One day after I had made a call in Palm Springs, I pulled my patrol car over in front of an exclusive country club to write up the report on my investigation. That was a time long before computers in police cars.
I kept my briefcase which contained all of the different kinds of department forms in the back of the patrol car. I climbed in the back and before I could do anything, a sudden strong gust of desert wind blew the door shut. Oh shit, I was locked in!
What to do? At first I tried several times to squeeze my arm through the space between the side of the car and the installed cage in an attempt to get the radio mike. After several futile attempts, I gave up. There was a lot of traffic going by, so I started yelling "help" over and over again, but no one stopped.
Then I started blowing my police whistle. Finally, after a while, a cab driver stopped. He walked up to the side of my car. I told him that I had accidentally got locked in the back of the car and asked him to please open the door. He hesitated to do so. Then I told him: "Look, I'm a deputy. See, I'm in uniform and I've got my gun. right here." Then he opened the door.
Most of my fellow officers, including even my sergeant, told me that I should have kicked out the window, then picked up a drunk and claim he kicked out the window.
One of the Riverside newspaper reporters was a good friend of mine and drew the above cartoon. The sheriff asked him not to publish it, so he gave it to me. I love it.
You think that was embarrassing? Ha, some time later a Riverside police officer got a call about two Great Danes running loose. He managed to get one of them into the back of the police car. He got the other one by the collar, but had to get in back to keep the other one from getting out. He pulled the second dog in and, without thinking, pulled the door shut so the dog wouldn't get out. He was locked up with the two huge dogs until another police car happened by.
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