the federal government and everything connected with it is straight and
efficient. The Metropolitan Police force is an agency of the United
States government. Only Gilbert and Sullivan could do justice to it, as
a comic opera. But the laughs are costly.
The boss of the force carries the complicated title of Major and
Superintendent. His name is Robert J. Barrett and he got the job
because he was related to the former chief.
A fantastic story made the front pages last year, then was hushed
and forgotten. Police Captain Anthony Richitt charged under oath,
before a Congressional investigating committee, that he had been
ordered by Police Inspector Jeffreys to turn in a false report on a
gambling complaint. He also swore that the District crime investigating
sub-committee was worrying the police chief, who, he said, was on
intimate terms with gambler Emmitt Warring; and further, that Warring
delivered messages from the chief to precinct captains.
Such charges elsewhere would have popped up a seething scandal, at
least a grand jury to-do, with the probability of new brass in the
police department. It took a long time, but even in Chicago the
police commissioner, the county chairman and the millionaire chief
investigator for the State’s Attorney quit after publication of
_Chicago Confidential_.
You think anything like that happened in Washington? In this home of
laissez faire the grand jury wasn’t interested even to the extent of
whitewashing the mud.
The incident was treated as a private feud. It was officially settled
on the records when Richitt apologized to his boss, in a public
apology, six words long:
“I regret the incident ever occurred.”
No explanation, no retraction, no withdrawal of the charges.
Barrett’s reply was nearly as short:
“Richitt has complied with the orders of the department as far as I am
concerned.”
Thus was departmental satisfaction restored. But there was no
satisfaction for the public. No determination was ever made as to
whether the chief had ordered his subordinate to falsify arrest
records. It was decided by all concerned that this was of no interest
to the tax-payers, the grand jury included.
Barrett had forgotten he had told the press he had what he called
“evidence tending to show perjury” on the subject of Captain Richitt.
Chairman Davis of the House District Sub-Committee, before which the
stink started, got into the act and announced he, too, had closed the
book on the affair.
The terms of the deal apparently were such that neither Barrett nor
Richitt are ever again to question the other’s activities. Some months
before, evidence was brought forth that Richitt had bought seven autos
in addition to the one he was driving during 27 post-war months, when
civilians could get cars only in the black market. No explanation was
volunteered by anyone, though Richitt had sold most of the cars as soon
as he bought them.
Your authors know this is a common practice in police departments all
over the country.
A sergeant of the Bridgeport, Connecticut, force was fired for similar
activities. Many cops used their emergency priorities to order cars
which they then transferred to dealers, without ever taking possession.
The cops rarely handled the money. The dealer went with them to accept
delivery and paid the purchase price, the cops chiseling from $500 to
$1,000 on each transaction.
When we arrived in Washington to dig for this book, we asked: “Who
makes the fixes?”
In other cities, contacts are closed with precinct, ward and district
leaders of the political party in office. If you want to retail
women, make book, land pickpocketing privileges or get a summons or a
violation squared, you go to see this local boss.
If money is to be passed it goes through him. Many favors are granted
in return for party loyalty, votes or campaign contributions. He takes
care of those, too. The leader passes the word along to city hall,
where it is relayed to the local police station. In some towns, Chicago
for example, the channels are short-circuited in advance, so the leader
can go direct to his police captain.
But what happens in Washington, where there are no voters, so there are
no district leaders? How do you fix the cops? Who is the collector?
Some naive Washingtonians said there is no such thing. There is no
collecting. There is no graft.
That is cockeyed. The payoff is through the local police captain, who
acts as the collector for anyone in the District Government who is to
be fixed. The captain retains his own percentage of the boodle, plus
anything he can steal, then passes the balance up above, through the
regularly established channels.
Such a system plays hell with the poor cops on the street. The guy who
pays the captain for protection knows he doesn’t have to take care of
underlings. The most the uniformed patrolman is good for is a meal, a
cigar and an occasional five-spot. Vice squad men and detectives can
sometimes do a little modest shaking, but not enough to get rich on.
A police captain told us this story: Two Chicago detectives came to
Washington to pick up a wanted prisoner. It is the custom among all
police departments to entertain cops visiting on business. Washington
has no fund for such purposes. Its men are so poorly paid, they can’t
treat. But the two assigned to keep the visitors happy had worked the
bright-light belt, so they knew where they could cuff a few small night
clubs. During the evening, one Chicago detective asked the Washington
cop, “What is your job worth?”
The reply was, “I get $3,300 a year?”
“No, I don’t mean your salary; what’s it worth?”
The Washingtonian looked puzzled. The policemen from the Windy City
said, “You can talk freely. We’re friends. No wise cop in Chicago would
take the job unless he could pick up at least $10,000 a year on the
side.”
Washington policemen who can average $20 a week extra consider
themselves lucky. Not so many higher officers.
Internal Revenue agents, who never allow themselves to be quoted, told
us some officers have safe deposit-vaults choked with big bills. But
many others are honest, like chumps. They have to go along with the
crooks to hold their jobs. They can’t squawk without implicating too
many important higher-ups.
Salaries of Washington policemen range from a take-home pay of only
$200 a month for the lowest-grade patrolman to about $10,000 a year
gross for the chief. Military ranks are used. Private, sixth grade, the
highest non-officer rank, pays $3,750 a year. A corporal gets $4,025, a
sergeant $4,228, a lieutenant $4,600, and a captain $5,300. That’s the
salary on which Captain Richitt bought eight cars in 27 months.
If the fix you’re after is of a nature which the local precinct
captain can’t handle, you go through a certain District Commission
employe who is the bagman for one of the three District Commissioners.
The Commission is the immediate boss of the police department. Any
commissioner can issue orders to the chief.
There are occasions, however, when a really strong in is needed.
Washington is federal territory and is ruled nominally by the national
administration. In such an instance, the guy who wants to call the cops
off has to try other doors. The odds are, even if he is in business in
Washington, he has his roots elsewhere. Many Washingtonians maintain
voting addresses in the states from which they originally came. Others
have friends, partners and relatives in various states.
The procedure is to make the connection through a Democratic county
committeeman back home or through a member of Congress in the home
state. Congress is the ruler of the District, and almost every
Congressman is as busy as a Chicago alderman fixing everything from
parking tags to felony warrants.
It is similar when a cop needs influence to square a rap or get an
appointment or a promotion. Elsewhere we know that being a paid-up
member of the local political club never hurt the career of a
policeman. Here there are no political clubs, and most cops are not
even Washingtonians. Their jobs are not confined to locals, but are
open to all American citizens, regardless of residence. You can take a
civil service test back home in Oskaloosa, then arrive in Washington a
full-fledged policeman.
Most Washingtonians don’t even want to get on the force at the
penny-ante salary. But $3,000 a year looks good to a cotton-picker in
Mississippi, where the annual per capita income is $600. When he gets
to Washington he finds the $600 back home goes further than $3,000 here.
So, what does a cop do when he needs help? He follows the procedure
outlined above. If he comes from out of town he corresponds with his
local ward-heeler or goes directly to his Congressman on Capitol Hill.
We asked one cop, “What do you do if you’re a native of Washington and
have no vote?”
He replied, “You’re just out of luck.”
That is, unless you’re a Negro.
The Washington force had some fine colored cops and detectives,
native-born men who decided to make a career of police work in the
days before Washington was flooded with the displaced from the
plantations in the Deep South. In those days Negroes got no special
privileges in Washington. Now almost all of the 300 colored policemen
are political appointees. The white applicant undergoes a rigid and
rigorous investigation; Negroes are forced on the force even over the
disapproval of the department’s intelligence squad.
Many colored policemen have rackets on the side, are gamblers, operate
whore-houses or do a little pimping.
The frequency with which the following happens is too great to set it
aside as a mere isolated example: White cops tell you colored ones
often stop pretty white women drivers, bawl them out and threaten them
with arrests until they cry, then offer to square it for some petting.
Testimony under oath, reported in a previous chapter, in which a
former sweetheart of gambler Attilio Acalotti charged she had seen
hush-money slipped to three cops, was not pursued by police brass, the
District Attorney or the grand jury. Several defendants were convicted
for trying to influence her to change her testimony, though Acalotti,
“Snags” Lewis and Frank Billeci were granted new trials on the gambling
charges.
Our indictment is not against Washington’s police. As we said, most of
them are honest, conscientious, decent citizens, thwarted by something
above their reach.
The culprit is the system. That is responsible for the childish,
irresponsible atmosphere of everything in this dizziest of American
cities.
Don’t think, despite the annual yaps for more assistance, the
Washington police force is radically undermanned. Compared to numbers
in other cities, it is not. The Metropolitan Police have the second
highest manpower per capita of any large outfit in the country. It is
not up to authorized strength, but that goes for most cities. That
doesn’t tell the story, because, as we indicated, there are at least
five other police forces operating in the city, with several hundred
more cops on tap. Generally speaking, the jurisdiction of each force is
limited to the particular area for which it was created. All Washington
policemen have the right to make arrests for crimes committed in their
presence in any part of the District. For purposes of convenience,
deals are made between various forces, so sometimes one patrols a
district which really belongs to another. For instance, if a small
square or park is situated miles away from the next nearest park, the
city police often relieve the National Park Police of the necessity of
sending squad-cars far off their regular beats.
There is a reverse, too. The Metropolitan force has about 1,800 men for
its 14 precincts and one harbor station, but men are continually called
for and assigned to guard visiting diplomats and dignitaries, and for
special duty at the White House, government establishments, and even as
ushers at tea-parties. With days off, sick leaves and men on special
assignments, the force is lucky when it can put 300 cops on the streets
on any shift.
The police are used for many duties delegated to others in
well-regulated cities. For instance, policemen must act as collection
agents for wives with delinquent husbands. Any Congressman can call and
ask for police protection, which means he may want a cop in front of
his house as a parking attendant for his private parties.
Any time the President or an important official drives through
Washington, special cops are strung along the route to clear traffic.
Wives of Congressmen and expectant mothers with a drag rate a police
escort to a hospital. Even the circus can call for a special detail of
22 men.
It is almost impossible to keep any foot patrolmen on the streets.
The force is all-motorized, that being the only way it can get around
the sprawling District. Meanwhile, there are no harness-bulls on
beats to keep toughs and thugs in line. So serious is the shortage of
personnel that the black marias attached to each of the 14 precincts
roll the streets 24 hours a day instead of being in their garages. The
patrol-wagons are equipped with two-way radios and respond to calls the
same as do squad cars. This is a help for spot work, one up on most
towns.
One chief trouble with the police department is that so few of its men
are natives. They have no local civic pride. Another factor is the
constant turnover in personnel, because of the lousy salaries and lean
pickings down below. There is no adequate pension system. In New York
they can retire on a minimum of half pay after 20 years, regardless of
age, which means a man who goes on the force at 21 can get off at 41
with a life pension. But in Washington you cannot apply for retirement
before age 55, with 25 years’ service. And even then there is no
guarantee you will be allowed to quit, as retirement is not automatic,
but at the pleasure of the board. Usually only one-third of those who
apply are permitted to quit.
On the other hand, Washington cops work an eight-hour day on an
authorized five-day week, and are not restrained from holding jobs on
the outside which don’t conflict with their assigned duties. Many own
or work in stores. Several are chauffeurs. Embassies hire them for
body-guards. Some drive cabs. A few owned fleets of them, but this was
forbidden when it was found they were using their police pull to get
their drivers off for traffic violations.
One policeman, Private John U. Carroll, managed a chile parlor in
the 700 block, 11th Street, SE. There was nothing wrong with that,
according to regulations, but the police trial board nabbed him
when he failed to report that he had been in a fist fight with some
customers in his place. According to testimony, Danny Petro, a former
professional pug, walked into the “parlor” and slugged Carroll’s pal.
That brought on a four-man melee in which the cop was injured. The
trial board fined him $75. After being restored to duty he retired,
claiming a veteran’s disability.
Though the department lowered standards because of the difficulty
of recruiting men, its record for solving crimes is still good. But
convictions and sentences are far under the American averages. The
present laws and regulations so hamper the police that even if all were
honest and intelligent, which they aren’t, serious inroads into the
crime situation would be impossible.
One of the most serious roadblocks is the fact that after they make an
arrest and hold a prisoner for the magistrate, they cannot make their
complaints to the court direct, or tell the judge what it is all about.
Washington rules require policemen to go to the U.S. Attorney and
plead with him to book a case. The prosecutor thus sits as practically
a committing magistrate, as the defendant and his lawyers are heard
at the same time, and they can bargain with him for a nolle pros or a
lesser charge.
If the U.S. Attorney decides not to handle a case, the police are sunk.
They cannot ask the municipal judge to hold or commit. In many other
jurisdictions, New York for instance, the arresting officer acts for
the state at the preliminary hearing, before a magistrate, and not only
tells his story to the judge, but can question the prisoner.
The U.S. Attorney is usually reluctant to prosecute. Even if he decides
to, the cops are due for a browbeating from the judge. This story is
no isolated incident--it is typical of what constantly goes on in the
local, politically appointed courts:
Many policemen told us the courts work against them. When they make
arrests they have to go to trial on their own time and are usually
kept sitting there all day at the pleasure of the defendant and his
lawyer. The defendant may wander around, but the policeman is required
to remain in the court until the case is called. He is not even
permitted to go to the washroom. If he does, the eagle-eyed shysters
call the case immediately, with court consent, and the defendant is
discharged--for lack of prosecution!
Several policemen who went to the toilet were threatened with contempt
citations.
From the time a policeman makes an arrest, until the final disposition
of the case, the entire atmosphere of the District enforcement
machinery is mined against him. The District Attorney’s office is
skeptical of anything he says, and is inclined to side with the
accused. The courts, frequently presided over by gangster-appointed
judges or left-wingers whose constituents are rebels against the
accepted code, bend backward. They make defendants of the cops instead
of the prisoners. So most policemen shrug and forget about it. For
instance, in the Black Belt, not one of every three known crimes is
reported. The experienced cops take it easy, go to the ball games and
dances.
The most absurd straitjacket in which the Washington police are
confined is the law which forbids them to serve warrants. They may be
served only by deputy U.S. marshals.
This completely screws up the orderly procedure, because District
judges, who are hot hell to protect the civil rights of murderers,
pimps, dope-peddlers and gamblers, refuse to hold a prisoner in most
cases unless he is arrested on a warrant. And they never uphold a John
Doe warrant.
For instance, on one occasion, two cops assigned to the vice squad at
night, working undercover on prostitution, got into a house and nabbed
several bottles of whiskey there. They called for a police car. When it
arrived, further search turned up narcotics. Twenty-six were arrested
without a warrant. The police knew the courts would not hold them for
even disorderly conduct, because arresting officers could not specify
which offense each and every one had committed. So the prisoners
were not photographed or fingerprinted. All were allowed to post $5
collateral, which was, of course, forfeited.
A cop can arrest a man whom he sees in the process of house-breaking on
burglary, but if he then fans him and finds a gun he cannot charge him
with a concealed-weapon violation, because he had no warrant for the
search. When police have information that a crime is being committed on
a premise, they must first get in touch with the U.S. Commissioner or a
judge, then locate a deputy marshal to come and serve the warrant.
But don’t you assume you can get away with anything in Washington. The
cops are death on jay-walkers. If you cross against the light you’ll
be jugged. That in Washington is more serious and more culpable than
murder!
30. HOW TO STAY OUT OF JAIL
These are the steps:
First you break the law.
Then you get pinched.
Then you hire Charlie Ford.
Who is he? Charles E. Ford is the “Fifth Street Cicero.”
Ford, a behemoth of 220 pounds, is 52. He has been practicing law in
Washington for 28 years. His father, a New Jersey Democrat, was the
public printer of the United States in 1913. Since then a lot has been
printed about his son in the public records.
As noted, Ford was the late Jimmy La Fontaine’s lawyer and is a
trustee of his estate. He appeared in Chicago to convince the Kefauver
committee it couldn’t force Anna Fischetti to testify against her
husband, Charles, the notorious Capone gangster. And he convinced it.
But not all Ford’s work is so aristocratic. He and his associates take
them as they come. Hardly a day passes without defendants in criminal
court being aided and comforted by Ford or someone from his office.
He is the darling of the gambling and prostitution fraternity. His
clients seldom go to jail. The police don’t feel so bad when they lose
to Ford as they do when other lawyers oppose them. For Ford is a great
friend of the cops. Whenever a policeman gets in trouble, Ford takes
his case, usually without fee.
Charlie is one of those big, brash, bluff guys everyone loves,
especially the newspapermen. He feeds them plenty of copy--and
liquor--and never hesitates to give them a lift when they need
background material on gangsters and criminals, without violating his
fiduciary ethics. He is a social guy who likes to entertain and who
loves to eat. One of his clients was the late Tom O’Donnell, and under
the terms of his will Charlie operates the two celebrated O’Donnell
restaurants and patronizes them freely.
Whenever his waist gets out of bounds, he goes to Hot Springs,
Arkansas, for the reducing baths and a few days of friendship and
cheer with Owney “The Killer” Madden, retired gang chieftain, now Hot
Springs’ most eminent elder statesman.
None of Charlie’s clients has ever gone to the electric chair.
One was sentenced to death for murder, but saved Charlie’s record
by considerately hanging himself in jail. So he is one up on Sam
Leibowitz, whose lone mistake waited for the ministrations of the
public executioner. But Ford is that kind of a guy. Everyone loves him.
No one would embarrass him.
We have sworn testimony before us which shows the operations of Ford’s
jail-thwarting apparatus. It usually works this way: The prisoner, who
may be a numbers peddler, a bookmaker’s runner, or a street-walker,
is booked at the police station. He or she puts in a phone call to
a certain designated unofficial party. Thereupon one of a half-dozen
bail-bond brokers gets a call, and within minutes a runner for the
bondsman appears at the police station and puts up surety for the
prisoner.
Among bailers-out utilized by the organization are James H. Conroy,
Isaac P. Jones, William P. Ryan, and Leonard, Louis, Max and Meyer
Weinstein.
The legal fee for a $500 bail bond in the District is $75. The
foregoing bondsmen charge the combine only $37.50, half-price, for
springing a protected person. The rules regarding their surety are
sketchy. They may register a $25,000 piece of property, then lay a
hundred or a thousand $25,000 bonds against it.
On release, the defendant may visit the law offices of Ford, on 5th
Street, where he is interviewed by Ford or his associate, Clifford
Allder since the resignation of James K. Hughes. But sometimes the
defendant does not speak to his counsel until the case is actually
called in court, when his lawyer--Ford or an associate--whom he has
never seen before, stands up for him at arraignment. If the defendant
has no previous convictions, Ford’s office often pleads him guilty;
whereupon the judge imposes a fine of usually not more than $25. We
have proof that the fines for many of these defendants are paid on the
spot from the lawyer’s pocket.
The system is keenly organized. Not one in a hundred people arrested
pays his own bail-bond fee or knows who contacted the bondsman or
paid him. Records of the bondsmen are kept so cryptically that in the
rare instances when they are queried under oath they can say all they
remember is they got a call from someone who only gave his first name,
to put up bail, and they have no record to show who paid them. The
rules are being changed. They must obtain a full name--but not for
public record. And they won’t ask for birth certificates, either.
The Ford office has been able to pass the buck between its members.
They cannot remember who retained them, who paid the retainer, or who
put up the money to pay the fines, if “they actually did it,” which
they “doubt.”