. I saw too many good cops promote too soon and miss out on all the fun. I promoted to sergeant only thinking of an increase in my pension. You can’t spend fun after retirement. I spent another twelve and a half years as a field sergeant and watch commander.

 

I’m sure the LAPD has different views but then I didn’t agree with everything they taught either. I attended a lot of leadership classes put on by my department and I actually took some notes. Most of these suggestions are from my own experience and my methods were not always accepted by the brass. The brass thought they were really in charge of the patrol cops.

 

First, what is the job of a supervisor? What a loaded question, but here goes: Supervise your officers, give the officers advice, but only when they need advice. Keep them out of trouble and that also includes jail. I thought the most important thing was to know your officers. I used to pride myself in knowing the officers on my watch. I knew who the hard workers were, who the slackers were and who had a tendency to take shortcuts or stretch the rules. I learned their first names and some of their backgrounds or hobbies. I was always looking for a common ground for communication. 

 

Before making sergeant I wrote down what I liked about a good supervisor and what I didn’t like about a bad supervisor. An example, I worked for a lot of good street cops who promoted too soon. They still wanted to do police work but the LAPD frowned on supervisors being street cops. By the way, the department told sergeants not to even write tickets. I remember one sergeant was told turn in your ticket book or turn in your stripes! Street cops hated a sergeant who made an arrest then handed it off. It’s like someone else catching a fish and giving it to you to clean. Whoopee.

 

I once had a sergeant drive through a dark alley and found a drunk sleeping in a doorway out of harm’s way. He called me to come book him downtown, he then had the nerve to tell me he was going to eat. After medical treatment and booking, I had to have my police car checked for crabs. I worked three hours overtime, itched for two days and no, I didn’t get to eat that night. See who your friends are when you stand naked in the locker room and ask some cop in the next aisle to look for bugs on you. 

 

I don’t begrudge the building boys, as we called them. They promote early, because they wanted out of patrol. My only problem was when they promoted they were then sent back to patrol to supervise us street cops. They often made poor tactical field decisions based of very little experience on the streets. I once had a new sergeant respond to a scene and when asked to make a decision she opened the department manual looking for the answer. It wasn’t there! She actually asked for another sergeant to respond and make the decision. I did respect the new sergeants and lieutenants who asked the senior officers for advice. It’s the supervisors responsibility but it’s good to have a veterans input. Sometimes the cops can keep the supervisors out of trouble. I was told in a leadership class, “You can delegate everything except responsibility.”

 

I saw a lot of supervisors who didn’t make a decision at all, for fear that it would stall their next promotion. If the lack of a decision was news worthy, like during the LA Riots, the supervisor’s career was over and forget about the retirement home in the marina. No more promotions and something they call “freeway therapy.” That’s where you live in northern LA County and your next assignment is in the southern most division in the city. Nothing like an hour drive or two, to and from work to get your mind straight.

 

More suggestions in part 2.     Hal

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Promoting, part one

By Hal Collier

Promoting!  This is a question that every police officer ponders once in a while.  By the way, these are my observations and certainly don’t reflect the opinions of the Los Angeles Police Department or officers everywhere.  These observations are based on a large city police department.  We all have different reasons for wanting to promote.  Actually, some think about it all the time and base their police decisions on, will this hurt my next promotion?  More on these individuals and my own reasons later.

March 23, 2007-Almost Sgt: Last week, Officer Kris Werner informed Arts District residents that he passed the LAPD Sergeant Promotional interview with flying colors--and that he may soon leaving his post of Senior Lead Officer. Standing By: Werner now reports that his "Sgt School" is delayed, so he will be sticking around. Seen behind Werner is the panel of a dancer in a digital mural called "Gabriela", at the Regent Gallery.
March 23, 2007-Almost Sgt: Last week, Officer Kris Werner informed Arts District residents that he passed the LAPD Sergeant Promotional interview with flying colors–and that he may soon leaving his post of Senior Lead Officer. Standing By: Werner now reports that his “Sgt School” is delayed, so he will be sticking around. Seen behind Werner is the panel of a dancer in a digital mural called “Gabriela”, at the Regent Gallery. photo by viewfromaloft.org

There are many reasons for wanting to promote.  Everyone starts out on the bottom of the police food chain.  Some linger on the bottom longer than others.  Some of those on the bottom might have made bad decisions, or they just don’t have any ambition to promote.  Others planned their climb up the ladder from their first day in the police academy.

I’m going to break down some of the reasons for promoting.  Money, ambition, retirement, power and the urge to get out of patrol.  Some put off promoting because of the love of what they’re doing.  Some recruits in the academy thought they would someday run our department or another department.  Only a very few did, none in my academy class, and I was in a good academy group.

We all had ambitions as a young child.  I was going to be a professional baseball player until I discovered that I couldn’t hit a curve ball and when running, I was slower than a turtle.

Like a lot of my partners, I wanted to be a street cop. You know–wearing a blue uniform, driving a black and white police car, chases both on foot and in cars, hours of boredom followed by thirty seconds of sheer terror.  It gets into your blood, it’s addictive and hard to kick.  You make life and death decisions and enjoy the adrenalin rushes.  Your chest swells when you put a bad guy in jail due to your superior observations and tactics. Oh yea, luck entered in a lot.   In my 35 years on the LAPD I observed a lot of cops who pondered over the decision whether to promote or not.

I worked for a lot of good street cops who promoted too soon.  They still wanted to do police work but the LAPD frowned on supervisors being street cops.  By the way, the department told sergeants not to even write tickets.  I remember one sergeant was told turn in your ticket book or turn on your stripes!!  Street cops hated a sergeant who makes an arrest then hands it off.  It’s like someone else catching a fish and giving it to you to clean. Whoopee.

I once had a sergeant drive through a dark alley and found a drunk sleeping in a doorway.  He called me to come book him downtown, he then had the nerve to tell me he was going to eat.  After medical treatment and booking, I had to have my police car checked for crabs, not the Alaska kind.  I worked 3 hours overtime, itched for two days and no, I didn’t get to eat that night.    See who your friends are when you stand naked in the locker room and ask some cop to look for bugs on you.

Those with aspirations of being the Chief of Police got out of patrol as soon as possible.  Patrol produces complaints and complaints slow promotions.  Cops couldn’t take a promotional test until they had four years of seniority, but that didn’t stop them from transferring to an inside job.  We use to call them “building boys.”  The building boys would take a job in Manuals & Orders or Planning & Research, where the biggest danger was a severe paper cut.  They took two hour lunches and hobnobbed with the Department brass.  Now days, they call it networking.  They usually took a promotional test the day after they were eligible and most did very good.  Of course, they helped write the test.

I don’t begrudge the building boys for promoting–that’s what they wanted.  My only problem was when they promoted they were then sent back to patrol to supervise us street cops.  They often made poor tactical field decisions based on very little experience in the field.  I once had a new sergeant respond to a scene and when asked to make a decision, he opened the department manual looking for the answer.  It wasn’t there!  He actually asked for another sergeant to respond and make the decision.  I respected any new sergeant or lieutenant who asked the senior officers for advice.  It was still their decision to make but at least they asked.

I saw a lot of supervisors who didn’t make a decision at all, for fear that it would stall their next promotion.   If the lack of a decision was newsworthy, like during the riots, the supervisor’s career was over and forget about the retirement home in the marina.  No more promotions and something they call freeway therapy.  That’s where you live in northern LA County and your next assignment is in the southern most division in the city. Nothing like an hour and half drive to and from work to get your mind straight.

I use to think that the LAPD needed a promotion tree with two forks.  One fork was for the building boys who promote, they can stay inside and read policy books. The second fork was for street cops who had experience in patrol and knew what worked regardless of what the psychologists said.  I once expressed my two forked tree theory and found myself peeing in a cup and taking a Rorschach exam.  After that I kept my opinions to myself and the dog.

One of the problems with my theory was that the building boys made policy for us street cops and worse yet, they sat as jury on our discipline boards.  Swell, some building boy wearing a uniform that only needs dry cleaning once a month, is going to decide if the decision I made in a split second in a dark alley will determine if I’m employed next month.

Not all supervisors were building boys, thank goodness.  I also worked for some of the best street cops who promoted.  I remember one sergeant showed up at a scene where the suspect was acting up–ok, he was being an asshole.  The sergeant stood back, let me handle the uncooperative miscreant, then turned and walk away, saying, “Good job, Collier.”

Police range training Photo by lastresistance.com
Police range training
Photo by lastresistance.com

I also worked for two of the best captains the LAPD ever produced, Bob Taylor and Garrette Zimmon.  On more than one occasion they would take off their captain bars and work a patrol car, handling any radio call that came in. “Walk in my shoes.”  That’s leadership.  Most captains will ride around with a sergeant for an hour and never get their hands dirty.  Those two captains had the respect of the whole division.  They also showed up at shooting training days and went through the different scenarios, same as the street cops.  They showed the cops that they could shoot just as well as run the division.  If they hadn’t promoted, I might still be working Hollywood patrol.

My next Ramblings will deal with my motivation to promote or not to promote.

Hal

Next Ramblings will be the “why”–what made Hal want to promote?

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