A day in the life of the Police Department

A LOOK BACK

A couple of weeks ago, I overheard an older gentleman and two

police officers discussing how easy peace officers have it today.

That conversation got me to thinking about how a typical day for our

police department was spent in the past.

We will look at a 24-hour period and see if that gentleman was

correct.

For our 24-hour period, we’ll look back to a Tuesday, a day most

people think as dull and uninteresting. The action day begins for our

police department a couple hours past midnight on March 23, 1943. Its

2:20 a.m. at the police station when Geraldine Talbert of Alabama

Street calls to ask if they could deliver a draft notice that was

sent to Darwin Underwood’s mother’s home to inform her son that he

was to report for a blood test for induction into the army

immediately.

Officers Gene Belshe and George Mitchell were dispatched to

deliver the message to Underwood.

Later, while Mitchell and Gayle Bergey were driving around town at

4 a.m., they noticed water coming out from under the door of Fred

Pickering’s City Cleaners at 218 5th St.

The officers went to Pickering’s home and brought the sleepy store

owner back to his business, where Pickering found that he had

neglected to turn off the water to the boiler.

It was daylight when the station received a call from Surf Theatre

manager Joe Hamann that a car had been parked in the theater’s

parking lot for a week and he wanted it removed.

The officer could only find the name Carson, on a lubrication

slip. The car was removed.

Officer Belshe was next sent to arrest a local man wanted by the

L.A. office of the FBI.

Later that morning, Officer Johnny Seltzer was sent out to bring

in a sailor with a $25 reward on his head to the naval headquarters

in San Pedro. When they arrived at naval headquarters Seltzer found

out that the Navy man had turned himself in earlier that day and was

now a free man.

It was now 12:40 p.m., and Collins Terry, who owned the Buick car

dealership on 5th Street, was driving his brand new sedan by the

police station when it skidded 27 feet before hitting Bill Lively’s

car.

No one was hurt in the accident, but both cars were damaged.

Ed Tinsley brought a little puppy into the station to be given a

good home. He gave it to the desk sergeant, Jack Tinsly.

By now the day was getting along and at 4 p.m. H.M. Gelvin called

to report that he saw a strange object fall in the ocean about three

miles offshore while he was driving home from work.

Huntington Beach police called the 10th Street Army Post here and

were told that what Gelvin saw was a barrage balloon and that the

Coast Guard was sent to pick it up and bring it back to Long Beach.

Huntington Beach resident Fred Williams called the station at 5:30

p.m. to report that his car had been stolen on Main Street while he

was sitting in the dentist’s chair. Now, who would steal someone’s

car in Huntington Beach -- especially while its owner was enduring

the pain of having his teeth worked on?

Two hours later, the station received a call from Williams’ wife

that her husband had found his parked car on 14th Street while he was

walking home from the dentist’s office. There was no damage to

Williams car, nor had anything been taken. Williams found a nice

leather jacket on the front seat.

As the 24-hour period was coming to a close, a Huntington Beach

lady phoned the station from Buena Park to ask if an officer would go

over to her Beach Court apartment at 6th Street and Orange Avenue and

see if she remembered to turn off her hot water tank. The station

sent Officer Howard Robidoux out to investigate. He found that the

lady had left the tank on and he promptly turned it off.

With this last incident, we close our 24 hours of police action in

Huntington Beach. I’ll let you be the judge if that gentleman who

started all this was right about our police having it too easy today.

For me, there is no question that the officers in blue today have

a harder time of it in any 24-hour period.

But I think the police had a lot more fun back then, when they

knew most of the people in town because they had grown up with them.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington

Beach resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at

P.O. Box 7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.