Behind the badge

I suppose this was inevitable.

After all, we have one of the most storied PDs in the world, so sooner or later I was bound to pay a visit to the Los Angeles Police Museum. A short jaunt up the venerable 110—and by “venerable,” I mean “Careful on Exit 30A, going from 80 to 15 on a tight curve is hard”—and we find the Highland Park brownstone that houses the museum. And if it looks like an archetypal police HQ, well...

...that’s because it originally was. In fact, it’s the city’s oldest surviving police station—opened in 1926, closed in 1983, and then repurposed as a museum. Consequently, the holding cells remain intact as an exhibit; once the bunks were stacked three high, the station could house up to twenty-one offenders between the misdemeanor and felony cells. If the cramped accommodations weren’t incentive enough, there was only one shower stall for all of them, so it seems like you’d want to dry out pretty quickly here.

And that’s without taking the immediate facilities into account. So, uh—do I get my call to Beyoncé now?

The LAPD as we know it goes back to 1869, during the Wild West days and only about twenty years after California attained statehood. Starting with a mere six paid officers, the force expanded very gradually but always showed a progressive streak in some regards, with Robert Williams Stewart becoming its first African-American officer in 1886.

And then in 1910, Alice Stebbins Wells—that’s her in the upper right—became the first American policewoman. Lucy Gray preceded her as LA’s original police matron in 1888, but Wells was the first woman to have full arrest powers. That said, female officers’ field duties were basically limited to handling female arrestees and juvenile delinquents until things started to equalize in the ’70s, with equal status on the force finally granted in 1980. Check out the purse that was part of the official policewoman’s uniform as late as the ’60s! Came complete with a holster for the lipstick as well as the .38. Bleh. Just give me a fully equipped officer, regardless of gender!

Another look at those early decades comes from the Daily Police Bulletin, a blotter sheet that began in 1907 and ran for about fifty years, providing a unique window into the kinds of suspects, thefts, arrests, and missing persons cases of the times—suspects’ fingerprints included. These are now archived and undergoing preservation efforts at the museum, along with a collection of Los Angeles Police Beat magazines (1947–1978), the covers of which are viewable by touchscreen. Huh. Is that the kid from Changeling?

The museum’s also loaded with the hardware of the job. The LAPD broke ground not just with the people it hired but with the equipment it used, opening the first municipal crime lab in 1923. That’s where you’d find something like this forensic camera, used in the infancy of ballistic fingerprinting to photograph recovered bullets in enhanced detail.

And then there’s an extensive display of field restraints, from ye olde ball and chain to more kinds of handcuffs than I imagined existed, historical to modern. Granted, I could obviously slip out of these easily, but it turns out they’d still be prepared for miscreants my size.

Going out the back door, we find the Vehicle Holding Area, which contains everything from a vintage cruiser to this retired police helicopter, an old Bell Jet Ranger that predates the current black and white color scheme. But old or not, how funny if not downright ironic it is for me to be sitting in one of these choppers—usually I’m on their receiving end.

There are also a couple of armored transports and even a Bomb Squad forklift, which is when the gravity of this place really starts to feel real. But nothing hammers that sense home as much as...

...this Chevy Celebrity, which has clearly seen better days. And one decidedly dark day, because this is the actual getaway car from the North Hollywood shootout of 1997. That was before my time, but even rusting away on cinderblocks, it’s still eerie to see firstpaw.

As a matter of fact, back inside and up on the second floor, there’s an entire room dedicated to that incident. What otherwise would’ve been an ordinary bank robbery escalated into an extended firefight in a residential area, due to the two robbers wearing body armor and wielding automatic guns against the less-equipped LAPD. While the police ultimately won the battle after nearly 2,000 rounds of ammo were exchanged between both sides, it was a seminal moment because it resulted in (among other things) the force upgrading its weaponry and tactics in a big way.

Also receiving an expanded exhibit of its own is the notorious Symbionese Liberation Army, with a natural emphasis on the 1974 siege that similarly ended in a victory for the LAPD but at the cost of injured officers and the deaths of all involved perpetrators. It’s remembered as one of the earliest high-profile deployments of the SWAT team—LA being the first city to create such a task force—as well as a pivotal moment in news media, which at the time was new to covering that sort of event on live TV. Now, of course, it’s just digitized footage on an interactive monitor here, and I mostly only know Patty Hearst from her guest appearance on Veronica Mars.

Speaking of TV detectives, it wouldn’t be an LA museum without some kind of Hollywood tie-in, and in this case it’s a sports jacket worn by Jack Webb during the ’68–’69 season of Dragnet. So...no love for the Dan Aykroyd version? Then again, I suppose you couldn’t very well have the music video playing on a loop right next to the intense shootout clips.

As for real-life policewear, another room houses display cases of guns and uniforms from across the decades. One of the earliest looks drew heavily from the classic British wool uniform—stovepipe hat and all—with a lighter olive version worn in the summer. Since there obviously was no women’s equivalent when Alice Stebbins Wells got her badge, she had to sew her own from the olive drab, skirt and all; later policewomen wore a dark blue incarnation that was closer to Navy WAVES uniforms (also on display here). Meanwhile, by the ’50s the men’s uniform had more or less evolved into the familiar design we still recognize today, the biggest difference since then being that it became unisex in the ’70s. You’ve come a long way, Officer.

Same story with the police badge, which saw several early models and then a final one by midcentury. In fact, most of these are medals for valor or shooting—the evolution of the LAPD badge itself only required the six steps in the center, from the eight-pointed starburst of 1869 to the modern shield of 1940. And just like the uniform, the only significant alteration after that was making it unisex in 1973, changing “policeman”/“policewoman” to, simply, “police officer.”

The remainder of the second floor is dedicated to more service gear, including an old dispatcher’s station and bomb-disposal equipment. To my surprise, the LAPD Bomb Squad has had only two on-duty deaths: Arleigh McCree and Ron Ball were killed in 1986 because standard procedure at the time required that bombs be preserved for analysis and trial instead of simply detonated from a safe distance. And thus, remote-controlled units such as these, which I hope I only ever see from the rear hereafter.

Something I would be happy to see from any angle, at least if it were mine? A good old-fashioned police motorcycle! The LAPD has gone through quite a few different bikes—Thors, Moto Guzzis, Hondas, BMWs, Harleys—with Kawasaki KZ1000s such as this one becoming the hog of choice for a time, from the ChiPs era until the model was discontinued, at which point it was back to Harleys. Hey, whatever gets the wind in my fur!

So now that I’m feeling inspired—and in keeping with its history of innovation—is the LAPD ready for its first rabbit officer?

Okay, maybe not; it kind of looks like I’d have to sew my own uniform first.

Trolling in the deep

Wouldn’t you know: No sooner do I post an entire entry about how Rob and I prefer to stay close to home than we find ourselves in Northern California unexpectedly—Monterey, to be precise. But not being one to pass up such an opportunity, I decided to play tourist and charter one of those whale-watching boats at Fisherman’s Wharf. Okay, why did nobody advise me to bring a jacket? The fur only goes so far this early in the morning.

And you know what else I should’ve brought? Dramamine. I don’t generally get motion-sick, but then I’m generally in a car or something else land-based, not out on the water. So when I moved up to the prow to get where the action is...

...it struck me pretty quickly why my people never adapted to the sea. Urk. Good thing they had an open cleat at my level, right?

So much for getting my sea paws, then; after telling the captain to turn us around ahead of schedule, I had to settle for flipping through the whale-sighting guide in the cabin while trying to come up with a Plan B for my day. Well, beyond getting a second breakfast.

Problem was, it was still pretty early, and the rest of Fisherman’s Wharf was barely roused. Anyone? No chowder samples or anything?

In fact, the only place I saw that was fully open? The candy store. You can always count on a waterfront sugar pusher! Let’s see, at this price it’ll break down to $11.11 worth of sugar each for my eight brothers and me—guess I’d better get two, huh?

Then after some real food in Pacific Grove, I decided the best way for me to see any sea life was to double-back for Cannery Row, where the Monterey Bay Aquarium sits. I love aquariums—I could hang out at the Aquarium of the Pacific all day and occasionally have—and big public ones are the only kind available to me ever since Rob finally retired the tank we had at home, which I fondly referred to as the guppy killatorium. Wonder if that had anything to do with him finally deciding to give it up?

Unfortunately, there was no whale-watching to be had for me here either—despite once standing in for “the Cetacean Institute” back when it opened in the mid-’80s, the aquarium’s only whale is the skeleton of a young male gray that washed up on the shore and now hangs in the main lobby. Great. Now where am I supposed to score some ambergris?

In fact, the only mammals that reside here are a few otters, but ten minutes of watching them yielded no more of a show than them rolling around in the water constantly and washing their faces like they had OCD. So we moved on to the Open Sea, a 1.2 million-gallon tank—I’m up on the mezzanine here, and this is still only part of the ninety-foot viewing panel—and a selection of fish that includes sardines, Pacific mackerel, dolphinfish, the only bluefin and yellowfin tuna exhibited in an American aquarium, on and on. The sharks are the biggest draw, both the hammerhead and the great white, although the latter’s a juvenile and only a few feet long...

...but personally, I’m always going to be more interested in the oddball of the tank, which in this case is the enormous sunfish, here cruising by in between the multiple siestas I saw it catching. Well, these guys are not only big but downright fugly from the front, so I don’t think anybody can begrudge them whatever beauty sleep they can get.

And then on the other end of the spectrum are the critters that are tiny even at my scale. I guess cardinal shrimp have caught on with home aquarists in recent years, but this is the first time I’ve seen any close up; gotta love the white antennae and legs that make them look so alien and the blazing red hue that makes them look so artificially colored. Don’t know if that camouflages them in their native environment, but it sure makes me not wanna eat ’em, so mission accomplished!

As of this writing, a new jellyfish area is under construction and scheduled to open next year, but the existing one is certainly nothing to sneeze at, from the sea nettles that drift up and down in the most transfixing fashion, almost like a living lava lamp...

...to the equally graceful moon jellies, on display here in two sizes in separate tanks. Hey, I can see up that one’s skirt!

As for other recent developments, we narrowly missed the flamingos exhibit that closed just weeks before our visit, but fortunately, the Secret Life of Seahorses is still open. Quite a few of the little quirks of nature are here along with such relatives as pipefish and sea dragons, but this is where I really started to get a sense of the aquarium’s interactive displays. Take a photo with a giant model of a seahorse? Why not—here’s an animal combination you don’t generally see in nature. Giddyap, Storm!

Or try this video game, where you choose a station, then adjust the corresponding seahorse’s color, size, and spininess to match the randomly selected background so as to avoid being eaten by a larger fish. Getting one right in the allotted time is easy, sure, but doing all three at once? Much harder, especially with paws. Stand clear!

There’s even a micro-theater where you can sit and watch an animated loop of seahorse courtship rituals that...

...whoa! Seahorse porn!

That aside, the aquarium is as kid-driven an experience as it is a paws-on one. The Mission to the Deep room is basically just a big submarine game, and even the area dedicated to Hovden Cannery—the last of the Cannery Row fish-tinneries, the site of which the aquarium now occupies—makes sure to keep the little ones occupied so their parents have a chance to read the historical placards. The adults get to view a partial reproduction of Doc Ricketts’ lab, complete with some of his personal effects; the kids get to play with the steam valves on a model boiler. Everybody wins!

Then upstairs, there are not one but two activity areas geared toward young families. I did one of those take-home rubbings on the marine mammal side...

...and reenacted Botticelli on the fish side—well, sort of.

But if all the fun and games don’t get across the aquarium’s mission statement of ocean conservation, then there’s always the Vanishing Wildlife section to hammer it home. Here you can see some hard facts about overfishing and pick up one of the regularly updated pockets guides that tell you which kinds of seafood are eco-sensible and which aren’t.

Uh-oh. Guess I’d better not say anything about my last trip to Chinatown.

Luckily, the aquarium restaurant offers up a selection of environmentally responsible dishes, meaning I can still get my moules-frites on—in this case, mussels in a Thai curry sauce with garlic fries on the side! And each table comes with a pair of binoculars and a sighting guide if you want to check out the gulls and cormorants in the bay through the picture windows. Or do like I did and go all Rear Window on some kayakers.

Speaking of the feathery kind: The aquarium’s purview also extends into shorebird rehabilitation, with an enclosed but airy aviary that allows visitors to get so close to the birds that you can practically reach out and touch them. But, you know, don’t.

Or if the local birds aren’t exciting enough for you, there are also puffins and penguins onsite, with the latter exhibit featuring a small bubble dome that similarly lets you get right up in their faces.

Excuse me, hi? I ordered cakes and tea—are those on their way? Okay, can I at least get my raspberry ice? Well, that’ll be reflected in your tip, then.

But if you’re looking for animals you can get genuinely up close and personal with, you can’t miss the touch pools—literally, since there are both upstairs and downstairs versions here. I’ll pass, though; I’m sure feeling a pink star or a gumboot chiton or a bat ray is really cool, fur just takes forever to dry. But wouldn’t you know: For those of us too squeamish to go splash around in a real tide pool, there’s a video game for that as well.

So here’s an interesting little factoid: The aquarium actually pumps fresh seawater through its exhibits, drawing about 2,000 gallons of it from the bay per minute and circulating it through more than a hundred tanks. And one of the biggest reasons for this is the Kelp Forest—the giant kelp growing there needs a regular flow of seawater from which to draw its nutrients. High maintenance. But it truly is “giant,” as you can see from the two-story viewing window.

...yet I kind of prefer this smaller, bathysphere-style window—makes it easier to take in the swaying, sunlit serenity of the underwater world without having your eye drawn every which way. I feel so Cousteau here.

More serene still is the Monterey Bay Habitats wing, where we find the Deep Reef tank. The mood lighting, obviously, is in keeping with the dimmer sun down where the white sturgeons, leopard sharks, and plumed anemones live, the latter growing on the rocks in a way that makes a slightly surreal little forest of the world below. Anybody else suddenly craving cauliflower?

And really, while sea life in general can be pretty weird compared to us terrestrial sorts, the deep is where it truly takes a turn for the odd. Here we have a colony of feathery, quill-like sea pens—an animal, not a plant—and a couple of mermaid’s purses, which are actually just the singular-looking egg sacs of skates, not cryptid accessories. Nor are they Jenny Hanivers, though that’s getting a lot warmer.

Here’s an octopus’ garden for you—tube anemones, their tentacles dreamily waving even in the faintest of currents. I could sit and watch these for hours...but the longer I do, the more the New Age music that they play down here makes sense, which is probably a sign I should move on.

Not surprisingly, the aquarium manages to turn that constant influx of seawater into a display in its own right—down on the first floor, there’s a walkthrough tunnel that some of the water flushes over every thirty seconds, giving the sense of being under a series of regularly crashing waves. Loud, and yet oddly soothing too...but then I suppose it is pretty much the ultimate white noise machine.

So we end the day outside at the Great Tide Pool Amphitheater, overlooking the bay itself. Well...I may not have gotten close to a live whale after all, but I’d say seeing a few hundred of its contemporaries, from the mundane to the extraordinary, is a pretty reasonable tradeoff. Kind of a waste of all that harpoon training, though.

Oh, right—I’m not supposed to hunt sea life anymore, that’s the takeaway here. Guess it’s burgers for dinner, then.