Robert Allan Miller hated double parkers so much that he left money in his will to the city of Bethlehem, PA for a fund that would reward police officers who ticketed double-parked cars.
However, the city had to turn down the bequest due to their policy of not giving officers incentives for ticket-writing. (Which surprises me, since I figured municipal police depts used all kinds of ways to encourage officers to write tickets.)
In August 1962, New York City cops began patrolling the streets at night while dressed as women. The idea was to trap would-be muggers.
But not all the decoy cops were successful at apprehending the muggers. Patrolman Victor Ortiz got hit over the head by a mugger, lost his gun, and his assailant got away.
Update: Author Erika Janik discusses Operation Decoy in her book Pistols and Petticoats: 175 Years of Lady Detectives in Fact and Fiction. She places it within the context of an ongoing resistance within the police department during the mid-twentieth century to the idea of having female police officers:
By the 1960s, this attitude had become entrenched in police administration and law enforcement literature. Police Juvenile Enforcement declared that while a policewoman could be an asset, "a female officer is not a necessity."
Some even went so far as to suggest that male officers could simply dress as women for undercover work. In 1962, eight male officers did just that in order to trap muggers and rapists in New York City. "We want our men to look like housewives, not like Hollywood stars," explained Inspector Michael Codd, head of the tctical force. Twenty-seven-year-old patrolman Victor Ortiz wore white sandals, orange tapered pants, and a beige padded sweater on top of a bright print blouse. On hand to help the officers get ready were two policewomen, Caryl Collins and Dolores Munroe. The women stood by in their official uniforms as the men posed for the TV and newspaper cameras. Why teaching men to wear heels and put on lipstick was deemed more useful than simply deploying policewomen seems a question the reporters never asked. It's true that decoys did get attacked as part of these operations (that was the point), but all officers worked in teams with detectives standing by to apprehend suspects. In this instance, two of the disguised policemen had their purses snatched in Central Park and seven people were arrested in the overnight anti-mugging operation.
The Index-Journal (Greenwood, South Carolina) - Aug 10, 1960
Police Honor System Only $15.64 Short
SAN DIEGO, Calif. (AP) β At the police headquarters coffee shop, the Police Relief Assn. reported in its monthly publication: "The honor system of paying for doughnuts and rolls accounted for a loss of only $15.64 during May."
In the late 1950s, Drs. Robert Matthews and Lloyd Rowland wrote a police training manual titled "How to Recognize and Handle Abnormal People," which was then distributed to sheriff and police departments throughout the U.S. The officers receiving it in the photo below look a little skeptical.
On September 14, 1967, Scotland Yard held a fashion show to display the new uniforms for policewomen. I suspect this is the ONLY fashion show Scotland Yard has ever held. The caption that ran in American papers read:
"Scotland Yard, apparently bitten by the swinging London bug, holds fashion show here 9/14. Here, London policewomen display the new Norman Hartnell-designed uniforms. Although a far cry from the miniskirted scene stealers, the new ensembles do have shaped skirts."
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.