Propper Patrol Bag: Your New Favorite Side-Seat Companion

Guest review by Rich Portwood

A week before graduating from the police academy, my class was allowed to meet with a couple of sales reps from a law enforcement supply company. My department had given me orders to buy a full size, rechargeable Maglite, a Streamlight Stinger, and a patrol bag. That patrol bag was with me for probably the first five years of my career but only because I couldn’t find anything else. There had to be something better.

The bag itself had one large middle compartment that I crammed with lights, report forms, pens, notebooks, and whatever else I thought I would need. But with just a shoulder strap and two handles for carrying, the bag was constantly flying around the cab of my squad car. Even though the company who made the bag had thoughtfully provided enough room for what I needed, the designers had no idea what it’s like to drive in a pursuit or running code to a hot call. The bag would fall into the floorboard at least once a shift and on more than one occasion I was driving hard enough to send the bag (and its contents) flying at me, creating a huge safety issue. There was just no way to secure the bag and its contents.

For the next several years I used a seat organizer made of heavy nylon. The seat organizer had a large adjustable strap which hung over the headrest securing the seat organizer and ensuring the contents weren’t flying around the cab of my squad car either. That was a huge improvement but it didn’t have the room of the patrol bag nor was it easy to replace any item I removed from the seat organizer. With no rigidity to the nylon, the pockets would collapse once an item was removed. Any attempt to replace a ticket book, map, tow sheet, or anything else was impossible to do while driving. Sometimes I couldn’t pull over and waste precious seconds. Those of us who have gotten a call for a burglary in progress or perhaps a bar fight while we’re on a traffic stop know it’s important to get rolling as quickly as possible and trying to roll across the center console while wearing my tactical belt takes precious seconds and then you’re forced to use both hands to open the pockets or compartments of the seat organizer. I continued to use the seat organizer until I found what I had been praying for.

Propper has introduced THE BEST PATROL BAG on the market. Period.

Unzip the main compartment to reveal a heavy adjustable strap which fits over the headrest of the passenger seat. Plus, a slot on the back allows the seat belt to pass through the slot and hold the bag securely in place.

No matter how you drive, that bag isn’t going anywhere.

Inside the lid of the main compartment are two mesh pockets with zippers to securely hold items such as spare batteries, gum, hand sanitizer, sunscreen, or nitrile gloves in a perfect position to grab a couple on the way out of the car. Slots for spare ink pens also increase the ergonomics.

The main compartment is HUGE and the included dividers allow me to split the main compartment into three separate areas. The largest area holds my traffic crash reports, voluntary statement forms, permission-to-search forms, influence reports, tow sheets, maps, policies, and all my other paperwork. After all, this is my office. One of the smaller areas now created in the main compartment houses my ticket book and non-traffic citations along with reference books and my new Nightstick duty light. The third portion of the main compartment is used for my traffic vest, hat, traffic wand, flashlight charger, and some other odds and ends. On both ends of the bag are two smaller compartments with mesh and elastic.

Propper knew that in order make the bag even more user-friendly it had to be customizable.

With hook and loop and MOLLE attachment points on the front, the bag can be configured with hydration pouches, sunglasses cases, individual first aid kits, tourniquets, or an assortment of other attachments. This patrol bag is able to adapt to patrol, investigations, school resource officer, SWAT, range, or whatever your assignment is.

When your office is a squad car for twelve hours a day, you begin to realize how precious good storage is in such a cramped space. And you begin to realize how important it is to buy the best equipment available at the best price. Propper has hit a home run by creating the best patrol bag on the market at a price every cop can afford that keeps everything we need securely. It’s time to remodel your office with a Propper patrol bag.