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The Burglar Pot at the Wichita Falls Police Departmentent
Back in the early 1980s, a group of enterprising police officers came up with a way to liven up the night shift. The idea was a "burglar pot". Interested officers would donate a few dollars to the pot and the next officer catching a burglar inside a building would collect all of the money.
Under the burglar pot rules, the detection of a burglar must be due to diligent "beat checking" and could not be the result of a burglar alarm call. That would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
If no burglar was caught inside of a building over the next few days, the participants could deposit more money. In addition, new participants could join at any time.
Supervisors got wind of the program and put an end to it. The thinking was that if the pot grew very large, some officer low on funds might actually throw a drunk through a business window just to collect the money. I am sure none of my co-workers would have done such a thing, but I guess ending the burglar pot was the right thing to do. A defense attorney learning of the game would surely have had more fun clowning us than we had playing the game.
The pot never grew very large and really only served to offset the expense the arresting officer incurred due to the event. That expense was the long tradition of buying donuts for the rest of the shift. I don't know where that tradition originated but, at the WFPD, if you caught a burglar it was off to the donut shop to purchase some treats for your co-workers . I guess it was sort of like a new father handing out cigars to celebrate the event.
event.