July 2011 Dallas Police Shield

  July 2011 Dallas Police Shield

K.R. Vance, #1782 writes that one of the many characters that he remembers was Joe Pat Gately. He was a master electrician and craftsman apparently. Unfourtunantly he could not get off the booze so he went to jail a lot. He worked the jail elevator and generally was considered a good guy by most officers.

I’m not sure but there is a story along these lines that I believe involved this Joe Gately. The officer who told me the story said that there was a long time trustee that worked the jail elevator all the time that he knew. As happened every shift, one night the officer went up the jail elevator with a prisoner. As the officer exited the elevator, the jail operator suddenly grabbed the officer’s service weapon and pulled it out of its holster about the time the door was closing. The officer panicked, but not enough to alert the nearby jail sergeant. He asked a fellow officer to watch his prisoner, and with a shaking finger starts to punch the buttons to call the elevator. Visions of days off or being fired raced through the officer’s brain. He went over and over the fact that he had forgotten to put his weapon in the locker downstairs. Soon the elevator door opened, and there was the trustee operator. The officer pushed the trustee back and closed the door, luckily they were alone. As the officer started grabbing and chewing out the trustee, the jail operator put his finger to his lips to silence the officer’s angry words. The trustee backs up, and slowly brings his untucked jail shirt to show that yes, this was the officers pistol, and he just saved the officer a lot of grief. He had seen the officer’s mistake just as the elevator door was closing, and took a chance that he could possibly save the officers job. He did.

Police officers all have a sort of gallows humor to keep us sane. Sometimes then as now I’m sure, we would get into a conversation with the guy we’ve just arrested, again, for the umpteenth time. We would joke with the prisoner, invoking sometimes that gallows humor. But there are other times that in their more lucid moments, these people would give us an insight into their former lives, that didn’t involve getting drunk and going to jail. We would thoughtfully listen and think, well, this could be me, if I’m not careful.

 Yes, it’s sad to hear how a dramatic moment in their life, or a series of those moments that lasted over years, brought the drunken person to the backseat of a squad car. I remember working downtown in the 130’s in the late seventies. There was one man that rumor had it, had been a CEO of a large Dallas company, he had fallen on hard times, and now roamed Jackson Street by the old Continental bus station.

Rusty Robbins # 1391 writes in response to my question a couple of months ago. I asked if the charge “Drunk and Disorderly” was the same as just “Drunk in Public?” He was in patrol from 1956 to 1968. He says that yes, the charge was used for about any drunk offense. He writes that an officer would bring a drunk person in front of the desk sergeant at the old jail. The sergeant would often only glance up over his glasses at the officer who would hold up two fingers. The jail sergeant would then bless or not bless the arrest by giving an up or down thumb gesture, sometimes not saying a word, then going back to reading his newspaper.  

Recently I was contacted by Kathie Mullenax Lee. She was three years old when her father, DPD Officer Leonard Mullenax was killed in 1962 at 2501 Elm Street, at the Sherman Hotel. Officer Mullenax was working Vice at the time and was investigating a bootlegging operation. He had been a motor jock previously in Dallas and had passed his sergeants exam and was up for promotion. Kathie is looking to converse with any officer who was personal friends with her Dad, and has any information other than what the papers wrote, of her father’s death. You can e-mail her at katmandue@comcast.net.

July 2011 Asylum Mobilitarium

July 2011 Asylum Mobilitarium

Recently I obtained a print of legendary “Wrecking Crew” racer Jim Davis. It shows him on an early Harley-Davidson board track racer. With his evil grin, mud, scars and a generally banged-up look about him, it’s a good example of the reckless death defying racer of the early 20^th century. The men that made up the Harley-Davidson, Indian, and Excelsior teams were hard living men. They were also the heroes of early 20^th century motorcycle racing.

Harley was racing in the teens, but always with a kind of reluctance. Walter Davidson, who among other duties, was the first marketing director for the young company. He pointed out that even though Harley was winning in the Dodge City Kansas 300 mile race, an impressive three times at this preeminent track of the time, the police department in that city was riding Indians!

Motorcycle racing in the 1910’s and early 1920’s was dominated by the board track racers. The tracks were called “Motordromes.” The media at the time derisively called them “Murderdromes.” Dallas had such a track in the teens, at the State Fair of Texas, near the concert venue that used to be called Starplex. The banked ovals, made up of 2x6 boards placed on edge were often in disrepair because of unscrupulous track owners. The boards would become soaked with the oil from the brakeless and non-circulating and oil spitting racing motorcycles, causing the boards to split, warp and break. Some riders would fall off their mounts at high speeds, and become impaled on the large splinters sticking up at odd angles. It was a dangerous sport, with little safety equipment for the bikes, riders, or the ticket buying race fan. Adding to this, racing promoters constantly calling for higher speeds to thrill the crowds, causing many wrecks involving riders who were the sports super stars of the time.

Davis, Jake DeRosier, Charles “Fearless” Balke, and other Wrecking Crew members rode specially built factory racing bikes called “Two Cammers.” They had straight pipes and were very loud, with an ear destroying “popping sound.”As I mentioned earlier, the bikes had continuous loss oil systems. Instead of re-circulating the engines oil, the engine would spit out the heavy fluid on the already oil damaged track, and of course whatever unlucky racer happened to be behind the bike spitting out the black stuff!

As the tracks began really showing their age, and some track owners refusing to make repairs to the racing venues, there were the inevitable deaths and injuries, to the riders and spectators. Newspapers and radio began the term “Murderdromes” after six spectators were killed in September 1912 at a race in Newark, N.J. after a bike flew through the crowd after dumping it’s rider on the boards.

In board track racing, many manufacturers including Harley-Davidson believed that the many dangers evident in board track racing caused motorcycling in general to be perceived negatively by the public. Even the reckless, devil may care riders may have contributed to this. For all the racing honors that were bestowed on these men, they were the bad boys of the sporting world. Leading a transitory life style and the excitement of these races sometimes encouraged that bad boy behavior.

One group of motorcycle racers who arrived in Chicago for an event at River View Park Motordrome pooled their resources and rented a brothel for three days prior to the race!

It’s no wonder that the ultra conservative founders of Harley-Davidson were reluctant to sponsor the racing teams!