testified in federal court that at least three members of the
Metropolitan Police were paid off by gamblers in her presence,
Washington authorities never show any enthusiasm toward investigating
charges of corruption against cops.
When District Commissioner John Russell Young testified recently before
a special grand jury probing Washington gambling, he was not asked
about the possibility of bribes being paid by the gamblers. Assistant
U. S. Attorney John W. Fihelly, conducting the inquiry, left it flat
and started on “several weeks vacation.”
You can freely make a bet on a horse in almost any place in Washington
except a church--with elevator boys in government buildings, at corner
cigar and drug stores, lunch stands and bellboys. If you still can’t
find a place, the ingenuity of the Washington bookmaker will solve your
problem. For instance, the police said they broke the biggest gambling
brokerage ever operated in Washington with the arrest of two men in a
“doctor’s office,” on California Avenue, N.W. Police said one of the
men they arrested was a physician. He told them he could make more
money with betting slips than with prescriptions.
“There wasn’t even a band-aid in the place.” But there were the
following items:
Betting slips; a looseleaf notebook which appeared to be a gambling
broker’s record, containing $75,000 in IOU’s from all over the country;
two promissory notes totaling $35,000; $134 in cash, an expensive
radio, and a clock with a sweep second-hand. While police went through
the place the phone rang. A voice on the other end “started to give me
hell for a bum steer, saying the odds had dropped to 8 to 5,” Sergt.
James Roche said.
Police Lt. David McCutcheon told the District license board that a
gambler paid the proprietors of Filo’s restaurant, 1700-A 9th Street,
NW, $200 a month for the concession to take bets there. At this writing
Filo’s is still in business.
During the seasons, Washington gamblers make book on baseball,
football, basketball and hockey. Walter Lephfew and Skylar Wilson
were arrested this year in what is described as a $2,000,000 football
lottery.
We placed bets with bookies who hang out in the G & W Lunch Room, 17th
and L.
Much of the local gambling is controlled by Greeks who operate in
restaurants and private clubs.
We saw gambling going on openly on the second floor of a building on
the northwest corner of 9th and H; also in the Greek restaurant on the
second floor of 9th and G.
A dice and horse room was being operated over the Bazaar restaurant, at
17th and L. Say that Steve Akaris sent you. That’s how we got in.
You can find roulette in a place at 5th and G., also over a restaurant
in the 100 block of Vermont Avenue.
Don’t think gambling doesn’t account for plenty of violence in the
District.
On recommendation of the District license board, the commissioners
turned down a police request that they revoke a billiard hall license
of William G. Heflin. Earlier in the year, Joseph H. “Big Joe” Scheve,
a convicted gambler, was fatally shot there. Before that, James T.
Skeens shot Edward Ryan in the leg there. Police charged the billiard
hall was frequented by criminals. We saw bookmakers taking bets there.
A 25-year-old fireman with twenty pairs of crooked dice in his pocket
was found stabbed to death in an alley as an aftermath of a crap
game in which 15 persons participated. Every die was without 1, 3 and
5, making it impossible to toss a 7. The dice were of all sizes and
colors, “suitable for almost any occasion.”
One-armed bandits are banned by District and by the new Federal law.
However, $100 federal stamps have been purchased for 50 such machines,
operating at this writing in the city of Washington. Those in officers’
service clubs have since been removed, but many operated brazenly in
places open to the public.
Pinball machines, illegal in most big cities, especially in New York,
and not permitted in the Virginia counties across the Potomac, are a
popular indoor sport in Washington. They are found in restaurants,
drugstores, bottle clubs and playlands. Many are used as gambling
devices. The federal tax of $10 on each has been paid for 1263.
Federal records show 15,000 one-armed bandits and gambling devices
registered for Maryland, of which 5,000 are in the District suburbs.
Most slot machines are manufactured in Chicago. Those destined
for areas in D.C. or nearby, where they are against the law, were
shipped to wholesalers in Danville, Va., then distributed sub rosa to
Washington and Baltimore.
Payoffs are pretty lousy.
The new Federal slot machine law is a laugh. It was dreamed up in an
effort to stave off Kefauver’s investigation.
The only Senator who really fought it came from Nevada, where the
one-armed bandits are legal, and into which, under the new Federal law,
they can be imported freely. Nevada had nothing to lose and everything
to gain.
The same Senator fought contempt citations against recalcitrant
Kefauver witnesses, proving, to Estes’ surprise, what we had told him
about Democratic-underworld alliances.
The joker in any statute forbidding the interstate transportation
of slot machines is they are manufactured from standard and
interchangeable parts which can be assembled anywhere by any competent
mechanic. Instead of shipping the finished device, the Costello
interests will merely send the parts to local distributors who will put
them together--and save freight costs.
The underworld’s Washington representatives actually lobbied for the
passage of the bill, figuring that its adoption would look like a
solid accomplishment to the public, and take the “heat” off other
monkey business.
Attorney General McGrath and the New Deal liberals who plugged for the
measure had another reason. They hoped it would put the F.B.I. on the
spot. Its enforcement being impossible, Hoover and his G-men would take
the blame--either that or the F.B.I. would have to hire thousands of
fly-cops and become a new, super Prohibition unit, exposed to wholesale
graft and bribery, which would please the Reds and the crooks.
We don’t think gambling will ever be eliminated. We don’t think the
public wants it to be. It is a human appetite, like sex and liquor, and
no sumptuary legislation can wipe it out. But gambling corrupts law
enforcement officers. While wagering is illegal and undercover, this is
inevitable. When cops take bribes from bookmakers they feel they do no
essential harm. But it’s a start and soon they will sell out to anyone.
As to the cure, no two agree. Even your authors have divided opinions.
One believes in legalizing gambling, the other points out Nevada, where
it is legal, as the horrible example. There the same mobsters control
it and law enforcement officers are bought up as usual.
28. IT’S A CRIME
No thanks is due United States Attorney George Morris Fay for the fact
that figures and information regarding the local wave of crime are
still available.
Shortly after he took office, in 1946, Fay rewrote the Constitution
and closed off the court files from inspection by the press on felony
cases. Not satisfied, last year he tightened up in Municipal Court,
introducing a form of censorship for newsmen trying to check facts.
But we finagled some figures:
Per capita computations show Washington recorded one murder for every
25,555 persons in 1949. But Chicago, generally conceded the gunmen’s
playground, had one murder for every 26,902. Washington jumped to one
for every 11,000 in 1950.
On the basis of population, Washington led 16 cities of 500,000 or
more in aggravated (felonious) assaults during the first six months of
1950; and it was second only to Chicago in the _total_ number of such
cases. Washington had 1,911, exceeded only by Chicago’s 2,184, and
Chicago is five times as large as Washington!
Though crime in Washington decreased slightly in 1950, as compared to
1949, the District is high among the leaders, per capita and in total
number of offenses, in every major classification.
Crime has always been a popular pastime here. It increased so
alarmingly during the first years of the New Deal that a group of
public-spirited citizens formed the Washington Criminal Justice
Association in 1936 to help combat it.
The Attorney General in that year called Washington “the crime capital
of the world.” The backers hoped for a virile, hard-hitting body,
similar to the Chicago Crime Commission, which under Virgil Peterson,
its executive director, has done so much to spotlight the workings of
the underworld there, or like Danny Sullivan’s Greater Miami Commission.
The original organizers of the Washington association included a number
of do-gooders, such as Eugene Meyer, who bars the identification of
Negroes in his paper. The body soon found itself struggling without
sufficient funds. It is now supported by the United Community Services,
which allots it only enough to pay for a director, an assistant and
a secretary. The able director, Edward J. Flynn, is a competent,
imaginative individual, handcuffed by lack of funds and public
disinterest. He can do little more than keep a record of crimes as they
occur, compile statistics and offer recommendations. They are good, but
no one wants them.
The situation has gotten worse rather than better since the Attorney
General castigated the city. In 1936 there were only about 7,000
serious crimes. The number dropped to about 4,000 in 1944. But by last
year it had skyrocketed to 13,000. It is now slightly lower.
Washington is still the crime capital.
In other chapters we touch briefly on the so-called “organized”
crimes--prostitution, gambling, and narcotics. This chapter deals
mainly with offenses of violence and those against property, which are
usually regarded as unorganized.
But director Flynn agrees with your authors that, with the exception
of private crimes of passion, occasional robberies by hungry men and
juvenile delinquency, all crime is now organized to a degree. Flynn
said:
“Highly organized criminal groups, carrying out skillfully planned
operations, exist in Washington.”
The police disagree with him, naturally. But the record is clear for
any observer who follows the entire procedure through, from commission
to arrest, bail-bonding and arraignment. The combine appears in the
fencing of the loot. Burglars in Washington have a union to which they
contribute a percentage of their take in return for bail when arrested,
legal representation and fixes where possible. No professional burglars
operate until they make arrangements in advance for disposition of
their stolen goods, and, thereafter, the other services. Non-members of
the union cannot secure bail at any price and are denied the services
of the top criminal lawyers.
Why has the nation’s capital more crime than other cities? Flynn says
it is indicative of community lethargy. He thinks that is not unique in
the District, but is equally true in every city. If that is so, there
must be a special reason why Washington is more lawless.
Others blame it on the lack of home rule and local government. Yet
every investigation and survey elsewhere shows that corrupt municipal
city hall gangs are the protectors of vice and crime. The high rates
in Washington cannot be blamed on the foreign-born, because only six
percent of the population is non-native. As we showed earlier, Negroes
commit most of the crime. But there are Negro criminals in other large
cities, especially in New York and Chicago, where they do likewise. Why
then are Washington’s Negroes even more felonious?
There is no doubt that Washington is a cesspool of iniquity and a
Utopia for criminals. The setup of the local government and the calibre
of the men who enforce its laws and sit on its benches are partly
responsible. Archaic and often ridiculous laws and regulations are a
contributing factor.
For instance, guns are easy to buy in second-hand stores. There is no
law requiring a license to keep a gun in a home. That forbidding the
carrying of one in a car is a dead letter. It is a felony to carry a
concealed weapon on the person without a license, but there are few
arrests and fewer convictions for this, because the District courts and
prosecutor feel it is no offense to carry an unloaded weapon, even if a
clip of cartridges is in the same pocket. An expert could load the gun
without removing it from his pocket.
The fantastic interpretation of laws by the U. S. Attorney and the
federal courts has handcuffed the cops in their efforts to clean the
town.
Not long ago a Negro was arrested for kicking and assaulting another
man in a bus station. Though police found an unlicensed pistol on the
prisoner’s person, and bullets in another pocket, the U. S. Attorney
refused to prosecute for either the assault or concealed weapon. When
queried, a representative of his office said it was obvious the colored
man was a nice guy, because he didn’t load his gun and shoot his
victim, who lay helpless on the floor. The prisoner had a record. When
asked at a later date whether, in view of all the circumstances since
developed, the D.A.’s office would prosecute, the spokesman said, “No.
No judge will convict a colored man here for a minor offense like that.”
The federal judges are lenient because they are federal judges. Of
the 308 with life appointments throughout the United States, 224
are Democrats. During the first 17 years of the Roosevelt-Truman
administrations, 289 judges were given such appointments, of whom
272 were Democrats. The same ratio shows up in the District of
Columbia. The Democratic judges are the choices and flunkies of
corrupt city machines or of unions, left-wingers and fellow-travelers’
organizations. The city bosses’ men are lenient to law-breakers because
their masters order them to be so. The radicals’ nominees seldom throw
the book at a defendant, because Commies, pinkos and phony progressives
hate cops, refer to them as cossacks.
A captain of the Metropolitan Police told us that even honest
Washington coppers seldom make arrests any more, because they know
what will happen when they get in court. The judge will harass,
bullyrag and humiliate them. It is not unusual for a District jurist to
castigate the policemen, call them liars and framers, then discharge
the prisoners without hearing defense evidence. When the defendant is a
Negro, the cops know they are going to get a going-over from the bench.
In 1937, after four years of Democratic administration, 90 percent
of all major crimes went unpunished. Since then, largely through
the efforts of Flynn’s Washington Criminal Justice Association, and
more recently of counsel Fischbach’s revelations, about which more
later, judges have been afraid to be too raw, and are giving stiffer
sentences and holding prisoners in higher bail.
However, out of 811 of those indicted for major offenses in the last
report period who did not enter pleas of guilty, only 281, about one
third, were found guilty. Of those found guilty, the largest number
received light sentences, far less than the maximum authorized by
law. Even among those who pleaded guilty, more than 20 percent were
permitted to assume lesser offenses.
An example of the penalties meted out for serious offenses is seen in
those convicted of first- and second-degree murder: of 22, only three
got sentences of 15 years to life; one drew 80 months to 20 years; all
the 18 others got less than 20 years, with terms tapering down to one
of three-to-nine on a first-degree murder, and one of one-to-four on a
second-degree murder. None got the chair.
Disposition records on cleaning up major crimes are made to look good
through an ingenious invention known as “Willie Pye” arrests. Whenever
anyone is pinched in Washington and decides to take a plea, the cops
induce him to admit every other unsolved crime of the same nature which
is still open on the books. If the accused agrees to take the rap for
these unsolved felonies, thus getting the police off the hook, they do
not present further evidence to the grand jury, and the felon is not
tried for the other offenses. Thus many complaints are charged off and
police take official credit for solving crimes where no solution has
eventuated.
The practice grew to such an extent about a decade ago that a public
stench arose. After a conference between law enforcement officials and
prosecutors, it was agreed to end it. But it goes right on and the
evidence of it appears every year in tabulations of “cleared by other
means.” There were 667 so disposed of in 1949.
It is believed the term “Willie Pye arrest” first came into police
parlance in Washington when a man so named lived there, about 50 years
ago. His business was crime. Willie was indicted on two housebreakings
and confessed to many more, which were then written off as closed.
An unnamed desk sergeant immortalized Willie by using his name for the
practice of shutting numerous open cases by getting multiple pleas and
choosing to proceed on only the last.
The blowup came when Leroy Mason, who was doing a stretch in Occuquan
Work House for three robberies, was still being charged for crimes
going on on the outside. A nameless Washington newspaperman composed a
deathless ditty, as offensive to grammar as the sentiment is to decency:
_Willie Pye was a regular guy,
He took the rap for you and I._
Though the F.B.I. reported a six percent drop of crime in Washington
this year, the local jail population reached a new high. The courts
sent 21,062 to District jail in 1950, an all-time record. Meanwhile,
the police had closed less than 60 percent of all cases involving
serious felony, which by the way, was an improvement.
Arrests for the more serious crimes by race were as follows:
_Offense_ _Total_ _White_ _Colored_
Arson 34 13 21
Aggravated Assault 2956 342 2614
Embezzlement and Fraud 201 146 55
Forgery and Counterfeiting 100 72 28
Grand Larceny 1099 326 773
Housebreaking 2878 634 2244
Homicides 55 10 45
Incest 5 1 4
Rape and Carnal Knowledge 191 39 152
Receiving Stolen Property 59 31 28
Robbery 1033 230 803
---- ---- ----
TOTAL 8611 1844 6767
The high incidence of Negro and juvenile crime was dealt with in detail
in previous chapters. One reason there are so many colored law-breakers
in Washington is that many judges in nearby Southern communities order
Negro defendants to get out of town, instead of holding them for trial,
and these gravitate to Washington.
Tough guys of both races hang around on the streets and insult
passers-by with impunity, snatch purses, stick up pedestrians and mug
and yoke.
Most crimes in Washington are committed from Friday through Sunday.
Almost everyone has a two-day weekend, and the drinking and celebrating
begins Friday night.
The First, Second, Third and Thirteenth Police precincts account for 57
percent of all serious crimes. The First is “downtown,” with tourists,
transients and night life. The others are predominantly Negro.
Among the more profitable of the organized crimes are these:
Housebreaking, comparatively easy because of the large number of
private homes and two- and three-story detached apartment buildings.
The stolen goods are fenced in East Baltimore Street, Baltimore.
Auto thefts, growing more serious.
Bank robberies, not uncommon.
Pickpockets and cold-finger men find easy loot at the countless
cocktail parties and other functions constantly given by lobbyists,
conventioneers and diplomats. It is a cinch to crash these.
Jewel-thieves have rich pastures. Social climbers and ambassadors’
women are loaded with rocks and constantly display them. A big gem haul
is sent to Holland for recutting, via reverse channels used by the
Mafia to smuggle dope. The reset ice is smuggled back.
Because of the ease with which fixes are maneuvered, the lenient
sentences, the failure of local courts to extra-penalize repeaters,
Washington is indeed a picnic-pasture for crooks from all over the
country. When other places get too hot to hold them, they hop a rattler
for the capital.
The pickings are easy. The payoff is high. The risks are minimal. The
burg is a pushover.
Sex is a crime, too; a statutory felony. The incidence of such offenses
in the Nation’s capital is so great as to be startling. The nature of
them nauseated even a couple of hardboiled reporters like us.
The figures are public property, compiled by the F.B.I., the local cops
and the Davis committee. Howard Whitman, who has been doing a series
of articles based largely on newspaper morgue material, printed the
computations in _Collier’s_, later put them into a book on prurient
misdemeanors.
Whitman slanted his findings to _Collier’s_ special-pleading formula
and found that “crime is a slum-connected characteristic.”
That is a laugh. Washington is freer of depressed living areas than any
city in the country.
“And Negroes are ghettoized in these slums,” adds Whitman gratuitously.
Whitman quotes with approval the Committee for Racial Democracy
which urged that “training in minority group problems be instituted
immediately as a part of the regular in-service training of all
policemen,” the non-sequitur supposition being that the colored folk
out-rape, out-maim, out-steal and out-mugg whites eight to one because
the coppers haven’t been trained in minority group relations.
Nor are sex-criminals, white or colored, permanently taken off the
streets after once being caught. Washington is a recidivists’ paradise
because of its ridiculous so-called “collateral rule” which takes the
place of posting a bond.
A defendant could, and still can, despite a promise of the courts to
tighten up, post a $25 collateral instead of a bond with a police
captain. Thereupon if he does not appear in a court he is automatically
found guilty and the collateral is forfeited as a fine. And that closes
the case instead of the judge issuing a bench warrant as in other
jurisdictions.
In the case of violent sex cases, the maximum collateral is $500
forfeit in the same way. A new judicial rule says all aggravated sex
cases must be taken to court, but they are not.
Abortions are cheap and easy to obtain. Police are able to arrest
only a few of the operators, and then only when complications arise.
Even then, few are convicted. This racket is highly protected by an
interstate ring allied with the Mafia. A ten million a year branch was
uncovered in San Francisco, built around a prominent female Chinese
physician, not publicly involved because of her high political and
social connections. She is a close friend of Virginia Hill, gal friend
of the late Bugsy Siegel.
Curiously, Washington is the nation-wide headquarters for the mail
order sale of dirty pictures and post cards. Why this should be so is
puzzling, though those who operate the business here face no tougher
penalty than elsewhere because it is a Federal offense anyway.
29. THE LAW
We mean the poor underpaid bulls, who enforce it--or, anyway, are
supposed to.
Last year the Attorney General of the United States held a conference
of mayors and other local law enforcement officers to try to figure out
the causes of crime. When it was over, we button-holed a mayor of a
Western city and asked him the following question:
“How come no one mentioned that hardly a crime or a vice violation is
possible without the connivance of or the knowledge of local officials?”
The mayor replied, “That’s an easy one to answer. We are all local
officials.”
We do not charge that the really terrible conditions in Washington
are the fault of the Metropolitan Police. Most of the cops on that
overworked force are honest. If given the opportunity they would love
to do their duty. Most policemen all over the country are honest, too.
They are slaves of a setup with the establishment of which they had
nothing to do and which they are powerless to correct. Big payoffs
are not made to men in the ranks. The orders go out from up above.
Patrolmen follow orders. When they see others getting, they often ask
what’s the use of being honest themselves? Why make pinches when the
prisoners are always sprung from up above?