Every Hat in Sergeant’s Collection Has a Story

Huntington Park Police Sgt. Michael Gwaltney has an addiction--police hats. The 41-year-old officer collects hats of various sizes, shapes and colors from police organizations throughout the world. He has accumulated 240 hats from 52 countries since starting the collection three years ago.

His collection--on display in glass-enclosed wooden shelves on the second floor of the city’s police station, includes a gray cowboy-style Australian constable hat, a white parade helmet of the Bahama Islands police, and a brown winter fur cap of the Czechoslovakia national police.

Gwaltney said he became interested in collecting “after joining the International Police Assn. (a fraternal organization). But I didn’t want to just collect badges and uniforms. Everyone does that.”

His first hats came from West Germany. After he had about 30, Police Chief Patrick Connolly gave Gwaltney permission to set up a hat museum in the police station.

The oldest is a brown leather helmet used by policemen in Hertfordshire, England, between 1901 and 1910, Gwaltney said.

The patrol sergeant has made friends and exchanged equipment with police throughout the world as a result of his hobby.

“There’s a story behind every hat,” Gwaltney said.

During a visit to Southern California by Johannesburg traffic officer Graham Bruce, Gwaltney received a South African police hat and gave Bruce a bulletproof vest. Gwaltney later learned that the vest had saved Bruce’s life. “I could never thank you enough for the bulletproof vest,” Bruce wrote in a letter. “It stopped four rounds to my chest and I owe you my life.”

Gwaltney said he has been able to obtain most of his hats by exchanging pins, patches and other police memorabilia. But he acknowledges that he also has spent as much as $150 when the bartering failed.

“He has CM (Collector’s Mentality),” said fellow collector Jim Cost, police chief of Campbell, a community near San Jose. “It’s a sickness among real hat collectors. They’ll travel any distance and spend money to get a hat.”

Cost said he spent $300 about 10 years ago for a hat that had belonged to the chief of security for the Shah of Iran. Cost said he has about 150 hats, but most are in storage.

Gwaltney’s hat museum is popular with elementary schoolchildren, who seem to be most fascinated by the English bobby’s helmet. The story behind that hat?

“People started calling it that because Sir Robert Peel started the London police in the 1800s. They would refer to the officers as Bobby’s boys.”

* In late March when he started having chest pains, Bobbie Mott plucked the name of Dr. Robert Heebner from a medical insurance guide. Heebner examined the 44-year-old Paramount steelworker and recommended heart surgery, which was performed recently by a team of doctors at Doctor’s Hospital of Lakewood.

Mott learned later that Heebner was the doctor who delivered him and his twin brother, Bill, years ago in Lynwood. Mott’s mother, Juanita, recognized Heebner’s name, but initially could not believe the coincidence. “She told him I was either dead or too old,” said Heebner, 78, who still has a general practice in Lakewood.

* George Pla, who graduated from Huntington Park High School in 1968, returned to the campus last Monday to be principal for a day. Pla, 41, joined approximately 170 other business executives who spent the day as principals at public school campuses throughout Los Angeles County.

Pla owns Cordoba Corp., a Los Angeles-based consulting firm that specializes in urban and regional planning. His consulting firm, which was established in 1983, was named as one of the 100 fastest growing companies in the country by Hispanic Business magazine. After graduating from Huntington Park, Pla earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Cal State Los Angeles and a master’s in public administration from USC.

* Long Beach City Councilman Thomas Clark has been reappointed to the Board of Administration for the Public Employees Retirement System by Gov. Pete Wilson. Clark was appointed to the board in 1990 by former Gov. George Deukmejian.