Philadelphia Police Get New Uniforms
by Alex Lloyd Gross
Effective today, members of the Philadelphia Police Department will be changing into dark blue uniform shirts. At this time, not all officers have gotten the new shirts, so for the next few months, the public may be seeing officers in the power blue shirts and other officers on the same call with the darker uniforms.
Police used to be wearing darker uniforms, but in the early 1970’s, they changed to the power blue that has become familiar today. Prior to this, they wore darker uniform shirts.
In a statement, the department said “This update marks the next step in the Department’s historic transition to a uniform program that reflects both our proud history and our modern mission. The new midnight blue shirts reconnect us to the traditional look of the Philadelphia Police Department—worn for more than a century before powder blue was introduced in the 1970s—while aligning with the Department’s new midnight blue load-bearing ballistic vests. The new design reinforces professionalism, authority, and familiarity, Qualities that the public expects from its officers.
There will be a date in the near future where the old powder blue uniforms willno longer be regulation on the street.