Police Holsters

I started out with the Houston Police Department at the end of the Julius Kenige (spelling in question) holster era. I’m not even sure how it got tagged with the Kenige moniker. This was a crude version of the WWI holster similar to the one Gary Cooper wore in his movie, Sgt. York. Basically it was a piece of black leather that hung from the Sam Brown and covered your pistol. I can recall going down to shoot at the old Capitol Street Pistol Range one time for my annual mandatory qualification. I looked over to one of the “old head cops”, one who had managed to hang around the donut shop more than actually doing anything related to police work. His weapon, a stretch of terminology, had become welded, maybe that’s the term, to his holster. His bullets were so old that they had to be pried out of the cylinder because they had corroded so badly. It’s a good bet that he hadn’t had it out in many years.

Most police officers wanted a holster that wouldn’t rub the blue off their pistol and invested a small chunk of change for a slightly better version, one that was lined with soft leather rather than ruin a pistol with the cheap city issue Kenige version. None of these holsters were all that great either; they just looked better. I knew more than a few officers who had lost a pistol due to it having fallen out during a foot chase. Can you imagine reaching down for your pistol after having cornered the bad guy only to realize that it was no longer there? Knowing about that “failing” was enough for me to run with my right hand glued to my side to keep the pistol in place.

Somewhere in the middle of the 80’s the Department must have done some research into holsters and safety related issues because they actually came up with a very nice replacement holster; I think they called it the Hurricane. There must have been a surplus of funding that year as we also got new bullet proof vests that same year. This holster was very rigid and was worn high on the Sam Brown belt. There was some kind of spring loaded break away fitting that held the pistol firmly when you had to run and even prevented a suspect from grabbing your pistol out from your holster during a scuffle. I remember having to practice the proper procedure for use of that holster so that it would become second nature in a “storm”. One of the advantages of the Hurricane holster was how it made it much more comfortable when sitting in the patrol car. The holster rode high enough so as to be above the belt line, no longer causing a huge lump to sit on or get in the way of seat belts. Glad I no longer have to carry all that around any more.