Early Police Badge
One of the issues in developing a city police department is to have something to identify the police. For Los Angeles, a newly incorporated city, funds were meager and the easiest, most economical way was to develop ribbons in lieu of metal badges as an identifying mark for police officers. Here, in this Los Angeles City Council minutes entry dated May 21, 1851, we see the approval of a simple red ribbon to identity police officers. It does not give details if they printed "police officer" or anything else to indicate the person wearing the ribbon is an actual police officer, but we would assume so since the Los Angeles City Council adopted a similar ribbon type badge to identify the Los Angeles Rangers. The Los Angeles Ranger ribbon did have an inscription identifying them as members of the Ranger Unit.
