Great thread and story Mike, thanks for posting this. Great range pics, You are a shooter!
When I was very young and coming up thru the Collegiate Officers Program, I was doing an internship at one of our smaller Oklahoma PD's, learning their system, paperwork and the everyday operations and going on's of a police department.
They had a janitor I met and hung out with while I was there, who was pretty old, in his early 90's I think, but really got around great for his age. Anyhoo, While he wasn't the very first one, he was one of, the very first African Americans to work and serve on the NYPD.
I found the stories he would tell me fascinating, as we sat around everyday for 8 weeks and ate lunch together. His stories made me realize as a young black man myself, it was a very different time back then. He would set the picture and frame work of the times in my mind and help me visualize how different police work was back then.
Picture in your mind, one of the first black New York police officers, walking a beat, at night, in the Bronx, sweltering heat and humidity, his uniform comprising of a long trench like wool coat, in the summer no less.. The pistol he carried, is the exact pistol you showed me. However, there was a shortage of leather holsters in the department, so being a young black rookie, he carried that pistol tucked in his belt under that wool coat.
He told many stories over the weeks, of chasing bad guys literally for blocks and blocks on top of the black tarred rooftops, jumping roof to roof. As you can imagine in New York, the buildings were crammed packed together, in very close proximity to each other. There could be a million people living in just a couple block radius of each other.
They didn't have radios back then, so he told me when he arrested someone and they resisted? He would have to keep them in a headlock with one arm, while dragging them a block to the telephone pole so he could call for help and the paddy wagon.
He said there wasn't air conditioning back then, so people, by the thousands, would sit out on their porch stoops in the row houses and buildings all hours of the night and early mornings. Public Relations, wasn't just something a flat foot cop working a beat did back then, it was totally necessary for their survival to build a repore with all these people, as they would help him in a fight and take bad guys into custody, quite often.
He would tell me stories of how the times were then, of how if he was off work and not in uniform, out shopping with his family,how he would get called racist names, and stares and jeers, but then when he was in uniform, those exact same people, would call him "sir" and "officer" and would do whatever he asked them to assist him with.
as a young, law enforcement hopeful, it really brought the lesson of the dualities of life into focus. Out of uniform, some people only saw the color of his skin, but while in uniform, those same exact people only saw his uniform and respected it; and his position; and his authority. Amazing to think about these days, when the uniform itself, gets so much disrespect.
Anyhoo, didn't mean to go wall of text on ya, just wanted to let you know, I was in my early 20's then carrying a Glock, in the 90's and this ancient old janitor in his 90's, still had that very gun you showed on his hip.
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