Cops in Short Shorts!
by Marti Jonjak, July 17, 2013
A succinct collection of antiquated photographs, crime artifacts, deadpan write-ups, and charmingly outdated communications equipment is housed at the Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum in Pioneer Square. Apparel creeps in, too. There are dozens of patches and badges, and several historic uniforms showcased behind glass, though they're too infested with utilitarian details to bring a lot of thrills.
In the back room, a 1987 photograph of "The Nation's First Mountain Bike Patrol" is much flashier than the other displays. It shows two uniformed men posing before a cityscape. The cops are fit and young and clean and alert, and the sunlight surrounding them falls down like poured gold. In keeping with a certain formal dignity, they have classic button-up collared shirts with western-cut pocket flaps, muted navy tones, and long sleeves. But their upper and lower bodies are not the most perfectly matched pairs. The officers wear crisp short shorts accessorized with Velcro-close high-top sneakers, and their identical athletic-stripe, calf-length tube socks are lightly scrunched for a casual effect. The resulting ensemble imparts the perfect blend of visual spice and symbolic urgency.
Additional style visuals are sprinkled throughout the museum: a perpetrator's knit ski mask, a call-center employee's feathery pompadour, a policeman's bulbed woolen helmet from the 1900s. But if you need more elaborate insider write-ups, you'll have to look elsewhere.
Start with the 1985 book of interviews Cops: Their Lives in Their Own Words by Mark Baker. In it, an anonymous police chief finally explains the cop-and-mustache connection. Once upon a time, the decoy section entrapped purse snatchers by posing officers as harmless old ladies who carried handbags and trudged the city's dark streets: "You want a woman victim, so we have to dress up one of the guys... The guys outsmarted me at first. They started growing mustaches. Before long, they all had one."
Also read David Ziskin's book The Real Police, a meticulous recounting of his service to the Seattle Police Department. From the "Uniforms" chapter: "Most departments wear clip-on neckties in uniform, so that a suspect cannot choke an officer by grabbing the tie," Ziskin writes. And for plainclothes duties, "I had a couple of ties cut and then tacked back together in a place that would be concealed under my shirt collar. If anyone tried to choke me by grabbing the tie, it would part under the collar and pull free."
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/worn-out/Content?oid=17268659