Black and whites.
Finally!
Last night I was excited to see this post on the Fresno Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.
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Sheriff John Zanoni is excited to announce the Fresno County Sheriff's Office has rolled out a new design to its patrol car fleet. The thought behind the change is that our current green and white design goes back to the 1990s and it was time to update our look.
Future orders of Chevy Tahoes, Ford Explorers and Ford F-150 pickup trucks will feature a black and white color scheme. It was important to keep the FSO tradition of green and gold in the design, so we have incorporated it into the lettering on the sides and rear of the vehicles.
The two pictured vehicles are being deployed into the field this week. Over the next few years, we will be taking delivery of more of these vehicles. The goal is to eventually phase out the patrol vehicles in the current fleet and replace them with black and white vehicles as they become available and replacement of aging equipment becomes necessary.
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I was on the original vehicle committee in the early 1990s when Fresno SO adopted the ubiquitous existing white car with a green stripe that was being pushed hard by the California Sheriffs Assn. (we couldn’t understand why they wanted all California S.O. cars to resemble the National Park Service). Nonetheless, Sheriff Magarian bought into it 100%. A couple of us still pushed for black and white in various renditions, even some very similar to this new one.
The committee worked hard to come up with proposed graphic schemes, and even all Deputies were allowed to vote on the three finalists—with understanding that Sheriff’s management could override the vote. Of course, we were directed not to submit any black and white schemes, or brown and white schemes for Deputies to vote on. We never knew the final numbers, only the final decision by the Sheriff.
As I mentioned, the committee worked diligently. I did a lot of the research. I found photos of prior graphics used in the department including a snazzy looking black and white from the 1950s. I researched and compiled information from all the other 57 Sheriff’s Offices to see what they were using for graphics. For the ones I didn’t know—the vast majority of them—pre-internet I telephoned them all. It was time consuming.
On one fun day, committee member Sgt. Rick Cobbs grabbed me after day shift briefing, and he drove us up the San Joaquin Valley all the way to West Sacramento. We stopped at every Police Department and Sheriff’s Office and took pictures of the different patrol cars. Of course, the department didn’t pay for photo processing, so I paid for it. I still have those photos in storage, and will try and post those in the future.
And since I was the only one with a computer (and it was at home) I wrote all the drafts for the committee to review and then the final proposal. (I did the same previously when on the Uniform Committee.)
I’ve included a photo of the brown and white cars that the department had when I was hired in 1976, although there were a handful of all white ones floating around too. Coincidentally, it’s a photo of Sgt. Rick Cobbs when he was a Deputy in the K9 Unit. I love black and whites, yet I really liked these brown and whites too. I was happy to drive one.
Unfortunately, the county next bought brown and white Ford LTD IIs for the replacements. The brown paint in those faded to a pukish green color. The decision was made to change.
Next, we went to the white cars with the brown stripes down the side. The California Code of Regulations forbid a patrol car with a “painted stripe” wider than six inches. Our stripe was something like eight or ten inches wide. When discussing this with CHP Sacramento, they kept referring to the code. After reading between the lines of what he was saying, I realized to be in violation, he was emphasizing the “painted” portion of the code. Ours was a decal, not paint. Technically, not a violation.
The Sheriff’s executive team said they liked what they saw on the Broward County (Florida) units that they had seen on the television show COPS.
I reached out to BSO fleet and they graciously sent me one of their graphics packages and our County Shop installed it on one of our new cars. We swapped the BSO Star with ones the County Shop still had from the old brown and white FSO units that were still used for other purposes.
Before a Sheriff’s management meeting, Sgt. Rick Cobbs and I parked it somewhat hidden in the department basement. We were anxious to have the executive staff check it out. We waited for them in the Briefing Room.
They didn’t bother to come down to see it. Instead, they asked for Polaroid photos to be sent in quickly. I grabbed my personal Polaroid and took some photos in the dark basement. If you don’t know, Polaroids used a disposable flashbulb that went into a removable flash unit. To prevent injury from an exploding defective bulb, the unit had a flip open safety lens. That lens was tinted blue tinted to help prevent flash glare. As a result, the photo of the green reflective Broward’s County stripe had a slight bluish tint. The Polaroid photos were sent into the meeting. We weren’t allowed in to explain or be a part of the discussion. The answer came back. They didn’t like it. So much effort to get the decals and have them installed—just to have them removed because a management team wouldn’t leave a meeting. Especially after hearing that’s what they liked. Sgt. Cobbs and I were very frustrated with the process and joked that maybe we’ll just send the whole car to the Broward County Sheriff.
We ended up with what we got. On the earlier Uniform Committee, I agreed with almost everything that was eventually approved. On the Vehicle Committee, I agreed with almost nothing of the final accepted product. What I disliked the most was the font used for the lettering on the front fenders. It was supposed to mimic a 1890s style old western font. I thought it turned out poorly, missing the mark in daylight while being very fuzzy at night. Other agencies used a block font that was much more readable at day and night. Hopefully the new designs have been viewed at night. But…I liked our final result much better than Broward County’s units.
I think I saw one of the new FSO black and whites recently. I just didn't know what it was yet. I was sitting at a traffic light on a multiple lane road, and one pulled up a couple lanes over in traffic. I could kinda see the design as it moved through the traffic, and thought it looked really nice. Patrol cars from near and far aren't unusual to see around the metro area of Fresno and Clovis due to various trainings and meetings.
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Photo credits to the original photographers.
Fresno Sheriff
Cop Cars
Police Cars
Law Enforcement Vehicles
