Caught in the Coop

Though the Election Year rhetoric has subsided, law and order -- one of the big issues in the campaign -- remains a national concern. Last week the FBI reported that crime in the U.S. rose 19% in the first nine months of 1968 over the same period last year. Most of this crime occurs in the nation's larger cities, and a good portion of it during the predawn hours, when most citizens are home in bed. Presumably, police would be as alert in the early morning as at any other time. Yet the sorry fact is that while the cities sleep, so do a fair number of their on-duty policemen.

Boston police call the catnap habit "holing," and one of their favorite holing places is near a laundry, where several cruisers filled with slumbering cops were spotted a few weeks ago. Atlanta cops have been known to seek out "pits," usually in lovers' lanes or in a tunnel beneath the city. Los Angeles policemen are occasionally caught dozing on a jail pallet or in a patrol car. Just last week two Chicago patrolmen were suspended briefly for sleeping while on duty. In Washington, where the custom is known as "huddling," many a drowsy cop is awakened only when headquarters activates the shrill buzzer on his walkie-talkie.

Slouched Inside. In New York City, large numbers of policemen seem to have the sleeping-on-duty habit, which they call "cooping." Last week quite a few of them were caught in the coop by New York Times Reporter David Burnham, who cruised the streets in the early morning seeking their hideaways. He found police cruisers on back streets, under bridges and in parks--all with their occupants slouched inside. Some of them even took pillows and alarm clocks with them when they went out on patrol. One sergeant, who used to be in charge of a slum neighborhood recalled: "You'd tell the guys to stay awake, to listen to the radio, but they'd just ignore you." A patrolman who had to drive all the way across his precinct to answer a burglary call one night was dismayed to discover that his was the first, and only, car to reach the scene. Said he: "The other guys were all zonked out."

Not Good Enough. New York officials awoke in a hurry. Mayor John Lindsay ordered a prompt investigation. Hurrying home from a European vacation, Police Commissioner Howard Leary assembled his officers and said: "For your men to patrol 95% of the time or 98% of the time is not good enough for me." At a news conference, he added, "I am personally embarrassed, and the department is embarrassed."

Though police in quieter cities may claim boredom as the cause of their naps, New York's Finest have some of their own reasons. "It's the moonlighters who are so beat by duty time that they have to sleep," says a Brooklyn officer. Another reason: all regular policemen are assigned to a different one of three daily shifts each week, thereby rotating undesirable night duty. This means that a man who goes to work at 8 a.m. one week reports at 4 p.m. the next and at midnight on the third. As any doctor can testify, man does not change his sleeping habits so easily.

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