'Boot cops' coming back to fight violent crime When the Highway Patrol revives Monday, Traffic will take Expressway Patrol duties.

When the city's Highway Patrol unit was organized roughly 50 years ago, it replaced a disbanded crime-fighting squad with a name from earlier in the century that conjures up images of speeding roadsters carrying heavily armed gunmen - Motor Bandit Patrol.

The police commissioner in those days ordered a simple mission for his new car/motorcycle force, whose members wore distinctive gray uniforms, motorcycle boots, and crushed hats: Suppress crime!

"Shotgun squads were assigned from this unit on a saturation basis in areas of high crime incidence between the hours of 6 p.m. and 3 a.m.," states a Philadelphia Police annual report from 1956. "Their specific duties were the constant patrol of these areas and the investigation of suspicious motorists and pedestrians."

Now, in an effort to get a handle on violent crime, Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson is again calling on the "boot cops," as they are known in the neighborhoods. He has ordered them to focus on their founding mission, although this time without shotguns. That means that Expressway Patrol duties now handled by the elite unit will be handed off to Traffic officers.

"I think this will help us reduce our violent crime in the city," Johnson said in an interview yesterday. The changes begin at 12:01 Monday morning.

After then, drivers will no longer see Highway Patrol officers in boots and breeches patrolling Interstate 95, Woodhaven Road, the Schuylkill Expressway, Vine Street Expressway, and the Roosevelt Extension. In their place will be officers with regular pants and the distinctive white hat of the Traffic officer.

Police cars on the expressways will be labeled Expressway Patrol rather than Highway Patrol.

"It just makes sense to me to put traffic with traffic people," Johnson explained.

About 60 Highway Patrol officers who want to continue expressway duties are switching voluntarily to Traffic. In their place, Johnson is transferring 60 officers from districts throughout the city into the Highway Patrol, which now has about 100 officers.

All are motivated officers whose past police performance has been thoroughly reviewed.

"We will have a dedicated, mobile, crime-fighting force," said Johnson, who was a highly decorated highway patrolman in the 1960s. He left the unit when he was promoted to corporal in 1970.

"We can put these police officers anywhere within a matter of hours," he said.

The highly successful Truck Enforcement unit of Highway Patrol, which tickets speeding and overweight trucks, will remain on the expressways but will come under the Traffic umbrella.

While some motorcycles will be assigned to Traffic for Center City traffic duties, most will remain with Highway Patrol. The Highway Patrol will still provide high-speed car and cycle escorts for visiting dignitaries.

Johnson said the expanded Highway Patrol crime-fighting force will join with Narcotics Strike Forces already in the neighborhoods.

"We'll really enhance our crime-fighting efforts," he said.

Contact staff writer Thomas J. Gibbons Jr. at 215-854-2642 or tgibbons@phillynews.com.