LAPD has always been "proud" that our uniform was patch-less...of course, we always had that huge badge, which doubled as a weapon in a pinch. I can remember coppers from other agencies (mostly back-east) who always asked for an LAPD "patch"...we always gave them the traffic patch, with the cross on it, because that's the only patch we had. I like it that our uniform, unlike most others, didn't have anything on it besides stripes (if you were lucky enough to get promoted). We even won the best cop uniform contest one year (before the King caper made us unpopular) and it was mentioned that our uniform had a clean, uncluttered look without a patch.
Bob