November 2011 Dallas Police Shield
We are coming up on the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. I recently went with Honor Flight #6 to D.C. with 30 plus WWII veterans. A couple of them were actually Pearl Harbor heroes, still sharp and doing well. They wore out their guardians on the trip! WWII veterans are dying at a rate of 1000 a day. There are only 2 million WWII veterans alive today it is estimated. Thank a hero sometime. If not for them, since we are west of the Mississippi, we might be speaking Japanese now. If you lived east of the mighty river, German.
The day after the attack by the Japanese, things were the same in the City apparently. On December 8th, it was reported that the week before, Traffic Patrolman (later Chief) J.M. Souter was working the intersection of Elm and Field when a citizen jaywalked in front of the now well known Chief. This author remembers when it was really big deal to jaywalk downtown. Point control officers would write DPD officer’s tickets. Now, its open season downtown, no one cares.
Anyway, Souter was surprised that the culprit admitted he was guilty and that he should have known better. Souter awarded the jaywalker with his honesty by letting him off. It’s amazing to me that with America at war for only a day, a story such as this actually made it into the pages of DMN history.
Also on this weekend a Patrolman Henderson was arresting a 200 pound drunk women at the Interurban Terminal on Houston Street. At first she wanted to fight, then thought better of it when Henderson said that just because she was a woman and outweighed him, that he would fight back if need be. She asked for a time out, then grabbed her checkbook and wrote out a $5.00 check to herself. She then asked Henderson if he would cash the check, since she would probably need bail money. Henderson stuffed the women into the paddy wagon with the woman still holding onto the check.
Detective Clarence Archer was in a bad mood, he was chasing a burglar in Trinity Heights when he tripped and ripped out the knee out of pants to a new suit he had just purchased.
During this time there was a drug called a “Goof Ball.” It was cheap, and the drug of choice with bad guys of the era. It was described as a sleeping pill, and I’m not sure how that related as a drug to keep one high, low, or what. It was sold for 50 cents each on the street however. Jail Supervisor Patterson removed fifty of these tickets to heaven from a prisoner who stated that he was going to make big money upstairs in 106 by selling them to other prisoners.
A husband hit his wife on the head with a shotgun on Sunday December 7th. He then loaded her up on a streetcar and headed downtown. The two showed up at police headquarters at 106 S. Harwood. The man explained to the doctor at the police first aid station that he wanted his wife’s head sewn up. She was eventually sent home but the husband was arrested by Detective Lieut. John Daniel.
Yes, Dallas police still working hard and citizens were still being crazy even though we had been plunged into a war not of their own choosing.
I finally found a story related to the fact that the U.S. was on some form of war footing. It was on the morning of December 8th, 1941 that the DMN reported that FDR had the day before authorized the arrest of Japanese nationals regarded as dangerous to the peace and security of the U.S.
On Sunday night December 7th, Dallas police had taken into custody and held for immigration officials six Japanese, four of which were nationals. Two were citizens of the U.S.
The six were not charged, only “held” for investigation.
Hiroshi Mashino told officers that he had recently taken a course in machine tool operation at Oklahoma A&M. He wanted to get a job in Grand Prairie at North American Aviation. DPD detectives asked him if he really wanted to build planes to bomb his own people. “Sure,” he said, “I’ve never been over there. I think they are all wrong.”
Inspector of Detectives Will Fritz said that the holding of the Japanese was entirely a local police matter, and had no connection to the FBI.
W.H.Croom, II # 3973 retired
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