In any profession, there are always beloved practitioners who inspire and encourage others to pursue their own dream in that field. Law Enforcement is no exception, and indeed may be the most effective at recruiting young candidates with tales of bravado and intrigue, courage and jeopardy, tempered with humor and poignancy, that only police work can match. Absent the fictitious meanderings of movie and TV programs which often exploit the industry in fantasy based scenarios, it was the vivid stories rendered by those retiring veterans who lived through the harried and hectic years of post WW II police work which captivated most of my colleagues as we donned uniforms and gun belts in the 1970s.
We replaced those retiring officers who began their careers three and four decades earlier, in a time when radios were rare and radar was non-existent, before the Miranda decision, the Warren Court, before Hippies and the SLA, before Watts and the U2 incident, and even before most of our parents were born. Those Officers made life substantially easier and safer for all of us, in spite of our ignorance of their contributions.
I came from something of a police family background. My uncle Frank was a Missouri Highway Patrolman when most Troopers patrolled the roadways on Harley Davidson motorcycles, marked only by a front fender emblem and small red lights to either side of the headlight. He received calls of accidents and robberies from a series of flags raised by local service stations, who were telephoned by Lees Summit Troop Headquarters to alert the local Trooper to pull in and receive his orders, before venturing out on his mission. Frank carried his 5 inch barreled Smith and Wesson Model 10 for years in a cross draw carry, as did many of his fellow Troopers across the state, before uniformity brought the strong side swivel holster to their Sam Brown belts.
My step father was a retired Chief of Police from Burlington, Massachusetts, and my cousin was the Police Chief in Garden City, Kansas during the infamous Clutter murders which spawned Truman Capote’s novel “In Cold Blood”, before his recruitment as an FBI Special Agent during the Hoover administration. But, it was his father, my uncle Mitchell Geisler, an L.A.P.D. Sergeant who played the most important role in my choice of careers.
Mitch was a tall, handsome man of infinite charm. Debonair and devilish, he was a lady’s man of some repute, and a raconteur of amusing and enticing stories of his experiences and escapades in L.A. Mitch moved from the midwestern farmlands to California, joined the Navy in WW II and was appointed to a Shore Patrol Post in the “Yards.” After V.E. day, Mitch found himself seduced by the allure of the dark blue L.A.P.D. uniform and promptly joined the force, renting an apartment in the Hollywood Division where he worked for years, when Hollywood was still grand and glorious in the old tradition of movie stars and the silver screen image they portrayed and lived.
Mitch could keep me spellbound with his recollections of past immodest behavior. For years in any trial, the number of arrests a defendant had suffered was always kept from the jury to preclude prejudice, and many a police officer sought ways to discretely inform the haughty panel of these figures, in spite of their instructions to the contrary. Mitch would occasionally take a plain piece of paper bearing a scrawled number and place it conspicuously in his pocket prior to being called as the arresting officer. Then discretely, he would periodically refer to this cryptic note when testifying on behalf of the State. When Defense would invariably demand to know what that number was he was referencing, Mitch would casually reply, “that’s the number of time’s we’ve arrested the defendant”, always admissible as Defense counsel opened the door for the response. Sgt. Joe Friday of Dragnet would not have been amused. Eventually such shenanigans were barred, to everyone’s benefit, yet the story is as clever today as it was then.
Mitch was assigned to the Detective Bureau at a time before luxury apartment complexes were common. Answering a burglary in progress call late one night at a new courtyard apartment in Hollywood, Mitch found himself on a darkened sidewalk near the center of the apartment buildings towering nearby, with a gated fence to scale. Carefully maneuvering the fence, so as not to rip his new suit, riot gun firmly gripped, he took three cautious steps before falling into one of the first apartment swimming pools in his district. After all that, Mitch would lament, the scoundrel still got away.
The early 1950’s brought about conspicuous changes in the equipment of law enforcement, and LAPD was one of the more innovative agencies in the US. Mitch was issued one of the first Smith & Wesson Model 37, airweight Chief’s Specials, in about 1954, when the Department purchased a number for Detectives. The light J frames carried easily, and were well received, although the Colt Detective Specials and Cobras eventually eclipsed the 5 shot airweights among Detectives who favored the extra round over the extra weight. A Colt .25 Pocket Model served as his backup for a number of years, carried in his left front pocket, relieving his strong hand for his service revolver.
New L.A.P.D. Officers were required to purchase their own duty sidearms, with the 6 inch barreled S&W Model 10, or heavier barreled, adjustable sighted Model 14, K-38 being the standard. Mitch chose the then new Model 14, K-38 for uniform duty. Eventually , like many of his contemporaries, he purchased a brace of K- frame Magnums, a 6 inch Model 19, .357 and a mirror image Model 48, .22 Magnum, with both K-frames fitted with heavy barrels with ejector rod shrouds. I carried Mitch’s Magnum on my first night on duty in uniform, both as a testament to Mitch, and as an expedient until I could purchase my own Model 19 Combat Magnum the following day.
We lost Uncle Mitch this week, at 96, after a long battle with illness and age. I last visited him in Missouri about ten years ago, during a vacation from my assignment in deep cover narcotics. Sporting two foot of beard, and an equally long pony tail, my persona was the antithesis of his neat, nattily attired frame. His pipe glowed and his eyes sparkled as he recalled war stories from 40 years past, and he seemed intrigued, if a bit confused over my stories about Colombian drug dealers, planes, mules, and clandestine airstrips. We were confederates, fighting similar battles, four decades apart, in very different wars, and uniforms.
If Mitch had not encouraged me to give his profession a try, I would not be authoring this today. Mitch, I will miss you terribly, but your legacy endures. Perhaps someday a young cop that I inspired will recall some of my exploits, and chronicle them for posterity. That will ensure a part of you lives on after I’m gone. A more fitting tribute could not be paid.

Originally published June 2002