Bikers Against Texting and Driving

Hellcat's on USS Enterprise 1943

US Army 25th Infantry Division on the island of New Georgia during WWII

August 2015 Dallas Police Shield

 

In December, 1945 the first IACP (International Association of Chiefs of Police) was held (of course) in Miami, Florida. DPD Chief Carl Hansson was there and met with local, state and federal law enforcement officials. Hansson told reporters that he took lots of notes and has a lot of new ideas on how to make the DPD far ahead of all other southern police departments and equal to the best everywhere.

Hansson went on to say that many of the ideas and improvements that he had been contemplating were sanctioned by international experts. He said that he planned on bringing every bureau of the department up to the minute in equipment and personnel. The Chief went on to say that the DPD is already ahead of many police departments in the areas of juvenile delinquency, traffic enforcement and robberies.

During the conference, speakers such as Attorney General Tom Clark and J. Edgar Hoover as well as local police executives blasted police departments in what was termed as “disgraceful pay scales.” According to the Dallas Morning News, nearly every speaker spoke along the lines of the importance of getting the public to see that police officers are not strange, brawny creatures (?) but are friends and neighbors who are designated to enforce laws the laws that the public asked for.

Hansson also said that he would be interested in seeing Dallas officers receive better pay. After his arrival back in Dallas he would talk with the city Manager about the subject.

Along the subject of better pay for its police officers, Mayor Woodall Rodgers addressed the second class to be graduated from the ‘police training school’ at a luncheon at the Italian Village restaurant. He said that that Dallas should attempt to set the high standards that had been set by the FBI. “The FBI has demonstrated it pays to get high-caliber men and pay them well,” Rodgers said. “The FBI requires college graduates and starts them at $250. It is a bargain.”

The Mayor went on to say that “I believe in a well- paid police department and I look forward to the day when we can increase base pay for DPD officers from $180 to $250 per month. I feel that the temporary bonuses paid during the war should be made permanent in view of the high cost of living and the high standards required of applicants for police jobs.”

The Mayor also said that the Chief of police in Dallas should be paid $7000 a year instead of the current $5,600 up from $5000 a year since the start of WWII.

Chief Hansson later in the month of December spoke of the need of the Dallas Police Department to be expanded as rapidly as possible. He foresees a rapid postwar rise in crime in the city. Hansson said that the current number of DPD officers, 354, is not adequate to meet the needs of the city.

The Chief told the DMN that the crime wave is already here with the month of November experiencing 256 burglaries for instance.  “So far Dallas has escaped the waves of murders being experienced in cities such as Detroit, New York City and other cities, but they probably will come.  We can’t build the department overnight. All we can do is assimilate only about 25 new men every six weeks because they must be schooled in police training and then be broken in on the job by experienced officers.”

 In other news Dallas police were investigating a disappearance of a Denver, Colorado woman reportedly cremated in Dallas in 1936. Captain Will Fritz said that the circumstances are similar to the 1944 death and cremation of a woman who suspect Alfred Cline was charged with murdering.

The Denver woman was a Mrs. Maud Walters who was a wealthy Denver socialite who remarried, withdrew money from a bank and was reported to have been killed in a car accident in Dallas In September, 1936.

Captain Fritz said that the DPD and DPS show no such traffic death for the month mentioned. The woman’s relatives became suspicious after being notified by her husband that she had been cremated “at her own request.” None of the relatives had ever met the husband and were not notified of the funeral until after it happened.

Mrs. Walters died with all of her wealth going to her new husband according to the relatives of the woman.

Captain Fritz said that there were no crematorium facilities in Dallas in 1936 and said he will contact a San Antonio facility and have them check their records.

The suspect in the 1944 murder, Alfred Cline, is a 56 year old ex-convict who is charged with the murder of Mrs. Alice Carpenter who was cremated in October, 1944 after her death in a local hotel, apparently of natural causes according to initial reports.