Looking Back: Times are Changing

By: Scott Reitz

You know you’re getting long in the tooth when the son of your former partner shows up with a few years on the job. The accompanying photo is of Mike Coblenz who I went through the Academy with and served in Van Nuys SPU with. He’s the guy with white hair. The young man in uniform is his son Mike who is a training Officer in Foothill Division. Now that is a passage in time. Hard to imagine all those years ago in 1976 that we would one day take such a photograph. Who would know?

I have trained many of the sons and daughters of former partners through the years. This is always a challenge as the question most posed is, “Do you have any great stories about my dad?” Now this places me in a real quandary. There are the really great funny stories which can’t be told in mixed company and then there are the good ones that can be broached in a nunnery. The good ones are good but the funny ones are absolutely hysterical.

In the ‘good old days’ we would meet at the end of watch up at the Academy lounge. This was a notorious spot to be sure. Suffice it to say that by the time we shut it down (0200 hours or later) your jaws actually hurt from laughing so much at all the stories and tales shared through the hours. These great times no longer exist there. The Academy lounge no longer patronizes such activities and modern policies disdain these affairs as well… but what a time it was back then!

Many things have changed in police work. Where once, you had just 18 rounds of lead, round nosed bullets and a straight stick baton with which to quell the restless denizens of the naked city, you now have a dazzling array of scientific, futuristic, less-lethal weaponry at your disposal. Where once you had Ford Matador Police Package, Black and Whites with no air conditioning you have computers, tracking devices and satellites on the roof of the patrol vehicle, which has air conditioning that actually works (Sissies!). Where once you had ‘Hot Sheets’ which were actual pieces of 8×10 paper with stolen car plates denoted which slid into a bracket and were backlit by a single naked little bulb, you now have satellite enabled lo-jack so that the nefarious among us can be tracked not from the trained police eye but rather from the outer reaches of space. (Again… sissies.)

Police reports back then were detailed enough to incorporate the essential elements of the crime for successful prosecution. Now you have a staggering array of reports to explain why you did something or, if you didn’t do something why you didn’t do it as opposed to if you did do it, then why did you do it as opposed to why you didn’t, supposing you weren’t going to do it in the first place and assuming you hadn’t originally thought of doing it anyway, then why hadn’t you thought of it as opposed to thinking of it in the first place? Simple enough, yes? This is the official LAPD Administrative Departmental Form # 114-4154/187; sub.sec : 181/128.00.02 (From the people who brought you those administrative boondoggles of masterful proportions aka: those happy-go-lucky adjutant folks on the 5th floor.)

We used to have (5) 8 hour shifts. Now there is the 4 day / 10 hour shift or the 3 day / 12 hour shift and the soon to be unveiled, and not to be missed, 2 day / 48 hour continual shift sponsored by the folks at Red Bull. This latter work shift will make for great TV when semi-ambulatory Police Officers taser a group of righteous nuns for no apparent reason.

When you had the standard work shift so many of us are accustomed to, you really got to know everyone on the watch and it was more of a family. With compressed work schedules it is entirely possible that you might not even know or be aware of others within the Division. Whether this is a good thing or not I do not know but it is here and that’s that.

Older police work set you and your partner against the world. Once you left the Black and White you were most assuredly on your own. No body cameras, no radios, no satellite tracking devices, no deep space imaging, no DNA sampling monitors. Nope, it was just you and your partner and your little bullets launched out of a ‘wheel-gun’ which blazed hot lead into darkened alleys against hardened and wanted men who were desperate, on the ‘lam’ and ‘packin’ heat (Some film noir writing is called for here folks.) This was a simpler era where truth was dealt from the muzzle of a white hot barrel lacing deadly pills into the dark of night. (How’s that for cheesy?) When dames knew the score and that every hour could be your last so they gave you a look when you crossed the door into the cold unknown that could melt a ham sandwich in your back pocket from across the room (OK, OK I’ll stop!)

Time marches on and nothing remains forever. Enjoy your time in the here and now.

– Uncle Scotty