On the road
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
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 8th.
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.
Friday, August 7, 2015
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Friday, July 17, 2015
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.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
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