September 2011 Dallas Police Shield
The stories and history of the Dallas Police Department, at least in this authors mind, is rife with legend, mystery, myth, and total fabrications. This is one of those stories. You be the judge.
One day in the early nineties, some obscure City MBA in the dark, dank basement of City Hall, was looking over the list of options for the 1994 DPD squad car. It had already been decided that the vehicle of choice in 1994 was going to be a Chevy Caprice. The DPD had bought them in 1989, went to Ford’s for a couple of years, and then in 1991 went to the then new “Whale Tail Caprice’s”
As DPD officers usually were, if they didn’t have a strong opinion one way or another, they just flat line. Such was the case of the plain, but big 1991 Caprice. The car was just…bland. The only good thing was that the new billboard stripes had started to appear on some Caprices, and actually had won some national awards. The old, three leaf marijuana door symbols were finally gone.
Well, the City Hall whiz kid was busy studying the option list that he could pick from for the new squad car. “Why was I given this job”, he said out loud as the City Hall air-conditioner was wheezing and coughing, again he noted dryly. The City had recently laid off all their in-house air-conditioner techs, so they could buy additional trash trucks, and now had to call low bid “AAAA-ABC” air that had no clue what was on the roof of the massive building. Whiz Kid didn’t know anything about police cars; he was a numbers guy, a real live bean counter. Plus, he tried to avoid police as much as possible. The only thing he knew about cops was what he saw on “Adam 12”, and they drove AMC Matadors.
As he was scratching his head and started checking the option boxes, his phone rang. He had been called to a meeting down the hall. Leaving the paperwork on his desk, he left for his latest chewing out by his boss. As luck would have it, his buddy sitting at a desk next to him was a car guy. Making sure all the other office people were on mandatory smoke break, whether they smoked or not, he slinked over and looked over the option list. He then thought it would be really funny to check the box that had “LT1”next to it. He knew the “LT1” was a high performance engine option sometimes placed in Corvette’s. The “LT1” engine option box was right next to the “Librarian” option box. A low bid but big City issue red City sticky note arrow had been placed there by somebody pointing to the “Librarian” option so that there would be no screw-ups as happened once in the early seventies and the wrong engine would be ordered. Laughing to himself he said what the hell and moved the sticky note over to the “LT1” option and checked the box. Yeah no one will notice. He also checked police shocks, police suspension, heavy duty this and that, you name it. He drew the line on a CD option with the AM-FM goodtime radio. Too obvious he thought.
Whitewall tires? Hmm, wasn’t there a chief one time that wanted white wall tires? Again too obvious and ridiculous at the same time he thought.
The Whiz Kid finally came back sulking and not being in a good mood after his chewing out just wanted to get out of the office. Heck it was already 1:30! He stood at his desk and glanced at his paperwork. “Huh, I must have gotten farther along than I thought on this” he said to himself rubbing his chin. Now this guy drove a KIA or something, and was defiantly NOT a car guy. He didn’t know what an “LT1” was. But it sounded good enough for city work, so he turned to his always helpful buddy, “Let’s knock off early and go grab a beer.” So our unsuspecting hero tossed the option sheet into his out box on his way out and the two guys went down to Adair’s on comp time to check out the female FBI agents who hung out there off duty.
Yep the 1994 Chevy Caprice gets my vote for the best squad car the DPD ever mistakenly bought. Yeah, I know about the early seventies Gran Fury with the 440 Magnum. It could go like hell, but had no seat belts, couldn’t stop because of the drum brakes, and with the bias-ply tires, just didn’t corner too well either. But it had an up-right shotgun rack and a killer air-conditioner!
W.H.Croom, II 3973 retired dmntia1995@aol.com
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