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Twin Falls these days has probably two dozen police cars. At least that's what I calculate from there being a dozen parked at police the police station and figuring there should be about a dozen out patrolling around. That was around 1980 and the population was almost 8,000. Today the population is just a few hundred more but they must have twice as many police cars. Whether they have twice as many cops I have no idea but wouldn't be surprised if they have more than they did then. Back then the police cars was all black. They had a few with the round light on top instead of a lightbar when this happened. Anyhow they always had a mix - mostly Chevys and sometimes a Ford or two. Had a Ford with a 429 that got blown up a few times and they told them to stop chasing people with it because they got tired of having the engine replaced. State police was 100% Chevy back then and sheriff department had a mix. One deputy that my friend Steve had a few encounters with had a Torino - mid-seventies - that had a lightbar with a round light on each end instead of the boxes they got these days. He was always trying to get something on Steve but never could. He hauled him in a few times and searched his car but never could anything. Steve knew a lawyer that had quite a bit of power and was tight with the mayor and he'd go ask him to tell the deputy to settle down. One time somebody stole the blue covers off the lights on his car but the authorities never could find out who did it. Scuttlebutt was that some people knew but none would tell. Pretty sure the one or ones who did it knew. Anyhow one of the police cars - one that still had the round blue light on top - was a real dog. Don't know why but they had a lot of trouble with it and it was in the shop a lot and none of the cops wanted to drive it. It was a Chevy Biscayne and it was pretty common for police departments to use them on account of it was the cheapest of that line. They were all the same chassis and driveline and had different types of equipment. The Caprice was top of the line and the Impala just below and priced accordingly. The BelAir and Biscayne were even less fancy and while the Caprice and Impala had three taillights on each side the BelAir and Biscayne had two. About the only way to tell them apart from a distance where you couldn't see the name. And then only from the back. This old Biscayne got used less and less and they had more problems with it. One night I parked at one of several places around town where we'd hang out and wait for someone to show up and go smoke a joint or something. I was the only one there but that old police car was sitting over there with nobody in it. After a while one of the guys I hung with drove up beside me pointed in the opposite direction the way we did so we could roll down the windows and talk. I mentioned the police car. He told me the keys were in it. Said some other kids had looked in and the keys were in it. We jawed for a while and then drove around a bit and later I came back and parked. Another guy came up and we were talking. He told me someone had started the car and it was sitting there with the engine running and nobody around. I got a bad vibe and went somewhere else, met a couple of guys I hung with a lot and we went for a drive in the country. Got back a couple of hours later and the police car was gone. Next morning people were talking about it all over. It had been towed to a impound lot and looked like it had been wrecked good. Glass all broken and dents all over the sides like it had been run into a lot of stuff. Pretty obviously it had been left there with the keys in it hoping somebody would steal it. Seems they drove it out of town on some gravel road and beat it up good. Get rid of a ratty old car and probably collect some insurance but this was even better. If they could find the perpetrators. I don't remember how they cracked the case. I know they hauled in a bunch of people and interrogated them so probably they eventually got one or two that knew. A young gal that worked at the bank with me and occasionally associated with people that the police were interested in said they called her in and she said she wasn't talking without a lawyer and they let her go and moved on. Eventually they got them and they all pleaded guilty right off and being all minors their parents paid about twice what the car was worth so they didn't need to do any time.
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