Uniform Ideas

TOM SAWYER IN TROUBLE

A bearded Tom Sawyer, nattily clad in a policeman’s tunic and blue jeans, had a run-in with authority here yesterday. Unlike his Mark Twain namesake, San Francisco’s Sawyer lost this round to a pair of policemen. Officers Tony Delzompo and Jim Bailey, in fact, found the wearing of parts of police uniforms so unamusing they arrested Sawyer. Sawyer, 23, of 1253 Willard Street in the Haight-Ashbury district, was booked on suspicion of possession of stolen property. The officers admitted that there was no report of stolen police jackets on file, but said that Sawyer’s uniform, nonetheless, might well be stolen. Sawyer, questioned at 7 p.m. at Frederick and Stanyan streets by the officers, told them he got the jacket from a friend. Perhaps an explanation for the officers’ investigative zeal could be found in Sawyer’s substitute for the police badge, a large lapel button pinned on the left side of the tunic. It read: “Overthrow the Government.”

[San Francisco Chronicle, August 22, 1966]

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