I wonder if he got the old Baltimore PD “nickel ride?”
They would toss the handcuffed prisoner into the back of the paddy wagon. The wagon had hard wooden benches on both sides and one down the middle. The driver would swerve all over town, throwing the prisoner against the hard benches. With his arms cuffed behind his back, the “nickel ride” would guarantee injuries. A beating or worse. At the jail, the cops would pretend to be surprised. A Baltimore tradition, in the old days.
In Chicago it was called the Black Mariah.