Page 338 - NIXBOOK

POLICE UNIFORMS & EQUIPMENT & GEAR & STUFF & RANDOM MUSINGS ABOUT PATROL WORK

Police uniforms, equipment, and technology all changed and advanced considerably during my career. I’ll start with the clothing.
My first crime fighting costume was a two-tone blue shirt and pressed slacks that I usually wore glossy artificial leather corfam-
type dress shoes with instead of boots since I always thought the boots didn’t really go well with the fancy pants. The dress shirt
with collar insignia had a cool hidden zipper behind all the buttons; just one button at the top worked and the rest were fakes,
because somebody at the shirt company had figured out the hidden zipper idea saved a lot of time and wear on the buttons.
They were totally right about that. Whenever I did a show and tell for school kids or scout groups, I’d include showing off the
nifty zipper-hidden-behind-the-buttons feature.

That uniform was professionally dry cleaned only, which was okay because at some point the police officers before me had their
work contract written up to have the department pay for the cost of dry cleaning all of the officer’s uniforms. We all had three
or four complete uniforms so one would always be ready while another one or two was at the cleaners’. So..yeah, we all pretty
much looked like security guards. But that was the standard look back then and most cops dressed like that. Below: a much
younger me in ’93 and ’95, sporting that classic uniform look. We had police trading cards back then, used to curry favor and
good will with mostly little kids. Yes yes I looked young; I was only in my mid 20’s!

The era of formal patrolman police hats had almost come to an end at around that time. Most of the older officers I knew had a
police hat issued to them, and some officers even wore them occasionally, when it was raining. I wasn’t issued a hat but it was
still required for the police academy graduation ceremony, so somebody loaned me their hat to use and wear..just once. Hats
were being phased out of general daily use regionally and nationally for the most part and eventually it became common to see
hundreds of bare-headed cops at big funerals for slain officers. But we still had ball caps issued, for bad weather. I was not a big
fan of those either, though, so you won’t find any pictures of me wearing one in uniform. I always gave my ball caps away to
friends or family who coveted them, with the big “POLICE” lettering on them. I’m just not a hat guy.
I remember one day I came in to work wearing a black t-shirt under my Class A uniform instead of the usual white. I knew what
I was doing, I was trying out a new look. The police chief stopped when he saw me that morning in the office: “Black t-shirt,
huh?” He stared for a while. “That’s a good look,” he said and went on his way. The next day, guess who was wearing a black t-
shirt instead of a white one from then on?