On New Year’s Day 1944 the DMN reported that Dallas Police,
shore patrol and military police were all out in force downtown waiting and
watching for trouble that never came. They all reported a quieter New Year’s
Eve than last year and the holiday was actually quieter than the Christmas Eve
celebration the week before.
Prices of $1.65 to $7.88 (where did they get this) per
person in night clubs and various New Year’s dances around the city brought
capacity crowds to the various bars and dance clubs. Dallas Police made fewer
arrests for drunkenness and other offences than on New Year’s Eve 1942.
On January 13, 1944 an unusual and disturbing article
appeared in the DMN. Apparently a “temporary policeman” was given 15 years in
the penitentiary for “assaulting to rape” a 16 year old Dallas girl. The
temporary officer’s defense was that he lived a virtually “blameless” existence
until the five months that he was in the police department prior to the night
of October 15, 1943 when he “hustled” the young girl and her 15 year old male escort
into his car and drove to White Rock Lake.
The girl’s companion somehow got the jump on the bad guy and
stabbed the temporary officer in the back with a knife in a successful attempt
to stop the attacker. In testimony the temporary officer said that he was a
simple man, but had been dazzled by the bright lights of a big city and that he
drank so heavily that he was temporarily insane as a result. He also spoke of
the evils of liquor and how it destroys the mind and willpower of the average
man.
The jury deliberated for three hours and said that this
“temporary policeman” was guilty. I’m not sure what a “temporary policeman” was
in 1944 but it could have been since there was a shortage off regular officers
because of wartime, almost anyone could be a police officer. As we all have
seen in the past when qualifications are lessened to hire more people, it
always comes back to bite the department in the butt.
On January 18th a trail was held in Dallas to
recover $3,064.25 from the police department’s pension fund by a former police
officer. The suit was brought against the City of Dallas and the Policeman and Fire
Alarm Operators Pension Board. The City’s position was that the claim was
barred by the statute of limitations. It didn’t really go into detail about
what the suit was all about but there you go.
I remember that during my time with the DPD, especially in
the 1980’s and 90’s that there was always a survey being conducted by some I’m
sure very expensive focus group or newly minted whiz-kid MBA about how the DPD
could better serve the public and if officers felt good about themselves, the
people they put in jail (?) and their job.
In 1944 it was going
on as well. August Vollmer of lie detector fame and former chief of the Berkley
California police department was scheduled to come to Dallas and conduct a
survey about “streamlining” the department.
The Dallas Morning
News article waxes’ nostalgic for a simpler time, when officers walked the beat
twirling his baton on his finger, and knew everyone .The DMN’s article however laments
the fact that since officers now rode in squad cars with a two-way radio, “on
the jump to keep up with his radio log book,” he had a tendency to become lazy.
The article goes on to say that no more is there a big, honest policeman
walking the beat with a friendly smile. He’s now out of touch with the
neighborhood, transferred from district to district and his association with
the barber, druggist, dentist and shopkeeper has come to an end. It also said
that the public lost a friend when they took the cop off the beat and that his
passing is something of an American tragedy.
Also the modern Dallas Police officer no longer pauses to
wipe little Johnny’s nose after his ice-cream cone was stolen by the neighborhood
bully. He now is too busy with that “radio log book” and that the DPD, along
with other department’s around the country, are already too “streamlined.” The
article concludes that the DPD is not the department that it used to be. Either
from the standpoint of colorful exploits (what?) or from the results of
fighting crime.
The wartime DPD budget only allowed for a force of 325
officers. There were currently 316 including a few civilian “typists.” The
article reported that at present there were 94 “temporary officers,” okay now
we know who these guys were, whose duration status is “not an incentive to
learn police work from the ground up.”
I guess the guy at the beginning of this piece just didn’t
learn.
And yes, I believe this same problem of the officer in the
squad car, out of touch with the community, was still being debated when I was
on the department. And, maybe it still is.
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