Whats's With The Hat?

It was an early edition of what contemporary cops call, "the color of the day." Because undercover policemen were routinely accidentally shot by fellow officers (minority undercovers were the chief victims), systems were designed to protect undercovers by alerting precincts throughout the five boroughs "today's undercover color is green," "today's undercover color is orange." Undercover officers are outfitted with that day's particular color (a red bandanna, a purple wristband, a lime green baseball cap). Of course, the system is not infallible, but it helps if other cops see a man running down the street with a gun. The color of the day is the one identifying feature that can save the undercover cop's life.

As to the hat in the back window, again it would have been something that was rotated in and out of service, possibly on a week by week basis. Hat this week, baseball glove next week, red ribbon hanging out of the trunk the following week. Like today, the alert would come from the Police Headquarters and gone out to all the borough commands and relayed to police officers at roll call.

Unlike today's "color of the day," the hat in the window was less about the risk of detectives jumping out of the car with their guns drawn than parking and leaving their car without fear of getting a parking summons or if they run a red light while tailing a suspect and are pulled over by a squad car, it saves them the time of drawing their shields and ID's to identify themselves.