Memphis Police Department Homicide Reports 1917-1936
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Memphis Police Department Homicide Reports 1917-1936 Processed by Cameron Sandlin, Lily Flores, and Max Farley 2017 Memphis and Shelby County Room Memphis Public Library and Information Center 3030 Poplar Ave Memphis, TN 38111 Memphis Police Department Homicide Reports 1917-1936 2 Memphis Police Department Homicide Reports 1917-1936 Memphis Police Department Historical Sketch The history of police activity in Memphis began in 1827 with the election of John J. Balch. Holding the title of town constable, the “one-man Police Department” also worked as a tinker and patrolled on foot an area of less than a half square mile in the young town of Memphis.1 As the river town expanded and developed a rough reputation throughout the 1830’s, the department remained small, first experiencing growth in 1840 when the force expanded to include the Night Guard, a night-shift force of watchmen. In 1848, the town of Memphis became the city of Memphis. During that same year, the elected office of City Marshal replaced the position of town constable, and the duties of the office expanded to include “duties related to sanitation, zoning, street maintenance,” in addition to policing the newly-minted city.2 In 1850, the total police force numbered 26 men, split between the Day Squad and the Night Squad, and by 1860, a police force with a structure that could be characterized as modern was in place in Memphis, with the position of Chief of Police clearly stated in city ordinances as the leader of the police force. Following the Civil War, the Memphis Police Department (MPD) expanded to manage the rapidly growing Bluff City. In 1872, the seventy-seven strong force patrolled two districts dividing North and South along Monroe Street, working in 12 hour shifts with mounted sergeants and patrolmen on foot. The department suffered heavily during the three outbreaks of yellow fever that occurred in Memphis during 1873, 1878, and 1879. During each outbreak, many members of the police department elected to stay at their posts rather than to join in the evacuation of the city, and individual acts of heroism occurred during these terrible months that placed members of the department solidly alongside other famous figures like Charles Carroll Parsons, Sister Constance, Mattie Stephenson, and the physicians of the Howard Association, who went above and beyond during the Yellow Fever Epidemics. One policeman in particular stands out for his courage during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1873: John J. Huber was a patrolman who chose to continue to walk his beat throughout the period of infection. In the words of Police Chief Athy in 1874, Huber was “a hero…Alone, with no partner to keep him company or to cheer him, he walked his beat, when at every step, the solemn stillness of the air would seem a warning that told him of the fate of his dead comrades.”3 All told, the department lost 40% of its strength during these periods of outbreaks, and it entered its next decade as an understaffed agency in a bankrupt municipal government. Despite these marked setbacks, the period of 1880-1900 became a time of innovation and modernization for the Memphis Police Department. The force was under command of William 1 Ashmore, Eddy M. “History of the Memphis Police Department” MemphisPolice.org. Accessed 5 June 2017. PDF, page 20. 2 Ashmore, Eddy M. “History of the Memphis Police Department” MemphisPolice.org. Accessed 5 June 2017. PDF, page 20. 3 Ashmore, Eddy M. “History of the Memphis Police Department” MemphisPolice.org. Accessed 5 June 2017. PDF, page 24. 3 Memphis Police Department Homicide Reports 1917-1936 C. Davis from 1880 to 1895. Under Davis’ leadership, the department relocated and expanded to a new location on the corner of Second and Washington, acquired its first patrol wagon, and installed an alarm system that connected headquarters to remote areas of the city.4 Between 1898 and 1899, the City of Memphis carried out a process of referendum and annexation that doubled the corporate boundaries of the city and “deeply affected the future development of the Bluff City.”5 The Memphis Police Force was affected by this process and grew to accommodate the boundary increase to a total force of 83 officers in 1899, and by 1907, this figure had risen to 146 officers as Memphis’ population continued to grow. Davis returned to head the department in 1908, and he was Chief when the MPD first instituted a Civil Service system of certification for the hiring and management of police officers, in 1910. The Memphis Police Department’s first serious attempt at integration took place in 1919 with the appointment of Matthew Thornton Sr., F.M. Mercer, and “Sweatie” Williams, three black detectives. These three detectives served admirably, but they were let go after a racially- charged incident involving a “white underworld boss” who targeted the detectives for their efforts. The department hired its first black officers in 1948, and in 1951, the force totaled 341 officers. Throughout the 1950s, the MPD implemented a number of specialized units to make its efforts more efficient, including the Hold Up Squad (1951), the Hotel Squad (1952), and the Racket Squad (1953). These additions added again to the total force of the department, and in 1956, the force numbered 520 officers. The Women’s Protection Bureau was established in 1921 to investigate crimes with female perpetrators and oversee women in the city jail. The first police woman hired to manage this bureau was Anna Whitmore. In addition, ten women were hired as Traffic Policewomen to patrol the city’s parking meters in 1958. In 1963, the first black female, Claudette Penn, was hired as a meter maid, and in 1968, she was promoted as the first black female officer. The final sections of this historical note on the Memphis Police Department will deal with the MPD’s troubling history of complicity in extra-judicial violence, police brutality, and the debates surrounding issues such as civilian oversight, police armament, the role of the federal government in monitoring city police departments, and city council voting that characterized the late 20th century Memphis Police Department. As the Memphis Police Department moved past the turmoil of Reconstruction, Yellow Fever, and the belt tightening that accompanied the Bluff City’s Tax District era and into the relative stability that marked the turn of the twentieth century, the force modernized by adopting new technology like the Gamewell Police Telephone System (1899) and streamlined police activity through the adoption of units like the Bicycle Squad (1908). In addition to these advancements, however, it remains paramount to any discussion of the Memphis Police Department to include a discussion of segregation. Beginning in Tennessee as far back as 1866, the Memphis Police Department was tasked with enforcing segregationist law in education, 4 Ashmore, Eddy M. “History of the Memphis Police Department” MemphisPolice.org. Accessed 5 June 2017. PDF, page 25. 5 Dowdy, G. Wayne. Brief History of Memphis. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2011. Page 65. 4 Memphis Police Department Homicide Reports 1917-1936 familial relationships, public accommodations, railroads, streetcars, and virtually every other aspect of life in Memphis. As Jim Crow sentiment solidified into Jim Crow law, white MPD officers who were undertrained and apparently often intoxicated6 became associated in the public consciousness with both authority and violence. White policing of segregationist policy through violence in Memphis was rampant during the Jim Crow era, a fact made apparent by the rash of lynchings that took place in Shelby County during this time period. The Memphis Lynching Sites Project has documented thirty-six black men who were lynched in Shelby County during Jim Crow, including Calvin McDowell, Thomas Moss, and Will Stewart of the People’s Grocery lynching. They were accosted in 1892 by recently-deputized white citizens acting as part of a Sheriff’s posse. The Memphis Police Department cannot be proven directly complicit in Shelby County lynchings of the Jim Crow era regardless of direct involvement; however, the fact remains that the MPD supported and upheld segregationist policies that emboldened white violence. As with the issue of segregation, any analysis of the Memphis Police Department’s convoluted past remains incomplete without an overview of the department’s well-documented history of brutality towards civilians. While brutal action by Memphis police officers could have existed before 1866, common-law procedure and the Bluff City’s “frontier outpost” reputation likely obscured indisputable documentation of clear-cut police brutality. The first (and, arguably, most egregious) example of police brutality in Memphis took place in 1866. Memphis came under federal control during the Civil War in 1862 when a squad of nine Federal gunboats quickly defeated Confederate naval opposition and established a military presence in the city. According to information found on MemphisPolice.org, Federal leadership instructed Memphis Mayor John Park to maintain normal police schedules and duties and promised “the full cooperation of the military garrison.”7 Memphis civil services operated under this arrangement until 1864, when General W.C. Washburn presented general order no. 70, dissolving the Bluff City’s government and replacing it with martial law. Citing the “utter failure of the municipal government…to discharge its duties” and the city government’s “indisposition to co-operate with the military authorities,”8 Washburn used general order no. 70 as an attempted one-size-fits-all solution to the problems that plagued the dysfunctional city. However, replacing Confederate loyalists with Federal loyalists could not even begin to solve the larger tensions that existed beneath the surface, tensions that had been brewing for much longer than the mere two years of Federal occupation.