Why do the speakers of American slang often refer to the police as "the fuzz"?

Barbiegurl676

This North American term first appeared in the 1920s and gained popularity in the 1930s. This slang term may be in reference to the sound of the field radios that police commonly use. It surfaced in Britain in the 1960s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_slang_terms_for_police_officers Aug 10 11, 1:09 AM

mehaul

Can't find proof for this but5 I recall that from Carnivals and Fairs, there were prizes of little figures on bamboo cane sticks given as prizes for certain contests. One was a Kewpie Doll. Another was a humanized monkey character that was dusted with fiber when the paint on it for hair was wet. They were called Fuzz Monkeys. I suspect that was the source of the derogatory term. There is also the martial skills ( a police forte) attributed to some anti-British forces from Rudyard Kipling's "Fuzzy-Wuzzy". See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy-Wuzzy Aug 10 11, 11:41 AM