Every time I see a guy 6’6 200 lbs I say when I was a kid that’s how big LAPD were for a reason and they look at me strange and I say you know why ? They can’t figure it out I say for the safety of them and the situation unbelievable how dumb people have gotten
Those Motorola radios were the exact type I used when I first started my Fire Service career. I always remember our dispatch saying KMH-217 every time we communicated with them. When I retired we had multi-band digital systems, CAD Systems, GPS Location and programmable hand held radios. Almost forgot Cellphones too! Really enjoyed watching this. Tank you!
Our Santa Monica Fire dispatcher would use say KMA and the full identifier was KMA367 for LAPD. I learned that it had to do with FCC requirements for station identification every few hours.
Love seeing the old analogue way of getting a call out to the proper unit. It’s like the Adam-12 intro! Loved seeing this. Thank you so much for the upload.
Isnt this amazing?? 1967 and the incredible forward thinking about future law enforcement, computers in cars, homing devices, panic buttons. Incredible
Thank you for uploading this. Completely different to how we do things in 2024. Can you imagine all systems just go down? It would be chaos. Amazing documentary showing how it was done back then.
There is no technological improvement which has made as much of a change in policing as putting a radio on every cop. For the first 40 years of radio use in LE, it was limited to "radio cars," which were able to talk directly to Dispatch -- and not all cars WERE radio cars. Dispatch could send calls by radio, but until the 1950s, most cars didn't have two-way radio. To talk to Dispatch, you had to stop at a Gamewell box and use the phone. Gamewells were still in ROUTINE use into the 1970s for LAPD, and into the 1990s for LA County on Catalina. This means that the officer was only in touch with Dispatch or other radio cars when actually IN the radio car. Motorola portables started appearing in the 1960 era -- these were the PT100 "lunchbox" radio, a short range unit weighing several pounds. By the end of the decade, handheld "CC" radios (so named for the Motorola model number prefix) -- about the size of a brick -- were making their way onto the street, but only for occasional use. Cops were still tied to the radio car. Then, suddenly, practical and AFFORDABLE handheld radios started arriving. The premier was the Motorola HT220, which was so popular and durable that some were still in use 15 or 20 years later. What the HT220 (and similar radios from GE, Standard and others) did was to give the officer communications with other OFFICERS, in real time. This change came home to older cops the first time they heard Dispatch repeat "One at gunpoint!" while they were a hundred feet from the car, around behind the building and still hearing their cover unit roaring in from a block away. And then consider the relief brought by that unit, replying ". . .one minute out!" That one advance took the street cop from the baton-ringing, whistle-blowing lone sentry into being part of a cohesive team, able to coordinate with others at a distance beyond the range of a shout. The car replaced the horse, the MDT replaced the TeleType hot sheet, even the Gamewell simply replaced the Twilight Bark . . .but the portable radio replaced empty and sometimes-unanswered PRAYER.
I knew some retired cops who started in the 1950s on foot patrol in San Jose. They had no radios and would look up at a telephone pole on their beat for a light. If the light was on, they would access a call box with their key at the bottom of the pole and call dispatch.
6:08 -- The microphone on this radio is plastic, but the early MOTRAC mikes were cast aluminum. Motorcops would often swap their plastic mikes for the older metal ones, then take those to a chrome shop to have them personalized. They would usually keep these for their whole career, and when later radios came out, would b/r/i/b/e convince radio techs to rig the new mikes into the old chrome housings. I saw one of these not long ago on an RTP, awarded on Motors certification by the proud grandfather who had originally had it on his motor back in the 1970s. Note also the sticker identifying the Freq set used. Unlike a CB radio, on Tac 1 these units transmitted on one frequency and received on another. The "Freq 17" tag identified the pair used for Tac 1. Tac 2 was a simplex (direct) frequency used for car-to-car (good for a couple of miles, maybe). Tac 3 in LA was generally used by detectives, and Tac 4 was where the motorcops hung out when not on Tac 1. 14:45 -- The 1967 radio car, fully equipped (including shotgun), cost $2700! A Harris XL-200 or current-model Motorola APX costs several times that (even before adding accessories).
LAPD eventually got a car compter system in I think 1982 with the old MDT system by Digicom, then refreshed with Motorola, and last now Dell PC's. The MDT's were the same time as the new Van Nuys Communications center with Computer Assisted Dispatch (CAD). BTW: Oakland, CA experimented with an old GTE Sylvania CAD + MDT system in 1974, but didn't last long (durability) and had very tiny screens. San Francisco had a small system also between 1976 to 1979, with larger red plasma screens.
I remember people of that time speaking about the lack of policemen and crime increased. It's funny that in the investigation of Rodney King's incident said that LAPD was too elite.
Back when people who ran LA actually gave a shit about safety. Now they have a DA who could care less about victims and more about criminals who deserve a 2nd 3rd 4th 5th chance. Vote that idiot out.
