EMBARRASSING MOMENTS

In the sixties, police cars were equipped with a electro-mechanical siren. A big, heavy thing, mounted under the hood, it spun a turbine-looking device that created a fearsome howl. It was just a giant version of the ones kids put on bikes that rubbed on the tire.

Starting at a low growl, it gradually built up to an ear-splitting scream and, when cut off, took forever to slow down and shut up. Now sirens are electronic, controlled from a panel inside the car, and feature a number of sounds. They are electronically amplified through a speaker and when activated start and stop instantly.

The old models were controlled by a foot-button on the floorboard, near the dimmer button. (Remember them?) Too near, you had to be particular that you stepped on the right one. And, of course, some times you hit the wrong one. Invariably, this would happen when you were in traffic with a built-in audience of folks keeping an eye on the cop car. Thinking you were dimming the lights, you'd stomped on the button and the siren took off. And wouldn't shut up.

So what's to do? I always pretended I'd just gotten a hot call, stomped the siren up to full speed, and beat it on down the road 'til I was out of sight and hearing range.

MOPERY WITH INTENT TO GROPE

Ray Barnett reminded me that cops in Florida, before 1972, didn't need to use the mythical charges of Vitamin Deficiency and Mopery when they wanted to slap someone in the slammer. There was always the Vagrancy law.

This is how it read: Rogues and vagabonds, idle or dissolute persons who go about begging, common gamblers, persons who use juggling or unlawful games or plays, common pipers or fiddlers, common drunkards, and night walkers. Thieves, pilferers, traders in stolen property, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons, keepers of gambling places, common railers and brawlers, persons who neglect their calling or employment, or are without reasonable continuous employment. Persons who misspend what they earn. Persons wandering or strolling around from place to place without any lawful purpose or object. Habitual loafers, idle and disorderly persons neglecting all lawful business and habitually spending their time by frequenting houses of ill fame, gaming houses or tippling houses shall be guilty of vagrancy and subject to the penalty provided.

Don't know about you, but I'm good for about ten of those things any day of the week. Especially the habitual loafers part. And in the days before our corrupt politicians had turned many Americans into legitimate homeless folks, there were the homeless that were really bums. Tramps. Well, vagrants. Except in Florida. Weren't allowed. We had a law against it. Don't know where they were, but they weren't tolerated in F L A..

Vagrancy was a Florida Statute until the Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional in February of 1972.

All good cops know that a liberal amount of discretion must be melded with common sense in applying the written law. They know that if they used the letter of the law no one could drive a mile or walk ten feet without being arrested for some violation.

We must have laws. But, Damn! How many do you really need to keep the lid on the garbage can?

IT'S THE LAW?

One day, while house cleaning, Dave Dampier and I came upon an old ordinance book for the City of Naples. Some of the laws were so incredible you had to wonder why they were ever written. Laws are usually drafted to regulate some public ill or danger. When reading these old timers, some, then still on the books, you had to wonder.

Here's an example, paraphrased: "No one shall drive a motor vehicle upon the streets of the City of Naples unless preceded, at a distance of no less than 50 feet, by a person carrying a lantern and announcing "Stand clear, motor vehicle."

This would probably have been good advice when I was learning to drive, but I believe that was the exception. Someone suggested that early auto's frightened horses and humans, and the warning was necessary. Dave and I couldn't figure out why Naples would have such a law. Naples wasn't around in the early day's of those contraptions.

Another ordinance, that still befuddles me, read: "No one shall walk a lion in the City of Naples unless the animal is on a proper leash."

Kinda makes you wonder what type of leash could control a lion. And who the hell had one they paraded down 5th Avenue South. When I lived in Hollywood, California, there was a dude that walked one down Santa Monica Boulevard, but that was Hollywood. You could see anything there.

We brought these arcane ordinances to the attention of the City Attorney, and they were removed.

Naples lion? Could it have been an ancestor of Jungle Larry? Nahhhh.

LADIES PISTOL TEAM

Before the semi-auto Glock revolutionized police handgun use, you couldn't find many officers carrying anything but revolvers. Most departments banned the semi's use. The most common reason was that most cops qualified for handguns on the FBI's PPC course. This was a fifty-round exercise, requiring the officer to fire from different positions and distances from the target.

The favorite semi at the time was the Colt 1911 .45 caliber. The thinking was a .45 had so much kick a cop couldn't control it accurately for 60 rounds of firing. So, .38 and .357 were used almost exclusively.

Some always suspected that the real reason was that semi's were so unreliable. Their record of jamming and misfiring--due to user error--was horrendous. And, a .45 slug was a formidable load, big as a taxi cab. Remember, back then, the underpowered .38 was endorsed because it was safer if it got loose in public.

Anyway, during the midst of this Lowell Raines, a former FHP officer and then county maintenance supervisor, started a women's pistol team. His Deputy wife, Carol, was a deadly shot who went on the win the National Police Olympics. My wife, Sandy was a member, and I helped coach.

Most of the members became remarkable shooters. Sandy can still outgun me--and about anyone else. Aside from their practice schedule, they manufactured all their own practice ammo on Lowell's reloading equipment. Melted the lead, formed the bullets and seated them.

They competed in police matches across the state, even the NRA Nationals in Tampa. The string of fire was three of 90 rounds each with small, medium, and large caliber guns: usually .22, .38 and .45. Many only had two weapons so they fired the .22 and used the .45 for the medium and large bore strings.

So here we have women--Sandy is just over five-feet tall and weighs 100 pounds after a trip to Red Lobster--shooting 180 rounds from a .45. And mammoth cops, supposedly, couldn't shoot 50 accurately.

Sometimes we think up the dumbest excuses to get out of doing something we don't want to do.

THE PUSSY CAT BALL

The Naples Police Chief with the shortest reign lasted about six months. He was a retired army Colonel who both the City and he thought had the perfect background for the job. Wrong! Soldiers are stuck with who commands them. They can be put in the brig if they don't follow orders. Cops don't. To soldiers a Colonel is a person with formidable powers. The lowliest cop has more power than a Colonel. To cops a retired military officer is someone who used to have power. I worked for one retired Marine colonel who knew what he was doing. This one did not. And he lasted six months.

He did nearly everything wrong. On the one occasion he tried to do something right, it was a disaster.

To win over the cops who generally despised him, the Colonel decided he was going to have a party. Dave Dampier and I counseled him not to do it, that cops could get wild and woolly. He laughed off our advice. He'd been dealing with the "troops" all his adult life.

He didn't realize that the cops hated him because he'd been made Chief without ever being a cop--the ultimate insult to the rank and file.

Trapped into attending, Sandy and I arrived late and left early. On arriving, we found the Colonel's wife visibly shaken. A nice lady, who deserved better, she'd already become a victim of the rowdies.

Several drunken cops were on the their knees, on the kitchen floor, shooting craps. When a five was thrown, you could hear, "Fever in the cathouse, go ho, go." One or two had puked on the carpet. Others staggered around like zombies, looking for more booze. Rude humor, in loud voices, ricocheted off the walls. It was obvious that the guests were being extra obnoxious on purpose.

I gathered up Sandy and we ran for the hills. On Monday morning I expected to find an enraged Chief, taking notes on how he would extract his revenge. Quite to the contrary. Sitting behind his desk, staring blankly at nothing, he mumbled my Pussy Cat glasses. Confused, I went to find Dave.

"He had a set of Pussy Cat glasses--some piss-willy drink made with Early Times. The guys stole them all. Emptied his liquor cabinet, too. Don't know about you, but I'm gonna find something to do out of the office today. Maybe all week."

"Need a driver?" I said.

DUTCH TREAT

Police agencies exchanging officers, to broaden their horizons, is nothing new. In the sixties the London, England, PD (Scotland Yard) and New York PD swapped a few cops for a limited time. Trouble was the London cops, who didn't even have to carry guns in merry ol' England, soon jumped in the East river and swam East, terrified and trying to get out of NYC with their lives in tact. While the NYC cops, enjoying the vacation, were filing for extensions of duty.

The CCSO once did an exchange with the Netherlands. We received one male cop and a lady, who I'll call Gretchen Gootentah. Gretchen was a 6-foot-two blond beauty who spoke seven languages, had a Master's degree, and was a martial arts expert--as several CCSO kung-fuers who practiced with her could attest to.

Asked Gretchen one day how the Netherlands got away with legalizing marijuana and prostitution, two crimes that sap our police resources. She said they weren't legal, just overlooked. In the Netherlands if a crime wasn't really causing any problem they officially overlooked it.

As an example, you could have small amounts of marijuana with no problem. Even buy and smoke it in some restaurants. Police were not allowed to search persons for these minor amounts. But, you weren't allowed to deal marijuana or any hard drug unless you wanted to face severe penalties.

Prostitution was the same way. Prostitutes openly advertised in display windows on the streets or solicited in public. No problem. Everyone realized that prostitution would never be stopped.

When asked what she thought of our methods, she said it seemed a huge waste of resources.

She might be on to something.

HENRY'S "BOG"

At a time when Henry Kissinger was damn near as famous as Donald Duck, he made a visit to Naples. Henry, former Secretary of State, Nobel Prize Winner, and purported horny old man, dropped down at the Naples Airport to grace some well-heeled locals with his words of wisdom, and collect a handsome honorarium. God knows who would be a party to such absurdity but, that's Naples.

Henry, well padded and impeccable in a tailored suit, alighted from the aircraft where a team of CCSO SWAT Deputies awaited. They were to protect him in case there might be a Cracker or two who would like to thump his pompous, annoying azz. Aground, he pointed to a leather valise, and nodding to a SWAT officer, grunted in his heavy Teutonic accent, "Boy, my bog."

Without missing a beat, the Deputy gave Henry a withering stare and replied. "First off, I'm not your boy. Second, I don't do bogs."

You couldn't say Henry wasn't a quick study. After first getting a look on his face like someone had squatted in his strudel, he recovered quickly, recognized his faux pas, grabbed his bog, and waddled on toward the terminal, surrounded by his protectors. One couldn't hear what he was mumbling under his breath but you can bet he wouldn't be contributing to the Sheriff's re-election campaign.

After several minutes of laughing when the SWAT guys told me of the incident, I found Captain Wayne Graham, then Commander of the team. "Tell me, it's true, Wayne," I said. "Tell me it's true."

Wayne just smiled. Which, was all I needed.

I have no doubts, anyway. One of the first weapons a cop collects is a sharp barb for deflating those who have self-inflated themselves to obnoxious proportions.

I can just hear the air hissing out now. Sounds like the Hindenburg when it got pricked.

Dave Johnson had a version of the Henry story, too. He said he and Larry Hargrove once picked up Henry and took him to a Marco hotel. Henry tried to make a bellboy out of Hargrove, then turned on the TV and spent the evening offering rebuttal to the speech that was on; then President Jimmy Carter.

I'm glad he's not as popular as D Duck any longer.