Paddy wagon question

[besafe2]

Back in the day we used paddy wagons for transport of those we arrested. The local pd just got 3 (think it was 3). The chief said that would now put more officers back on the street & they are not tied up with transport & booking. So my question is does your dept. use the wagon ?

[retdetsgt]

Not in years. We used them primarily before police cars had cages in them. The last one worked the downtown area because we had foot beats there up until 25 years or so ago. We still have one that's used for mass arrest incidents, but not daily police work.

[kels]

We have a transport van for when we have several to take for a ride.

[Cat_Doc]

Not anymore. There used to be rings set into the sidewalk on Main where a bunch of bars were across from the RR depot. They used to cuff the drunks to the rings and have them sit on the sidewalk until there were enough prisoners to justify a paddy wagon run to pick them up.

You would get soooooooooooooo sued now if you tried that.

[besafe2]

Thanks for the reply's thus far. I was sort of thinking they were a thing of the past as no one else around here that I know of uses them.

We were a 2 man team & I always hated getting that duty

[retdetsgt]

Not anymore. There used to be rings set into the sidewalk on Main where a bunch of bars were across from the RR depot. They used to cuff the drunks to the rings and have them sit on the sidewalk until there were enough prisoners to justify a paddy wagon run to pick them up.

Really? We have rings in the curbs in some of the old neighborhoods, but they were for tying horses.

[Cat_Doc]

Really? We have rings in the curbs in some of the old neighborhoods, but they were for tying horses.

LOL.

Yep, they were originally set to tie off horses. There just were not many horses around during the time they were running the wagon. That portion of Main was extremely busy back in the day with the RR depot open. Across the street was one end bars, the other general store and markets.

All the bars are closed down now and the city has beefed up the streets as part of the Old Town revitalization attempt. Curio/Art shops are taking over and they close the area down for open air market and special events open to foot traffic on a regular basis.


They took the rings out during the remodeling and it pisses me off that I didn't know about it. I would have loved to have kept one. I missed the chance to grab a call box key and that also irritates me. I do have an old jail cell key that will be mounted one of these days in a shadow box.

Edit: Cucu's Bar and the 50/50 Club were on Main and is the setting for many war stories. They use to like to fight.

[cntryboy0531]

Not here. We have cages in our cars and just transport our own arrests. We use transport vans from the jail for mass arrest type situations. I've stacked my old crown vic with four people across the back seat when I arrested a few people before.

Now, when I done some time out with our dope unit, we had a jail van assigned to us when we were doing sales or buys, or doing the hooker/john picker upper thing. We'd just load up the van, and transport them to jail after we done their paperwork at our command post.

[greg72982]

Are you guys trying to tell me that people in your state go to jail??

[CCBlueMan]

Not here. We have cages in our cars and just transport our own arrests. We use transport vans from the jail for mass arrest type situations.

Ditto.

[JakeLock]

At my old department if I had a mass arrest we had a bus we would bring out. At my new department I just sardine them in the bed of my truck.

[retdetsgt]

They took the rings out during the remodeling and it pisses me off that I didn't know about it. I would have loved to have kept one. I missed the chance to grab a call box key and that also irritates me. I do have an old jail cell key that will be mounted one of these days in a shadow box.

I managed to scrounge quite a bit of stuff over the years, a lot of it from trash cans. I had some old fingerprint cards and mug shots from 1906 I found they were tossing back when I first came on. I also had some dishes from the old city jail with Portland Police on them along with a picture of a police hat. I managed to steal a jail key when they closed the jail too.

I donated all of it to the Portland Police Museum. Home

My kids weren't interested in any of it and all that was taking up space in my closet. One thing I still have is the sap I was issued and my old sap gloves. I may give them that stuff at some point. If anyone doesn't know what a sap is, I can post a picture of mine.

[besafe2]

I donated all of it to the Portland Police Museum. Home

My kids weren't interested in any of it and all that was taking up space in my closet. One thing I still have is the sap I was issued and my old sap gloves. I may give them that stuff at some point. If anyone doesn't know what a sap is, I can post a picture of mine.

Thanks much for posting the museum picture. And I still have my sap also. It never goes out of the house for any reason as I wouldn't be able to explain it, hopefully it will never be needed but it's with in easy reach in the home.

[BP348]

Just because of shear numbers USBP still uses the paddy wagon concept. For many younger agents being assigned to the "transport" van is a weekly occurrence.

[retdetsgt]

Just because of shear numbers USBP still uses the paddy wagon concept. For many younger agents being assigned to the "transport" van is a weekly occurrence.

Here it was a plum job of old timers. You had to have some serious whiskers to get paddy wagon detail.