September 2015 Dallas Police Shield

 

In December, 1945 Chief Carl Hansson was still giving interviews about his prediction of an increase in crime in Dallas with the end of WWII with the de-mobilization of military personnel coming home from the war. The city had already experienced thousands of ex-servicemen coming to Dallas to look for jobs. After the war, there started a movement nationwide of people moving from rural settings to the cities. Dallas was no exception and was already experiencing a housing shortage at the end of 1945.

 In many neighborhoods, homeowners began taking advantage of this and started taking in renters. In many cases large homes in largely well-established neighborhoods were chopped up to make apartments to make way for the large influx of former servicemen. In some cases (such as old East Dallas) this led to a post-war decline in the integrity of the neighborhoods when the servicemen and their families began moving on and purchasing homes of their own, leaving the  chopped up homes behind. There was a movement in the 1970’s (that continues today) to save these homes and neighborhoods and has been successful in many cases.

Chief Hansson told reporters that another police academy class would be graduating before the end of the year bringing the department up to almost pre-war levels. He went on to say that this still wouldn’t be enough since Dallas will be a completely different city than it was before the war. The training program will continue he said.

The chief also went on to say that he needs more squad cars in radio patrol. “The quality of our cars is down considerably due to the hard service they’ve been put through during the war years. Although as a police department we have some priority advantages, getting replacement parts and good tires has been a problem. This situation should get better soon. We have fifteen motorcycles on order to strengthen the four that we already have along with the three-wheeled motorcycles in the fleet”.

In other news the DMN reported that 106 S. Harwood was bursting at the seams. The article said that the City is already leasing two nearby buildings for the overflow of workers at City Hall.

The report mentioned that when 106 was built in 1914, there were around 135,000 citizens in Dallas. In late 1945, there were approximately 400,000 and growing. The report said by the year 1970 there will be approximately 750,000 people living in the city. Also in recent years the Dallas area had almost doubled by annexation. The citizens of Dallas would soon vote on a bond election of $ 2,500,000 for a new city hall and $40,000,000 ten-year plan on December 8^th.

The Dallas City Council had toured 106 recently and were shocked as how the police department was crowded into the basement and sub-basement without room to expand. One council member, M.M. Straus said that he was glad that there were no visitors along with the tour, “This is a disgrace to the City he said”.

The police locker and recreation room in the subbasement is located among leaking water pipes, is poorly lighted and ventilated it was observed. This writer can testify that by 1977, not much had changed.

During the tour, the council observed that the police identification bureau is jammed. Every filing cabinet is full and no place for new filing cabinets. The crime prevention bureau has been moved out of the basement to the barn-like former central fire station on Main Street.

The jail is inadequate for a city the size of Dallas. The council was told that on any Saturday night all of the jail cells were full to overcrowding and the ‘bull pen’ was also overflowing. Again in 1977, it was still the same!

The plan called for a new municipal building to be built next to 106 S. Harwood (it was). The present 106 would be totally turned over to the police department and corporation courts (it…largely was).

In the early seventies there was a call to build a new city hall to be built on a site that had once had a large hotel located on it on Young Street. There was the usual outcry of the tax money being spent on such a large building designed by a world renowned architect who had for instance designed structures at JFK airport in New York City.

The new city hall was built of course and is an admittedly pretty cool looking building to this day. One would wonder where we would be if the City of Dallas were still crammed into 106 S. Harwood and 2014 Main Street.