From The Unknown History Department:

Hippie Squad!

For more than a few boomer men, such a question would ruin an otherwise pleasant Father's Day, calling up memories of antiwar anger, countercultural folly and bad hair. But in my house it was always the start of an enjoyable generational exchange. My late father, a Navy vet who retired in 1972 as a detective captain after 25 years in the New York Police Department, always had a striking answer when one of his eight children (or their children) asked him about those days. "I ran the Hippie Squad," he would say.

During his long NYPD career, my father guarded Fidel Castro, held down the fort in "Fort Apache" and taught Telly Savalas how to answer the phone for "Kojak." But leading the 20 or so young undercover detectives in this real-life "Mod Squad" was his favorite assignment.

Flashback, October 1967: As the Summer of Love fades into autumn in New York's East Village, runaway teenage socialite Linda Fitzpatrick is found bludgeoned to death with her hippie boyfriend, "Groovy" Hutchinson. Just a few months before, Fitzpatrick had graduated from prestigious Oldfields School in Maryland. By the time of her death she had become a "meth monster," last seen panhandling before she was lured into the basement of a tenement by promises of an LSD party.

There must be millions of cop stories like this out there.

The members of the Hippie Squad came from all over the city, many from police narcotics units familiar with undercover work. The chief of detectives promised that there would be no deadweight, and he delivered. The unit was diverse--Irish, Italians, blacks, Jews and Latinos. They forged a family-like bond, dining together before their 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift.
To pass, some squad members grew beards or long hair and wore ratty clothes, their guns holstered under bell-bottomed pants. Others donned leopard-print vests or put studs in their noses. "Born actors," my father would say. "Shoulda been on Broadway." For his part, my father, then 45 years old and the boss, dressed in an older "Dragnet" style: good suit, sharp tie and fedora hat.

The detectives worked in groups of two or three and traveled in unmarked cars. In the cases referred by Missing Persons, they used "stoolies" for help. They picked up other runaways randomly on the street, tipped off by tender ages and nervous demeanors. The bulk of the squad's action involved minors apprehended in "no knock" raids on crashpads or parties. In the late 1960s, when the legality of warrantless searches was unsettled, "it was easier to take a door off its hinges," former Detective O'Connell says.

The squad arrested the predators it found, but it tried as much as possible to return the runaways to their parents. "Ours was more a social mission than a law enforcement mission," Mr. O'Connell explains. Indeed, a lot of the kids had hit bottom by the time the Hippie Squad found them. They wanted to go home and just needed a little help or coaxing.

This would make a good book.

By late 1968, hipppiedom was ebbing in the city and the number of runaways declining. One night, my Dad told his men that the squad was to be disbanded. In a little more than a year, it had found and returned 350 runaways.

For my father, the job's greatest satisfaction was the gratitude of the parents--and some of the runaways. He kept their letters until he died. "The lieutenant was most kind and understanding," one parent wrote. The detectives who had helped to find her daughter did "excellent work."