Wer' the short rods ditched in preference to short poles or whips around that time ?
I preferred less obvious weapons. This is a true story believe it or not as you want; I was paired up with a mate one night shift and the other car on our section wasn't outside the police station when they should have been on meal break. So we asked what they were on with and discovered that they had been sent to deal with a violent woman and hadn't been heard from for over half an hour. They were not answering their radios.
I drove to the location and found their car outside. The front door of the house was open and so I let myself in to find the 'subject' a huge aggressive and drunk woman holding the two bobbies at knife point. It was obvious that she was somewhat raged. I eased myself into the house while my beat partner stayed outside to give an update on the radio. As I got inside the room (terrace house opening straight onto the street) she kept flicking her view to see what I was doing whilst still waving the kitchen knife at my colleague's throats. There was a grey blanket on the armchair to one side of her and I kept staring pointedly at the blanket to the extent that she noticed and spent more and more time watching me than the other two. After a while, when I ws sure I had her attention I reached down and picked the blanket up by one corner and said quite markedly: "Who's is this?" She grabbed the blanket, I threw the other side over her head and bundled her to the floor. I had her handcuffed and upright and out through the door before she knew what had happened.
I had to rescue one of those two bobbies from similar situations another twice before he learned to man up