"Walk on the Wild Side"

I had received an urgent call from dispatch over the radio of a hold-up at the 76 Truck Stop (TA Travel Center). The information given in the broadcast (or APB in tv police talk) was that a tall female in white hot pants had robbed a truck driver at nail file point. Wow! I was thinking with a nail file... I didn't know they gave in-truck mani-pedis like that. Maybe he didn't tip enough or his feet were extra funky. I thought that when women went knocking on doors at truck stops it was for other reasons like selling siding or magazines.

Myself and the other officers arrived in the area and began looking for the "perp." Perp is another word that we didn't use much but the tv cop shows like it, so why not use it to add authenticity. You can almost hear that da-da from "Law and Order" when I say it.

A short time later we did locate the young lady walking back towards the highway. As I spoke to her, I notice the other officer looking her up and down. "Hey, Tom he said look at the legs on her, she's really got some long ones."

I really didn't notice as I prepared the prisoner for transport to the station for booking. As I was placing her in the car he seemed to be still eyeing her, not really sure why.

In those days the police station was on Harrison Avenue (in the Volunteer Services Center) and due to poor design, the booking area was just below communications down a short flight of stairs. There weren't any full-time female officers then so we called in a matron to search the prisoner and sit with her while she was locked up.

The matron had just begun searching the female when I heard a loud scream come from the booking area, "Oh my God she's got a .... it's a man!" I ran to the room where the matron and prisoner were and sure enough, without the wig, it was one not-so-good-looking "person". The matron was a little shaken up she told me she had begun the search when something didn't "feel" right. She thought she had felt a weapon in the prisoners pants, but it turned out not to be so dangerous. I just had to get together with the officer at the scene and ask him if he still thought she was "hot." Till this day he denies ever having said that, but I know he did.

To quote Lou Reed from his song "Walk On The Wild Side": "Plucked her eyebrows on the way, shaved her leg and then he was she." I know that some members or former members of the PD might know the people involved in this case, I'm asking you please not to mention any names in the comment section! Thanks.