I have lost track of how many officers have been locked out of their patrol cars, including me. Most departments now get the cars all keyed alike for the fleet. San Antonio got them all alike but it was different each year, so you had about 4 keys to open the whole fleet. It did not take most officers long to learn to get two sets of keys, one to use and one to keep on their belt to avoid being locked out. Since the keys were alike, we never had to call the LT, just another officer. Of course, they would never let you forget it either. Well, until you came and unlocked their car for them.Jusme wrote:I felt bad for the deputy when the back up unit finally arrived with the spare key from the sheriff' office. they had to wake up a lieutenant, to get access.
One of the other benefits of having all of the keys alike was that it made it much easier to play jokes on other officers. Some jokes we did include moving their car while they were in the restaurant eating, putting things in the car for them (usually things with an odor that would have called for a lot of Febreze, but some of the objects were live animals), and rigging the vents to spray powder on them. In SAPD we would keep the reports we wrote stuck in the driver's visor, so you could put a cup of ice in the visor and it would fall on his lap when he put the next report up there. And you could turn the siren on and trap the PA speaker in the space between the door and seat with the mike button pushed in. This kept the siren from going off, well, until the driver opened the door releasing the mike anyway.