October 1959 - San Francisco Police Officers Association
October 1959 - San Francisco Police Officers Association
October 1959 - San Francisco Police Officers Association
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[ike can save your life<br />
Proper care and feeding of Mike and his brother, Little Mike, is important - they're your<br />
closest friends in the radio car.<br />
OCTOBER, <strong>1959</strong><br />
The P.A. switch should be placed in<br />
the down position when you wish to<br />
broadcast <strong>Police</strong> Communications. This<br />
may be desired when you have to leave<br />
the car but want to hear the broadcasts<br />
coming over the air. With the<br />
switch in this position, both mikes are<br />
dead.<br />
Mike's frequency arrangement is such<br />
that it may be compared to a telephone<br />
party line having 75 or more subscribers.<br />
Obviously only one person can talk<br />
over the circuit at a time and he understood<br />
by the operator. Often when<br />
the officer fails to get acknowledgement<br />
the first time, it is simply because the<br />
circuit is already in use. The transmission<br />
is being covered.<br />
With this in mind, then, there is one<br />
big DO NOT that should be pointed<br />
out. DO NOT USE THE MICRO-<br />
PHONE FOR UNNECESSARY<br />
CONVERSATION.<br />
Tragic Consequences<br />
Have you ever thought of what the<br />
results might be for using the mike<br />
unnecessarily? This incident could happen.<br />
How would you feel if you caused<br />
this tragedy:<br />
A Taraval car is on patrol in the area<br />
of Fleishacker's. It is a fairly quiet night<br />
in that time of year known as Indian<br />
Summer. "Nothin's doin'" as the saying<br />
goes. Joe, a nice guy, just came into<br />
the business, is assigned to Taraval 4.<br />
He is cruising down Sloat Blvd. when<br />
he views a suspicious man lurking in<br />
the bushes at the side of the road near<br />
a bus stop. There have been a number<br />
of strong-arm robberies at bus<br />
stops in this area so Joe flips the P.A.<br />
switch into the down position and<br />
jumps out of the car to investigate.<br />
"Come out of those bushes, NOW!"<br />
says Joe.<br />
<strong>Police</strong> Personality of the month<br />
One of the last of the real two-fisted<br />
"<strong>San</strong> <strong>Francisco</strong>" cops is a veteran Inspector<br />
George Dyer, Sr.<br />
One of nine children, George was<br />
born at Twenty-first and A 1 a b a in<br />
Streets. His father was Chief of the<br />
Southern Pacific Railroad <strong>Police</strong> Force.<br />
George entered the <strong>Police</strong> Department<br />
in 1925 and, during the next<br />
twenty fabulous years, served well in<br />
every phase of the job: radio cars and<br />
heats in the Richmond and Southern;<br />
Special Duty Man at the Southern;<br />
Chinatown Detail; Flying Squad; Bureau<br />
of Inspectors.<br />
Old timers tell stories of Dyer's courage.<br />
The time he leaped through a skylight<br />
in the Richmond Dist. to disarm<br />
a crazed, shotgun wielding murderer:<br />
the numerous gun battles with bandits<br />
and killers. Three Meritorious Conduct<br />
Awards and scores of commendations<br />
fill his personnel file.<br />
The general strike of 1934 had erupted<br />
into violence. Dyer, coupled with Al<br />
Torre (now inspector,) to form a two<br />
man police force on the Embarcadero.<br />
Troublemakers who were willing to<br />
tangle with a platoon of policemen<br />
turned tail and fled when the word was<br />
passed: "Look out, here come Dyer and<br />
Torre 0'<br />
The only response is the loud report<br />
of a gun. Joe staggers backward and<br />
falls over the front seat of the radio<br />
car. Everything is hazy to him, it is<br />
getting dimmer and dimmer and his<br />
senses are reeling. He has only enough<br />
strength to reach for the mike and make<br />
one appeal.<br />
"Taraval ... 4 ...I'm shot<br />
Sloat and Great Highway" ... 406<br />
406."<br />
Joe is bleeding to death from a gunshot<br />
wound in the stomach. At the<br />
same time as Joe's one and only transmission,<br />
Pete says to Ed: "Did you take<br />
the orders?" "Yah," says Ed, "I'm<br />
hack already." "You hear a 406." "No,<br />
I didn't hear anything." The transmission<br />
was covered. Joe died before anyone<br />
ever discovered him missing. He<br />
might have lived if he were found in<br />
time. Pete, realizing what had happened,<br />
says: "What can I say? What<br />
can you say."<br />
Say nothing! Unless it is important<br />
to police business and then make it:<br />
CLEAR, BRIEF, TO THE POINT.<br />
In World War II, a vicious hoodlum<br />
element had sprung up. Dyer was<br />
chosen to head a special flying squad to<br />
fight fire with fire. Sweeping through<br />
the Mission, Tenderloin and Fillmore,<br />
the squad broke the backs of the mobs.<br />
Many an ill-mannered ruffian underestimated<br />
the 5'9" Dyer and nursed a<br />
broken jaw in his jail cell.<br />
During his twenty years in the Bureau<br />
he has worked the Bunco, Auto<br />
and General Work's Details. He now<br />
serves as a right hand man to Lieut.<br />
Donald Scott in General Works.<br />
It is a luckless culprit whose case<br />
is assigned to Dyer. The gates of <strong>San</strong><br />
Quentin have closed on many who<br />
would match wits with this master detective.<br />
George's brother, Jack, long a Sergeant<br />
in the B. S. S. Gambling Detail,<br />
died in 1952.<br />
Inspector Dyer resides, with his wife,<br />
May, in the Sunset. His son, George,<br />
Jr., ten years in the business, is assigned<br />
to the Burglary Detail.<br />
A model for young police officers is<br />
George Dyer. Soft-spoken, mild mannered<br />
and gentle; but a fearless fighter<br />
when called upon to defend law and<br />
order.