In the muddy street with the fireworks and leaves
Heavy police sawhorses of rough wood with a stenciled warning — “Police Line Do Not Cross” — have been a visible staple of New York’s landscape for decades. But now they are being demoted.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said that wooden sawhorses were being phased out. The last ones owned by the New York Police Department, made by inmates in upstate prisons, are being relegated to dull duty at street fairs and other low-impact events.
The glory, the front-row seats to history, will go to the interlocking gray aluminum partitions that the police call “French barriers.”
It’s like a first-grade detective in Midtown Manhattan being busted to overnight patrolman on the outskirts of Staten Island.
From a few hundred French barriers bought in the early 1990s, there are now about 12,000 (seven feet long and $70 each). Just 3,200 veteran wooden sawhorses (14 feet long and $60 each) remain. Other cities like Chicago and Philadelphia also use both types.
related:
{ Top, fake badges for assistant chief and patrolman; bottom, real detective and patrolman badges. | In New York, some officers don’t wear their badges on patrol. Instead, they wear fakes. Called “dupes,” these phony badges are often just a trifle smaller than real ones but otherwise completely authentic. Officers use them because losing a real badge can mean paperwork and a heavy penalty, as much as 10 days’ pay. | NY Times | Continue reading }
