This thread really takes me back.

When I first came on board they didn't have a lot of the field training protocol that they do now. I was taken to a closet off of the evidence room and we searched through used uniforms until I found a couple that were a close enough fit for me to go to the academy the following Monday. They also gave me a large paper grocery bag full of leather and a box with a S & W model 66 and told me to show up at 8:00 the following morning.

I washed and pressed those uniforms that night and noticed this small pocket down the back of my right pant leg. I remember spending a long time trying to figure out how the buckle on the Sam Brown belt worked. As I got dressed the following morning the only guidance I had as to where things go was watching Adam 12. I figured that little pocket must be there to put the end of your night stick in so it didn't swing around. Most of you guys who were old time cops know how my first day went when I walked in with my night stick hanging from the ring and the end tucked in that sap pocket... and my dump pouches were on the belt upside down. As I was one of only two in a 100 man department at the time that had a college degree, the old guys were pretty brutal on the smart "college kid".

An older Lt. opened his desk drawer and gave me my S & W sap. Some of the older guys could pop a guy over the temple and put it back in the pocket and catch them before they could hit the ground. I remember a non cooperate D.U.I. driver one night with his hands wrapped around the steering wheel refusing to exit the vehicle. My older training officer never said a word, just walked up and rapped him across the knuckles with his sap. Pretty sure there were several broken bones in his hand when I cuffed him.

As an aside, the night sticks that we were issued were made of hickory and had flutes like a rifle barrel running down the full length. They also had a stainless steel ball on the handle end as a "rib spreader". Some of the more devastating wounds that I saw back then were from those night sticks. They would cut you just like a sword with those flutes.