("This is the County...LA County,,,, I'm a cop")..........  

My partner and I were working the Early Morning—EM—shift, on patrol out of the Firestone Substation in South

Central Los Angeles, the busiest station within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. There are times working the Early Morning (Graveyard) Shift when things get slow: the bars have closed, the drunks have gone home, or found a place to rest their weary arms – from doing all that heavy lifting of liquid containers – and this gave us some time to actually snoop around and try and catch a burglar or two. So off we went: driving in alleys, looking for signs of pry marks on rear doors to businesses – yes, that was an actual way of using your flashlight for something other than bopping some bad guy on the noggin (only when he deserved it, of course). We were cruising one of the alleys in the vicinity of Rosecrans and Figueroa and as we passed between two buildings we could just barely make out the shape of a car. It was a fairly foggy night and the exhaust coming from the exhaust pipe on the car was visible. Hot Damn! We’ve got something going here. We definitely need to get closer and investigate this. So… we pull up a few feet, park the radio car, sloooooowly get out of the car and quietly walk back to the area, keeping a sharp eye out for any movement, and a keen ear to hear any sounds. Ah, yes…these burglars won’t even know we’re here.  As we get to the edge of the building I can now see the outline of the car. What the???? Two lights on the top, one on the left and one on the right, and a large round shiny object in the middle. Hmmmm….looks like two red lights and a siren to me. Definitely not an LASD patrol car, but it sure does resemble the outline of an LAPD unit.

Their area ended a few blocks away—the LAPD 77th Division bordered our area on the west side and ended at Central Ave—and it was not uncommon to find them in our area at times. Now we go into extreme silent mode. It is necessary due to it being foggy, no lights from any of the buildings, and not using our flashlights, we go tippy-toe-tippy-toe, as a matter of fact, a lot of tippy-toeing as they were about fifty feet away. Sound carries in fog and there is always something that could be in the alley: a rock, a broken bottle, tin can, and other things that could cause a person to stumble and make noise. Off we go, right up to the back of the car. It is Yep! LAPD. Windows rolled up and two officers inside. One in the front seat and one in the rear seat (they didn’t have “caged” units in this era) and both of them were in a “resting-checking-our-eyelidsfor-light-leaks” position. We wanted to make sure they were just sleeping. No sense in disturbing them. The light bulb in my head goes off and ideas start coming in bunches. I signal my partner and we quietly depart the vicinity, being very careful not to wake them from their beauty rest. The dynamics of this undertaking could suddenly change drastically if they were to be startled awake, which would definitely not bode well for us: They also carried guns. We went back to our car, again in our quiet, stealth (sounds more professional than “Tippy-toe”) mode, and removed the bumper jack from the trunk, along with a couple of blocks of 4” x 6” wood. We then quietly headed back to the nappers. So far, so good, up to this point. I placed the bumper jack under the rear bumper of the LAPD car and sloooooowly raised the car, one quiet click at a time, until we could place the two wooden blocks under the rear axle.

When we finished we silently departed, again, and returned to our car. Enroute, I got another idea: I get the newspaper (we need to keep abreast of current events, right?) and my pad of print stickers: 4”x6” heavy white paper with the type of glue like on postage stamps, that we used to lick and paste on items commonly found at crime scenes that needed fingerprinting, with big letters HOLD FOR SHERIFF. My plan is to cover their entire windshield with newspaper except for a small slit area big enough for them to see through. Don’t want them driving completely obstructed. That’s not safe. I’ll paste the stickers in places to keep the paper from blowing off. With newspaper and sticker pad in hand we make another silent approach to their patrol car. My partner and I each start quietly placing sheets of newspaper all over the front windshield, careful to leave just enough space for them to see through. That done, we again silently depart. This has taken us about thirty to forty-five minutes – it was a painstaking process for each click of the bumper jack— from the time we first saw them until now.

When we got back to the car another light bulb went off in my head: It would be another kicker to place another type of sticker on their rear bumper. The Sheriff’s Department had a recruitment campaign for Deputy Sheriffs. Each station was given a bunch of light green bumper stickers with the words “Be A Deputy Sheriff” , the sheriff’s star, and the main phone number for recruiting purposes. The objective was to place them on our radio cars, and they also could be given away as public relations to businesses, etc., in the area. Being public relations-conscious as I was – yeah, right – I went back to

their car and placed one right smack in the center of the rear bumper. That should get a rise out of someone back at their station.  My partner and I then drove back to the front of the buildings and stopped just before the entrance to the alleyway. Many of the deputies carried firecrackers in their individual “patrol box”. I was one of them. You never could tell when they might come in handy. For what reason I never did know. I took three good-sized firecrackers and lit them and tossed them into the alley. As soon as they went off my partner turned on our siren and red lights. Immediately, the headlights and red lights on the LAPD unit went on and the engine began to roar.  Only one problem: The LAPD unit did not go anywhere with those blocks under the rear axle, which had raised the rear end of their car about one inch off the ground, and the newspaper plastering the front windshield. It took them a few seconds to realize they had been had. To add insult to injury, they had to scrape the stickers off the front window. They were definitely not in a happy mood. We hastily departed the area. It was, however, somewhat difficult to drive while trying uncontrollably to contain our laughter.

Back at the station, at the end of watch, we headed for our favorite cop bar for a little “Choir Practice” and related our story. It was the highlight of the night and everyone got a good laugh.  For the next several weeks we did not see any LAPD units parked in our area, but we were confident they had their ways of pay-back.

They did, eventually, but that is another story.

     T H E   G R E A T   S T I C K E R   C A P E R

                                    or

          (Dum da Dum Dum, Dum da Dum Dum, Dummmm)

                            by Harry Penny

         LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT

                  FIRESTONE STATION  Circa 1966