Becoming a Police Officer was Getting Expensive

 

This morning while enjoying some of the postings on Facebook I ran across an offering on eBay where someone was selling printouts of Smith and Wesson pistols.  A memory jumped into my mind, one from back in 1972 when I was about to graduate from the Houston Police Department’s Academy.  I was about to become a police officer.

There were still a few weeks of training to go when they explained that we needed to decide which pistol or pistols we would purchase.  I hadn’t thought about that, naively believing the City of Houston Police Department supplied each officer with all the tools required. 

I should give a little background at this point regarding my financial status.  I’d been employed by Montgomery Ward as a salesperson in their Hardware and Electric department making minimum wage just prior to being accepted into the police academy.  I saw this opportunity as a major improvement financially.  Think about that for a moment; the chance to make almost six hundred dollars a month was going to be a major improvement for me.

Back to being asked to purchase a new Smith and Wesson duty pistol with my own money had me wondering, “Will they be asking for a down payment on a patrol car next?”  I gulped a couple of times and decided, since this was a ‘one time offer to purchase these pistols at cost’, I decided to purchase a Smith and Wesson Model 19, 357/38 duty pistol along with a Smith and Wesson Model 36, 38 caliber off duty pistol. 

I can’t recall offhand how much the total came to; but each pistol was over a hundred dollars, or about half of what I would make in take home pay that month. There may have been a partial payment required along with a way to take care of the rest via payroll deductions; this happened so long ago. 

A few years went by and I found it impossible to resist having a silver and gold butt plate made by Nelson Silvia’s, a rather impressive piece of jewelry that had my name and badge number engraved on it. Think of that fancy butt plate as a symbol of having graduated from Rookie to Seasoned police officer, similar, I imagine, to a ring ceremony for those about to graduate from college.

My house got burglarized while I was at work and one of the few items taken was my Smith and Wesson Model 19 pistol.  I happened to be enjoying the use of a Colt Commander 1911 as an alternative duty weapon and so the loss of the other pistol, while painful, didn’t affect my ability to work. 

I did eventually purchase a replacement revolver, a used Smith and Wesson Model 586, blue steel 357/38 from a police officer who didn’t consider revolvers a serious police officer’s weapon.  No need to get into that conversation; I obtained it for exactly one hundred dollars, a steal since he didn’t see its monetary value either.

Several more years went by, imagine that… I got a call from the Harris County Sheriff’s Department asking if I had ever reported a Smith and Wesson Model 19 pistol stolen and if so, had it ever been recovered.  Wow, they’d actually found my stolen pistol by the serial number entered into the original burglary report.

Turns out a member of their department had gone to the pistol range to qualify using that pistol.  I have no idea how he obtained it, don’t want to know either.  I explained that my insurance company had settled with me which meant the pistol now belonged to them.  A few phone calls later and my insurance company said I could keep the pistol for a nominal fee of one hundred dollars; done!

The pistol was returned to me, without the fancy butt plate; only two small holes in the pistol grips where it had been removed.  Whoever had stolen the pistol, or whoever purchased the pistol had removed the butt plate.  That’s the only thing I really wanted back, a stupid chunk of silver and gold that had my name and badge number on it.

To bring an end to this memory, there was a night security guard working out in the Spring Branch area where I patrolled.  He’d been promoted and asked me where he should go to get a good deal on a duty pistol, one he could afford.  I sold him my old Smith and Wesson Model 19 for exactly one hundred dollars.