THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES OF THE POLICE.
Said Mr. Goff at one of the sittings of the Lexow Committee:--
We have, Mr. Chairman, called attention heretofore to what may be
justly termed “slaughter-houses,” known as police-stations, where
prisoners in custody of the officers of the law, and under the law’s
protection, have been brutally kicked and maltreated, almost within
view of the judge presiding in the Court.--Vol. iv., p. 3,598.
Slaughter-houses is not a bad term. The cases in which witnesses swore to
violent assault on prisoners in the cells by policemen were numerous. That
which immediately provoked this observation was a typical one of its kind.
One Frank Prince, who had been keeping a disorderly house in Ninety-eighth
Street, had the temerity to refuse to pay the 100 dollars a month
blackmail which had been demanded by the police. His house was raided, and
he was taken to the station-house. He was accused before the Captain of
having said that he would make him close the other disorderly house in the
district, which presumably was under the Captain’s protection. Now not to
pay blackmail yourself was bad enough; but it was far worse to threaten to
dry up the contributory sources of police revenue. The poor wretch denied
that he had ever uttered such a threat. “Take him into the cell and attend
to him!” said the Captain. Prince was marched out by the wardman, who was
also blackmail collector for the precinct. When they reached the cell, the
turnkey and the wardman kicked him through the doorway, and then following
him in fell to beating him about the head with a policeman’s billy. They
kicked him violently in the abdomen, inflicting permanent injuries, and
declared he deserved to have his brains knocked out. Such was the
“attendance” prisoners received in the police cell to teach them the
heinousness of refusing to pay ransom to the banditti of New York. This
case by no means stood alone.
The most remarkable case of police brutality to prisoners under arrest,
and which is one the best attested in the collection, is that of the Irish
revolutionist, Mr. Augustine E. Costello.
The story of Mr. Costello was wrung from him very reluctantly. He was
subpœnaed on behalf of the State, and confronted with the alternative of
being committed for contempt of Court or of being committed for perjury.
Mr. Costello, being a revolutionary Irishman, had a morbid horror of doing
anything which could in any way lead any one to accuse him, no matter how
falsely, of being an informer. The prejudice against the witness-box often
appears to be much stronger on the part of Irish Nationalists than the
prejudice against the dock. Mr. Augustine E. Costello is an honourable man
of the highest character and the purest enthusiasm. He was one of those
Irishmen who, loving their country not wisely but too well, crossed the
Atlantic for the purpose of righting the wrongs of Ireland. His zeal
brought him into collision with the Coercionist Government that was then
supreme. He was convicted and sentenced to twelve years’ penal servitude.
He was a political offender, the American Government intervened on his
behalf, and the treaty known as the Warren and Costello Treaty was
negotiated, which led to his liberation before his sentence had expired.
During his incarceration in this country he was confined in several
prisons, both in England and Ireland, and thus had a fair opportunity of
forming a first-hand estimate of the interior of British gaols and the
severity of our prison discipline. He was treated, he reported, with a
great deal of rigour, but he was never punished without warrant of law,
and was never pounded or assaulted. It is characteristic of the Irish
political convict that, when Mr. Costello was asked about this before the
Lexow Committee, he carefully inquired whether his answers would more or
less justify “the people on the other side,” and it was only on being
assured that it would do no such thing that he reluctantly admitted that
he had never experienced as a convict in British gaols anything like the
brutality with which he had been treated by the New York police.
Mr. Costello’s story, in brief, is this. About ten or a dozen years ago he
was on the staff of the _New York Herald_. By his commission he was
attached to the police headquarters, in which capacity he was necessarily
brought into the closest relations with captains and inspectors. He
discharged his duties with satisfaction to his employers, and without any
complaint on the part of the police. Two lawyers of good standing, who
were called as witnesses, testified that they had known him for years as a
thoroughly honourable man, a newspaper man of talent and ability; one
whose word they would take as soon as that of the President of the United
States. Every one who knew him spoke in the highest terms of his veracity
and scrupulous regard for accuracy.
Mr. Costello in 1885 conceived the idea of publishing a book about the
police under the title of “Our Police Protectors.” His idea was to hand
over 80 per cent. of the profits of the work to the Police Pension Fund,
retaining 20 per cent. as compensation for his work. The book at first was
very successful. The police sold it for the benefit of the Pension Fund,
and the profits were duly paid over by him to the fund in question. But
just as the book was beginning to boom, the Superintendent of Police
brought out a book of his own, entitled “The Great Criminals of New York.”
No sooner had it appeared than the police withdrew all their support from
Mr. Costello’s book, declared they had nothing to do with it officially,
and left him stranded with the unsold copies on his hands. Mr. Costello
appears to have regarded this as natural under the circumstances. He
entered no complaint of the way in which he had been treated over “Our
Police Protectors” by the department, for whose Pension Fund the book was
earning money, but at once set himself with a good heart to bring out
another book of a similar character about the Fire Department.
[Illustration: FOURTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK.]
Mr. Croker, who was then a Fire Commissioner, and his two colleagues gave
Mr. Costello a letter certifying that the Fire Department had consented to
the publication of his history in consideration of his undertaking to pay
into the Fire Relief Fund a certain portion of the proceeds of the sale of
the book, for the publication of which Mr. Costello had been given access
to the records of the department. Armed with this letter, Mr. Costello set
to work. He printed 2,500 copies of the book, with 900 illustrations. The
book itself was bulky, containing as many as 1,100 pages, and costing
nearly £5,000 to produce, an expenditure which he had incurred entirely on
reliance upon the support of the Fire Department promised him in the
letter written by Mr. Croker and his fellow commissioners. But again an
adverse fate befell the unfortunate Costello. Just as the book was
beginning to boom, another man named Craig, who had a pull at the Fire
headquarters, got out a very cheap book, called the “Old Fire Laddies,”
which he ran in opposition to Mr. Costello’s expensive work. The Fire
officials backed the man with a pull against Mr. Costello, who had no
pull. Friction arose, and the Fire Department withdrew the official letter
on the strength of which Mr. Costello had gone into the work.
But the power of the pull was to make itself felt in a still more painful
fashion. Mr. Costello had several agents canvassing for orders for the
book, and for advertisements. He did his best to obtain from those agents
the Croker letter, and succeeded in doing so in all but two or three
cases. As he had already spent his money, the only thing he could do was
to continue to push his book. His agents, no doubt, when canvassing made
as much capital as they could out of the credentials which Mr. Costello
had originally received from the Fire Department. This was resented, and
it seems to have been decided to “down” Costello. The method adopted was
characteristic. The Fire Commissioners and the Police were two branches of
Tammany administration. When Mr. Costello’s canvassers were going about
their business, they were subjected to arrest. He had as many as
half-a-dozen of his canvassers arrested at various times. They were seized
by the police on one pretext and another, locked up all night in the
police cell, and then liberated the next morning, without any charge being
made against them. The application of this system of arbitrary arrest
effected its purpose. The terrorised canvassers refused to seek orders any
longer for Mr. Costello’s book. One or two, however, still persevered. In
November, 1888, two of them, who had retained the original certificate,
were arrested in the First Precinct at the instance of Captain Murray of
the Fire Department, who said that they were professing to be connected
with the Fire Department, with which they had nothing to do.
Mr. Costello, accompanied by his book-keeper, Mr. Stanley, went down to
the police-station to endeavour to bail his canvassers out. Mr. Costello
had no fear for himself, as he believed Captain McLaughlin was his
friend--a friendship based upon the Captain’s belief that Mr. Costello’s
influence had counted for something in securing his captaincy. Mr.
Costello complained of the repeated arrests, and declared that he would
not let it occur again if he could help it. Captain McLaughlin showed him
the books that had been taken from the imprisoned canvassers, in one of
which there was a loose paper containing the memorandum of sales made on
that day, and a copy of the Croker letter. Mr. Costello at once took
possession of the letter, which he had been trying to call in for some
time. He showed it to the Captain, and then put it in his pocket, telling
the Captain that if it was wanted, he would produce it in court the next
day. The Captain made no objection, and they parted, apparently on
friendly terms.
Mr. Costello had supper, and then went off to the police-headquarters at
seven o’clock, in order to secure an order for the release of his
canvassers. Suspecting nothing, he walked straight into the office, where
he found himself confronted by Inspector Williams. This Inspector was
famous for two things: he had the repute of being the champion clubber of
the whole force, and it was he also who first gave the _soubriquet_ of
“Tenderloin” to the worst precinct in New York. The origin of this phrase
was said to be a remark made by Inspector Williams on his removal from the
Fourth to the Twenty-ninth Precinct. Williams, who was then captain, had
said, “I have been living on rump-steak in the Fourth Precinct; I shall
have some tender loin now.” Mr. Costello picked up this phrase, applied it
to the Twenty-ninth Precinct, coupling it with Williams’s name. Williams
never forgave Costello for this, and on one occasion had clubbed him in
Madison Square.
When Costello saw the Inspector, he felt there was a storm brewing, for
Williams was in one of his usual domineering moods. The moment Mr.
Costello entered, the Inspector accused him of stealing a document out of
Captain McLaughlin’s office, and detained him for five hours. It was in
vain that Mr. Costello explained that the document which he had sent home
by his book-keeper, and placed in his safe, was his property, and would be
produced in court when it was wanted. During the five hours that he stayed
there he noticed what he described as “very funny work” going on. The
Inspector was telephoning here and there; detectives were coming in and
whispering, as if receiving secret orders; and at last, at midnight, two
detectives came in and whispered a message to the Inspector. Thereupon
Williams turned to Costello, ordered him to accompany the detectives, and
consider himself under arrest. A foreboding of coming trouble crossed
Costello’s mind. He asked his book-keeper to accompany him, as he felt
that there was something going to happen, and he wanted him to be an
eye-witness. This, however, did not suit his custodians. On their way down
to the police-station one of the detectives said to Stanley, “You get
away! We do not want you at all.” Costello said, “Well, if you have to go,
you might look up Judge Duffy. I may want his services as well as these
men.” Stanley left, and Costello, with the two detectives, made his way to
the police-station.
It was getting on to one o’clock in the morning. Costello was carrying an
umbrella, as it was raining, when they came in front of the station-house.
The door was wide open, and the light streamed on to the sidewalk. Just as
he was placing his foot on the step he saw two men come towards him. The
bright light cast a shadow, and in that shadow he saw Captain McLaughlin
raise his fist and deal a savage blow at his face. He instinctively drew
back his head, and the Captain’s brass-knuckled fist struck him on the
cheek-bone, knocking him down into the gutter. The detectives stood by,
indifferent spectators of the scene. As Costello lay half-stunned and
bleeding in the muddy gutter, Captain McLaughlin attempted to kick him
several times in his face. Fortunately, his victim had retained hold of
his umbrella, and with its aid was able to keep the Captain’s heavy boots
from kicking him into insensibility.
He struggled to his feet, when Captain McLaughlin went for him again. What
followed is best told by the transcript from the evidence before the Lexow
Committee:--
Augustine E. Costello examined by Mr. Moss. I said to Captain
McLaughlin:--“Now, hold on; I am a prisoner here; this is a cowardly
act on your part; if I have done anything to offend the laws of the
State there is another way of punishing me; this is not right.” You
could hardly recognise me as a human being at this time; I was covered
with blood, mud, and dirt, and had rolled over and over again in
trying to escape the kicks that were rained at me. I hurried myself as
fast as I could into the station-house, thinking that would protect
me; all this time I was being assaulted, the two detectives stood over
me.
Q. What were their names?
A. I cannot recall it just now, but I can get their names later on;
two wardmen of that precinct; there was a second man with the man who
assaulted me; that man, I may tell you, was Captain McLaughlin.
Q. What do you mean; on the sidewalk?
A. On the sidewalk; the man with him, standing right off the kerbstone
on the street; and when I got into the station-house, I asked to be
allowed to wash the blood off myself, and I was feeling more like a
wild beast than a human being.
By Mr. Moss:--Tell us what he did?
A. McLaughlin put himself in all sorts of attitudes and tried to
strike me, and I dodged the blows.
Q. Was that in the general room of the station-house?
A. Yes. Captain Murray, of the Fire Department, was present at the
time; he made the complaint against the two men.
Q. You were a prisoner, and standing in the middle of the
station-house floor while McLaughlin was raining blows at you?
A. Yes. “Now,” I said to him, “McLaughlin, look here, I never felt
myself placed in the position that I do to-night; no man has ever done
to me what you did to-night, and I advise you to let up. Standing
here, if I am assaulted again, you or I will have to die; one man of
two will be taken out of this station-house dead, and so, stop.” At
this time I had my fighting blood up, and had recovered from the
collapse I was thrown into. I said, “You may think me not protected
here; but I have a good strong arm, and if you assault me again, as
sure as there is a God in Heaven, I will never take my hands from your
throat until you kill me or I kill you.” He kept on blustering, but
never struck me again.
Q. What was the nature of the punishment?
A. He had brass-knuckled me.--(Vol. iv., p. 4,527).
Q. You say he desisted at that moment?
A. He desisted at that moment when I said he or I would have to die if
he did not stop. I was then allowed to go into his private room and
wash some of the mud and gutter off my face and hands. I could not
wash the blood off, because that was coming down in torrents; and when
I was going downstairs, somebody kicked me or punched me severely in
the back, and I feel the effects of it yet at times, and I suppose I
always will. Then I was thrown into a cell bleeding, and by this time
a second collapse had come over me, and I must have fainted in the
cell.
Q. Did McLaughlin go into the cell?
A. No; he came down after me, after I was locked up, and made it clear
he gloried in the fact that I was in that condition. So, fearing that
some one would open the cell door during the night, when I would be in
a faint--because I felt very weak from the loss of blood--I took out
my note-book and wrote in it, “If I am found dead here to-morrow, I
want it known I am murdered by Captain McLaughlin and his crowd.” I
hid that in my stocking, that piece of bloody paper. I kept it for a
long time, and I tried to find it to-day, but could not put my hands
on it, and am very sorry I cannot put my hands on it.
Q. Were you persecuted any more that night?
A. I was persecuted in a way that they would not give me any water.
Q. Did you call for water?
A. Yes, and it was denied me; everything was denied me. From loss of
blood and all that I became unconscious; and about five o’clock in the
morning, when I could get a little rest, I was routed out from my bed
and told to get ready; then I asked the privilege of getting something
to brush off my clothes and my shoes, and after paying a little for
it, I did get it; and I was taken out by these two same men that had
arrested me. Now, before I proceed any further, will you let me go
back a little?
Q. Yes.
A. All the five hours I was kept a prisoner at police headquarters
with Inspector Williams standing over me, I might say, with drawn
baton, two detectives were up at my house, which shows this was a
put-up job and conspiracy to degrade me; from quarter after seven or
half-past seven, from the time this happened two detectives were up at
my house bullying my wife and scaring her to death, and all this time
they knew I was down in the hands of Inspector Williams. Inspector
Williams told me this with great glee as I was about to be taken away.
I said, “You must have no heart.” I said, “I don’t mind the
persecution I have been subjected to, but I don’t wish to have that
inflicted on my wife and children; they will go crazy. I beg you to
telephone the station-house, and have those brutes taken out of my
house;” and he did, but they were there up to midnight, and all these
five hours in my house bullying my wife and sending my children into
hysterics.
Q. You went to Court the next morning, did you?
A. Yes, sir. I begged then of the men that they would allow me to buy
a pair of glasses more or less to conceal my lacerated face. I was in
a terrible state. They refused until I got very near the place and I
said, “I will make trouble for somebody if I go in this condition;”
and they let me buy a large pair of blue goggles, and I sent for
Counsellor Charles T. Duffy, who is at present justice of the peace in
Long Island City, and I told him what happened to me, and he said,
“These people are too much for me; I will go and get somebody to
assist you. What do you think of Mr. Hummel?” I said, “Do what you
like about it; have Mr. Hummel.” I paid him a retainer fee, and he
said, “These are infernal brutes, and we ought to break them.” I said,
“I am prepared to do what you tell me.” When the case was brought up
it was laughed out of Court; there was no case for me or my men. They
first had me to get bondsmen before the thing was tried; but there was
no case tried--there was no case to try. Hummel said, “What have you
against this man; he has not destroyed any documents.”--Vol. iv., p.
4,520.
Mr. Costello was taken home, and laid up in bed for five days. His face
had to be sewn up. The doctor, who, by-the-bye, was Mr. Croker’s
brother-in-law, certified that the injury to the face had been produced by
brass knuckles, the cut being too severe to have been produced by the
simple fist. He was threatened with erysipelas, but, fortunately,
recovered.
I should have mentioned that while Mr. Costello was being taken into the
station-house all bloody and muddy, his book-keeper came to obtain access
to him. Captain McLaughlin stopped him, pulled open his overcoat, and
searched his pockets.
“What is this for?” cried Stanley. The Captain made no answer, but
continued the search. “What does this mean?” angrily asked Stanley.
“You know d---- well what it means,” was the reply.
“I do not understand you,” said Stanley. “What is it for?”
“Open the door,” said the Captain to an orderly, “open the door.” The
orderly opened the door. “Now,” said the Captain, “get the Hell out of
here!” and the book-keeper was promptly forced right out, and left on the
sidewalk to reflect upon the irony of events which had subjected the
author of “Our Police Protectors” to such treatment.
It is a very pretty story, and one which naturally provokes the inquiry as
to how such things could be practised with impunity. Mr. Costello himself
said that if there had not been so much Celtic blood in his veins there
would have been several funerals in New York, for he was not only a Celtic
Irishman but a Catholic Irishman, and murder was repugnant both to his
religion and to his nature. Other redress than that which could be gained
by your own right hand it was impossible to obtain, for it was this
witness who made the famous remark previously quoted. Senator O’Connor
asked him, “Did you ever take any proceedings against these men?” and the
witness replied, “I never did, sir. It is no use going to law with the
devil and court and hell!”
He probably thought himself lucky that he had escaped without permanent
disfigurement. One Thomas J. Standant was less fortunate. A policeman
named Schillinberger, of the Eleventh Precinct, who was a very athletic
man, struck Standant a tremendous blow with his fist, which was not, as in
McLaughlin’s case, provided with brass knuckles. Standant’s nose was
smashed, the blood poured from his eyes and ears, and he was carried to
the hospital, where he had to submit to various operations before he
recovered his eyesight and hearing. He was badly disfigured for life. When
he brought an action against the policeman for assault, the officer was
defended by the Corporation Counsel. Schillinberger, although indicted by
the Grand Jury, was never suspended for a moment, but continued on duty
during the whole of the sittings of the Commission.
In another case a witness was produced who could hardly speak
intelligibly. On Thanksgiving morning he had bought a couple of crabs from
an oyster stand, the owner of which had apparently paid blackmail, and was
therefore under the protection of the police. When the policeman on the
beat heard the altercation between the customer and the protected oyster
stand keeper he walked up to the witness and, without a word, delivered a
smashing blow upon his mouth. Two front teeth were splintered up into the
gum, inflicting so severe an injury that it was two days before the
swelling abated sufficiently for the dentist to be able to cut away the
teeth, and four days before the roots could be touched. The dentist
declared that the officer must have had something in his hand, either
brass knuckles or some other weapon of that kind, to splinter the teeth so
badly. But in all those cases the fist seems to have been the favourite
weapon.
The only other case that I shall refer to is that in which the policeman
used his club. There was a fight in the hallway of a house, and one Frank
Angelo had stepped in to try to part the combatants. Up came a policeman
of the name of Zimmerman, who rushed into the midst of the _mêlée_, and
striking Angelo heavily with his club, knocked his eye out. The eye hung
down on the man’s cheek, and had to be subsequently removed. Angelo, all
bloody, with his eye in this ghastly position, was arrested by his
assailant, and taken to the police-court. The poor fellow, not knowing
what would befall him, sent for a lawyer, who first of all charged him £10
for his professional services, and then said that the only way for him to
get out of the scrape was to pay the officer £5, which he accordingly did.
The judge asked him no question, and discharged the case. It is needless
to say that Angelo brought no action against the policeman. There was no
justice, he said, in New York. Justice there was indeed--hideous,
diabolical, devil’s justice. It is bad enough to have your eye knocked out
with a policeman’s club in the street when you are endeavouring to prevent
a fight, but it is worse to have to pay that policeman £5 for having
performed that operation, and an additional £10 to a lawyer to induce the
ruffian to accept the money.
After reading this, it is not surprising that Mr. Goff, now Recorder of
the City of New York, publicly declared, after a careful examination of
the records of the Police Department for three years, that it could be
proved that the police force was to all intents and purposes and in
practice exempted from and above the operation of the law of the land. Mr.
Goff, after saying that in three years only one policeman had been
convicted for an assault upon a citizen, and remarking that the air of the
trial-room at police headquarters was blue with perjury, continued thus:--
The members of the police force of this city commit offences of the
grade of felony and misdemeanour, and they have gone for years
unpunished and unwhipped for those offences, which, if committed by
citizens, would have resulted in fact in sentence to State’s prison,
and to the penitentiary. In other words, the operation of the law of
this State, so far as it applies to the citizens of New York, and to
all persons as it should, stops short of the police force. Felonious
assaults have been committed upon citizens by policemen, which if
committed by a civilian would result possibly in four or five years’
sentence in Sing Sing, and all the policeman need apprehend is, a
charge against him, with a possible conviction finding him guilty of
assault, and a fine, for instance, of ten days’ pay. A police officer
of this city can brain a citizen with a club, and he may reasonably
expect that all the penalty he will have to pay for that is about the
sum of thirty dollars, while an ordinary citizen, if he commits that
offence, is almost certain to go to State’s prison.--Vol. iii., p.
2,826.
This is not a case of one law for the rich and another for the poor. It is
one law for the citizen and none at all for the policeman.
Some of the evidence taken as to the action of the police supplied the
Committee with very sensational episodes. One witness, for instance, a
truckman, of the name of Lucas, appeared before them with his head in a
frightful state of disfigurement. The man had been drunk, and gone to
sleep on a doorstep, when he was robbed of four dollars. On waking up,
finding that he had lost the money, he asked a policeman if he could find
out anything as to who had robbed him. This seemed to offend the officer,
for he struck Lucas in the face, knocked him down in the gutter, and then
standing over him, belaboured him unmercifully with his club on his face
and head. “For God’s sake!” cried the man, “do not kill me altogether.” A
young man, a stranger, coming past, seeing the outrageous nature of the
assault, asked the policeman to stop. Thereupon another policeman in
citizen’s clothes ran up, knocked him down, jumped on him, and then
marched Lucas and the stranger off to the police-station. The blood
running down Lucas’s neck, drenched his shirt, and one of the picturesque
incidents of the inquiry was the production of the bloody shirt before the
senators. The man was bleeding so freely that the sergeant of the
police-station had to sew up the top of his head. It took twenty-seven
stitches to sew up the wound opened by the policeman’s club. When he got
into the police-station he was again assaulted, and had he not run for the
sergeant, he was of the opinion that he would have been killed altogether.
The next morning he was brought before the judge, and discharged. Nothing
seems to have been done to the officer.
The Committee summed up the whole case in the following sentences:--
It was proven by a stream of witnesses who poured continuously into
the sessions of the committee, that many of the members of the force,
and even superior officers, have abused the resources of physical
power which have been provided for them and their use only in cases of
necessity in the making of arrests and the restraint of disorder, to
gratify personal spite and brutal instincts, and to reduce their
victims to a condition of servility....
Besides this exhibit of convicted clubbers, still wearing the uniform
of the force, there was a stream of victims of police brutality who
testified before your committee. The eye of one man, pushed out by a
patrolman’s club, hung on his cheek. Others were brought before the
committee, fresh from their punishment, covered with blood and
bruises, and in some cases battered out of recognition. Witnesses
testified to severe assaults upon them while under arrest in the
station-houses. The line of testimony might have been endlessly
pursued by your committee.... We emphasise this finding of brutality
because it affects every citizen whatever his condition, because it
shows an invasion of constitutional liberty by one of the departments
of government whose supreme duty it is to enforce the law, and because
it establishes a condition of affairs gravely imperilling the safety
and the welfare of the people in their daily avocations.--Vol. i., p.
31.
[Illustration: INSPECTOR WILLIAMS, CHIEF CLUBBER OF THE FORCE.]
[Illustration: AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY’S DEPÔT. (New York is a city whose
Buildings are as colossal as the Corruption of its Police.)]