The Call Box: Park Funnies

By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

It is early morning, February 4, 2018, Super Bowl Sunday.  I have just finished reading of Mikey’s park adventures with a nature lover. I was reminded of several park funnies.

Mikey, you get the credit or blame for this column.

Three as an officer and two years a sergeant at Metro supplied me with a few stories.

At that time, it was custom to recap a concluded assignment at roll call. The people in on the pinch got to tell the story, sort of bragging rights.

I did not work this detail but got the story there.

The “Baby Doll Flasher” was terrorizing the horse trails in Griffith Park.

Wearing only a baby doll nighty and a baseball cap (very fashionable) he targeted only female riders. Singles or in groups, it made no difference to him. He leapt from the bushes, shouted some obscenity, flashed the riders and disappeared back into the brush where they could not follow. Several spooked horses, thrown riders and complaints brought Metro onto the scene.

Four or five camo’ed officers with binoculars found vantage points to watch the trail while another unit watched the parking lots.

Well concealed lying under a bush, one of the camo’ed/binoc’ed officers was unexpectedly joined by another camo’ed person with binocs. He greeted the officer with, “Hi, do you come here often?” Very original.

The officer told him he preferred to “work alone.”

“Baby Doll” quit working and the stakeout was pulled. He resumed several months later but the time off must have affected his timing. A reared horse knocked him down and he was arrested.

 

~~~

High in Elysian Park were some isolated areas where once a year we had tear gas drill. Wind at our back for obvious reasons—the gas would drift into the bushes and flush numerous “nature lovers.”

 

 

Back in the day, the P.D. published a “Daily Occurrence” log known as the D.O. sheet, listing all serious crimes within the last 24 hours. Interesting reading which allowed you to know what the rest of the P.D. was up to.

 

Lesser known was the “Sex D.O. sheet,” also interesting.

This is from that sheet.

There was at the time an active pervert known as “The Naked Gun.” This was 25 years before Leslie Nielsen and the movie of the same name.

Unencumbered by a nighty, he was totally naked except for a baseball cap (what’s with the hats?) and armed with a large, loud handgun. He was a late-night window peep and when he saw an undressed woman or couple making love he watched until he was overcome with passion. He would then scream something and fire the gun into the air several times scaring the hell out of everyone in the area.

He was arrested by a radio car when he had trouble explaining his unusual costume and sidearm.