Box 12, Folder 28, Document 31

Box 12, Folder 28, Document 31

TH E D E NV' ER PO S T Tuesday. Oct.24.1967
/
icago Lea s U.S.
In egro Policemen
Continued froin page 5
incidents don't blossom into ugly racial
turmoil.
Griffin and Williams both happen to be
Negroes - officers of the kind that many
Chicago police officials believe can do a
better job in tense racial situations than
white officers can. They have the "feel" of
the ghettos.
Chicago's Negro policemen are more numerous than in any other city in America.
Department spokesmen estimate there
are between 3,000 and 3,500 Negroes on the
10,967-member police force. A study by the
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under
Law put the number at 2,940. Either way,
Chicago ·s percentage of Negro policemen is
second only to Baltimore's.
Taking the lower figure of the Lawyers'
Committee, the Negro contingent is 26.8 per
cent of the department. Chicago's 812,637
Negro citizens make up only 22.9 per cent
of the city's over-all population of 3,550,400.
Included in the ranks of Negro policemen
are 91 sergeants, 7 lieutenants and 5 captains. Four of the captains are district commanders.
Most Decorated Officer
or for the department is to investigate all
incidents of bigotry or discrimination with-in the department and in its dealings with
the public.
No one pretends, however, that the department's full integration and its policy of
fairness in promotions have solved all its
problems.
At the time Mosby was interviewed he
had just written a story about an attractive
Negro woman's complaint that several policemen-Negro and white-had staged an
illegal gambling raid on her home, without
a search warrant, and roughed her up.
"I couldn't tell you a lie and say the Negro
community is completely satisfied with the
department," says Deputy Chief Nolan.
"They're not. We're not perfect by a long
shot. But we certainly try to do every damn
thing we can.
Nolan is a Negro, too.
There are now two ways an officer can advance to high command positions in the
Chicago department.
Most of them do it the hard way-by competing against other officers on civil service
examinations. Commander Sims made his
civil service rank of captain by placing first
on a list of 200 lieutenants who took the
examination. He was the first Negro ever to
top an exam list.
The department's most decorated officer
is a burglary detail detective, Howard SpoonSpecial Recognition
er, 35. He is the only Negro ever to win the
But under the system of reforms that WilLambert Tree Gold Medal Award for "exson brought to the department seven years
ago there also is a way to give special recceptional bravery." Established in 1886, it
ognition to men with special talents or backis Chicago's highest honor.
grounds.
Even in Chicago, however, Negroes' rise to
There are 73 personnel positions in the deprominence on the Police Department is a
. partment's $91 million budget that are exrecent thing.
empt from civil service. Deputy Chief Nolan
"Before Superintendent Wilson came, we
fills one of them.
had like four sergeants and one captain,"
Spokesmen said the department had to ofsays Lieutenant Williams.
fer Nolan lieutenant colonel's pay--$16,572 a
Orlando W. Wilson, named by Mayor Dal- - year compared with the $14,000 that Denver's
ey in March 1960 to reorganize the departMayor Tom Currigan makes-in order to
ment and rid it of corruption and political
get him back. He had taken a leave of abinfluence, laid down his policy on discrimisence in December 1965 to become the weUnation in General Order No. 61.-I.Z on Feb . 6,
paid deputy director of the Chicago Com1961:
mission on Human Relations.
His civil service rank: Sergeant.
"The Chicago Police Department will be
"A policeman nowadays has to be accompletely integrated, and no discrimination
tively involved in the social problems of his
will be made in appointments, promotions,
community-something I dare say the oldassignments, transfers or other personnel
time policeman would have laughed like hell
actions because of race, creed, color or poat," Nolan says.
litical beliefs.
"The sole factor to be considered is whethQuick Rea ction Time
er a man is the best man for the job."
"George Sims has a tremendous rapport
Policy Continued
This policy has been continued by Supt.
James B. Conlisk Jr., who succeeded the retiring Wilson on the day Big Jim Nicholaou
shot Julius Woods.
As a result, "there are people in positions
of command who have some idea of the
problems in the Negro ghettoes," says Don
Mosby, police reporter for the Daily Defender, the nation's biggest Negro daily
newspaper.
"If a Negro can go to a Negro captain and
explain his difficulty, it creates, psychologically, a much better situation. A Negro officer is more acutely attuned to his problems.
"I was raised here," Mosby adds. "I went
through some of the bad years. It used to
be if you were Negro with an Irish name
and you got stopped by a cop, you would
end up getting knocked on your butt. Things
have changed."
About 60 per cent of Chicago's two-man
patrol cars carry one Negro officer and one
white. There aren't enough Negro officers
to complete the job.
"Who an officer works with has nothing
to do with how effectively he does his job,"
says Lieutenant Williams. "We have had
here, to my knowledge, one instance where
a white officer refused to work with a Negro
on strictly those grounds- the man's color .
I feel sure that if there were others I'd be
aware of it."
Williams' job as human relations coordinat-
with the gangs in his district, and I do mean
gangs. The Cobras. The Vice Lords. The
Roman Saints. If need be, be stands ready
to meet force with force . But he'll also talk
to these gangs or anyone else who has a
legitimate complaint."
The quick reaction time for which the Chicago department has become famous in answering calls for help also applies to its re-
LT. RO BERT A. WILLIAM S
Ho s the "fee l" of the g hettos.
lations with minorities. It seeks out complaints and tries to remove their causes before a crisis develops.
This is accomplished through constant contacts with neighborhood action groups, civil
rights organizations, even outfits like the
American Nazi party.
Community services sergeants are assigned to all 20 police districts to maintain
lines of communication with the public. Sergeant Wilson, the man who made the 175
telephone calls the day Julius Woods was
shot, is one of them.
Capt. Thomas P . Hayes, the department's
community relations coordinator, runs a
series of monthly workshops in each district
at which the department goes looking for
criticism.
"We_ never went out seeking complaints
before," Hayes says. "We don't condone
brutality or discrimination·. When it's
brought to our attention to take the proper
action and report back to the complainant
as quickly as possible."
The department's Internal Investigations
Division helps in these investigations, but
it doesn't have the final say ever ·whether
the police were right or wrong.
An attorney reviews all its investigations
and has the power to alter or overrule its
findings. He seldom has to.
"The policeman who might be responsible
for an incident today i s not doing the department any damn good," says Nolan. "If
he's covered up for the first time, he might
touch off something next time that would
involve the whole city."
Spanish-Amer-icans Soug ht
Richard Heffernan, the department's assistant personnel director, has been mor e
concerned about r ecruiting Spanish-American and P uerto Rican officers lately tban
be has Negroes.
"We realized the problem with the Spanish
before the Spanish came to us," he said. ,
" We surveyed the force and realized we
didn't have as many as we should. We p robably had four Spanish-speaking sergeants
with Spanish backgrounds."
Courses were set up to teach more patrolmen on the force how to speak Spanish,
and Heffernan got from the Civil Ser vice
Commission the names of more ' than 100
a
DETECTIVE HOWARD SPOONER, LEFT, MOST DECORATED OFFICER IN CHICAGO
Here he receives Lambert Tree Gold Medal
Award for exceptional b ra ve ry in ceremony
three years ago. Mayor Richard Daley is
at ce nter, ex-Supt. Orlando Wilson, right.
CAPT. THOMAS P. HAYES
Goe s loo king fo r critici sm.
SUPT. ORLANDO W . WILSON
Discrimina tio n barred ih 1961.
Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans who
had taken the entrance exams and failed.
All of them were invited to take a preexamination study course ·set up under the
Act. Those with jobs were to attend 40
weeks of classes in night school. Those who
were unemployed would go for 20 weeks of
dayti~ classes and would get an allowance
during training.
The first class of 15 men graduated last
Aug. 18. Thirteen passed the civil service
examination.
"There's still a problem, though," said Heffernan. " One man is definitely out because
even though he could pass the test in English, he can't speak it well enough to be a
policeman. Another was too short, and a
third was just too far underweight. So there
are three who aren't going to make it."
Training Best Solution
Heffernan said he feels training, both for
entrance examinations and promotions, is the
best way to get more minority group representation in police departments.
"I realize some of the more militant Negroes would say, 'Forget the civil service.
Give it to us'," Heffernan said. "But I don't
believe at all in reducing our requirements.
. "The criminal isn't getting any dumber.
He's getting smarter every day.
Further more, he said, reducing the requirements for some officers and not for
others would only create resentment and internal strife in a police depar tment.
Lieutenant Williams, who might fit Heffernan's definition of a militant Negro, said in
his opinion th~ only attributes necessary for
a good police officer are good health, judgment and the ability to reason.
"I'm familiar with all those excuses," he
said. "But I r egard them as just that-excuses.
·
" Any in-depth study of ~ department will
show that the men who have gotten the promotions are no . better qualified than any
other officer. I r ealize that is a pretty broad
statement.
"But it's easy to say they can't do it if
they've never been given an opportunity to
do it.
"It doesn't lend itself to ready solutions,"
Williams said. " Somebody in a uthority has
got to assert himself. When he does, he'll
find he doesn't stand alone."
�T HE D EN V ER P O ST
Chief Says Minority Officers
"The fact
partmem i
Thoma J. ·
'·They are o
Judases and s
'"l'heir pres ce
swer all th charges
you."
In San Fran ·sea these da ·s ifs necessary to put four-man patrol cars on the
streets to guard against po ibly serio
racial flareups. There Is one in service at
all times and often three on weekends,
Sergeant in Each- Car
Each car is commanded by a sergeant.
The men assigned to them are experts in
karate, the J apanese style of combat in
which a man s hands and feet are his only
weapons. They carry flak suits, helmets,
walkie-talkie r adios and tear gas. If real
trouble starts they wfll be the first on the
scene.
San Francisco's l,lalO-man Police Department is one of e many in metropolitan
centers that is in the throes of trying to develop a war able plan for riot control as a
result of the growing militancy of the U.S.
civil rights movement.
Like manv others. it has been accused of
police bruta.lity a t times and of dsicriminating against minorities at times. And it has
the same personnel pr lems that aggravate th~ situatian elsewhere.
It is short oi men.
It has fe\ er 'egro officers than it would
like to have and than the city's civil rights
leaders would like to ha e.
It has no ·egro officers in command positions.
Critics 'who seek: simple solutio say it's
no great problem lo r ecruit and promote
m ore Negro policemen. But police administrators interviewed at the r ecent convention
of the International Association of Chiefs
of Police (IACP) in Kansas City, Mo., said
the opposite is true, especially in the larger
cities.
More 1 \i an E~ua\1
If a city bends" its civil service rules or
fi nds a way to sidestep them for the benefit
of minority group officers, it is declaring
them more than equal.
"The obligation is on the man himself,"
said P olice Chief Frank C. Ramon of Seattle, Wash. " Any man who is competent to
pass the entrance examination can prepare
himself to pass the promotional exams. But
it requires diligence and continuity of ef-
fort."
There are fewer than 12 Negroes on Seattle's 1.001}-man force. One of them is a lieutenant. commanding the city jail staff, and
another is a patrol division sergeant.
"The whole design of civil service is to
give each man an equal opportunity for advancement," Ramon said. "During his time
in rank he can prepare for the promotional
tests. "
San Francisco has developed programs to
Seeing this, he said, young Negro men
opt to remain a black brother instead of
going over to Whitey's side.
Spec ial Classes Offered
Good C ommanders?
Special classes are offered at San Francisco Sta e C liege for any policeman who
ants to take a promotional exam and who
suspects he can't make the grade.
" We encourage - in fact we insist to a degree - th.at the Negro officers take part in
the program to gi e them an equal chance,
Cahill said.
But ou can't have special training for
minorities alone. That's discrimination in
reverse, and you cannot do it. You just can't
do it." ·
So far only one 'egro patrolman in San
Francisco bas qualified for promotion to ser-
geant.
'Ib.e Bay City's recrui1ing drive was a
failure on its first effort.
"We put on a program jointly sponsored
b · the department and the adult education
division to enable minorities to take a course
for entrance, Cahill said. ' 'We only got "J:l
to sign up and about half of them were
Negro. Dropouts lo ·ered t.he class to 5, and
it as discontinued.
«we advertise," he said. "We do everything possible to get Negroes to come into
the department. But I would rather pay
overtime lo the men in the department meeting the standards than lower the standards ·
to bring more men in.
" Since our race riots we ha,e trouble recruiting anybody-not just Negroes."
Do Ne gr o es make good commanders?
Definitely yes, said Deputy Chief Richard
Simon of Los Angeles.
" Negro officers in our department are
shown no favors and no restrictions " he
said. " As a r esult they're proud of. their
jobs. We find .that a Negro officer who
passes our exam and enters the academy
is as good as anybody else. He's just a person.
Simon said he didn't know exactly how
many Negroes are on the 5,200·man Los
Angeles force, because the California F air .
Employment P ractices Department _prohibits
keeping statistics on r ace. But he said there
are several hundred, including many in command positions.
"Our promotional examinations are extremely competitive," he said, "particularly
above lieutenant. A man has to study for
months or years to pass. A Negro officer has
to want to work that hard: Ours do."
The department is completely integrated.
Los Angeles, about 14 per cent Negro, has
instituted a series of public meetings and
presentations in schools to recr uit more Negro officers.
Plans are being made to give entrance
examinations, both written and physical, in
every police station instead of one central
location. Applicants will be able to take the
exams in a day.
Pay Not C ompetitive
Revamping Training
But one thing that police officials suspect,
Ramon and Cahill included, is that men and
women who are well educated and who
would be able to pass rigid civH service exams simply don't want to work for policemen's pay.
" Let's face it," said inspector Paul Lenz
of the Los Angeles P olice Department.
"There is the same demand for the welleducated Negro today as for the well-educated Caucasian. We 've got to start competing in the way of salaries for the educated man, be he Negro or white."
Another possible reason for difficulty in
recr uiting Negroes was suggested by Herman Johnson, a Negro and a member of
the Kansas City, Mo., Human Relations
Commission.
"Negroes see no image in the _police department any more," he said. " The history
has been, throughout the country, that the
police departments are not the kindest and
fairest organizations in their dealings with
the people of the inner city areas."
A white Kansas City, Kan. , government
official who didn't want to be quoted directly
expressed the view that Negroes who advance to the higher ranks in police work
"lose touch" with the Negro community at
large and are looked upon as members of the
It also is revamping its training from a
straight three months in the police academy
to a 20-week course of alternate academy
classes and field work- getting the rookies
out on the streets with regular officers to
see how it's done.
• Lenz and Simon said the department hopes
to make testing and training more available
to applicants without lowering the department's standards.
The only police official interviewed by The
Denver Post who said he doesn't have
trouble recruiting Negroes was Arthur Andrew Chojnacki of Hamtramck, Mich., a city
of 40,000 that is enclosed on three sides by
Detroit.
Chojnacki, a policeman 27 years, said there
has always been a substantial numb'er of
Negro officers on his 84-man department.
There are now 15, including a Negro lieutenant, who succeeded Chojnacki as head of
the 16-man detective bureau, and two Negro
sergeants.
Chojnacki said he settled on the Negro
lieutenant as detective chief after a trial
period in which he rotated command monthly between the Negro and two white lieutenants.
"The men accepted it very well," he said.
"They take their orders. He's actually fair-
white power structure.
2 Kansas Citys Have Negro
KANSAS CITY, Mo.-In most respects Lt.
Col. Clifford A. Warren and Maj. Boston
Daniels are no different from career officers on metropolitan police departments
elsewhere in the country. They don't want
to be.
But in some settings-Denver, for example
-they would stand out for one reason alone.
Both men are Negr'les with command responsibi,itiec;.
Warren, tall and trim, is 56 years old
but looks under 40. It's been 28 years since
he entered the Kansas City, Mo., Police
Department as a probationary patrolman.
Heads Division in Department
He now heads the department's Youth,
Women's and Missing Persons Division and
.is one of the top half-dozen police comtnandPrs on this side of the Kansas River.
He also is the highest-ranking Negro polic&man in Missouri
Daniels , 62, is the graying, heavyset detective chief of the Kansas City, Kan., Po-
lice Department. Like Warren, he answers
only to his chief.
A policeman 22 year s, Daniels was the
first Negro officer in Kansas to win his
lieutenant's bars, the first to make captain
and is now the state's only Negro major .
Civil service in the two Kansas Citys, however, doesn't cover all ranks of policemen,
so there is room for promotions to be made
outside such narrow limits as examination
scores.
Chief Promote s in Kansas
On the Kansas side, civil service competition applies only to men making their
original applications for police work. All
promotions are made by the chief, who first
asks for recommendations from his three division commanders.
There are civil service exams for the
ra,nks of sergeant, lieutenant and captain in
Kansas City, Mo., with the captain test
added only recently. Majors and lieutenant
colonels are appointed by the chief.
•
I
e
The different civil service r ules may be
one reason for the different roles Negroes
play in the two police departments.
In Kansas there are 41 Negro· officers out
of 223 men. A Negro captain and two Negro
lieutenants work under Daniels in the detective division, and there are Negro sergeants in the auto theft and youth bureaus,
also headed by Daniels. A Negro lieutenant
and a Negro corporal work in the unifor m
division, and a Negro sergeant is on the
motorcycle squad.
On the 1M issouri Side
In Kansas City, Mo., however, there are
only 50 Negro officers out of a cur rent departmental strength of 922. And there are no
Negro supervisors in the ranks between
Warren and the seven Negro sergeants .
"Kansas City is a great token town," said
Dr. Girard T. Bryant, a Negro educator appointed to the Kansas City (Mo. ) Board of
Police Commissioners 3½ years ago by Missouri Gov. War ren Hearnes.
"Cliff (Warren) is a very good officer-
r
0
try to recruit more Ne o officers and to
help them p.: - their promotional tests once
they have progr~ through the patrol
ra
Tuesday, Oct. 24, 1967
7
,.,
er than the white ones ar e- more understanding. To tell you the truth the men would
rather work for him. "
When the Detr oit rioters bore down on
Hamtramck last July, Chojnacki said, " Our
colored officers were just as anxious to get
out there and stop it as the white ones
were. "
Chojn~cki and his men, using· what he
called " P olish tanks" - big garbage compaction trucks-sealed off the six main thoroughfares into Hamtramck and in two places
turned back crowds of rioters.
$25,000 in Loot Recovered
"We made 72 arrests the first night and
recovered $25,000 in loot," he said. " Detroit
loot. We didn't have a broken window in
our city."
Hamtramck is about 80 per cent P olishArnerican, and a substantial percentage of
its remaining citizens ar e Negro. Chojnacki
said his department hires any Negro who
can pass the civil service exams and background check, and all promotions are based
on civil service standards.
St. Louis police officials have doubled the
number of Negroes on their department in
two years. There are now more than 300 out
of an authorized str ength of 2,100 men.
It was done by use of a cadet system, an ~
intense recr uiting ca mpaign in which Negro
stars of the St. Louis Cardinals professional
football team spoke at predominantly Negro
high schools, and with the help of civil rights
organizations. There also is an incentive program in which any officer who brings in a
new recruit gets five extra vacation·days.
"We've got a Negro captain who saved us
all kinds of trouble this summer," said Edward L. Dowd, president of the St. Louis
Board of P olice Commissioners. "He's got
250-275 officers under him, and I guess 200
of them are white. When he handles a situation there isn't the backlash there would be
with a white commander."
There are 4 Negro captains, 5 Negro lieu. tenants and about 35 Negro sergeants in St.
Louis.
In Force's Best Interest
" It is in the depar tment's best interest to
recognize a fair number of Negro officers
with promotions," Dowd said. "We{ve done·
it, and the men haven't resented it. As long
as you pick a man for his capabilities,
whether he's a white officer or a Negro officer, the men are willing to work for him."
A training program was set up at the St.
Louis police academy last year' to help potential r ecruits pass their entrance examinations. But there is no special training for
promotions.
The academy staff will outline a study
program for anyone who wants to take a
promotional exam, but "a man's got to study
and do it on his own time," Dowd said.
" li he wants to go to junior college we'll
pay his tuition and arrange his work schedule. After that it's up to him."
0
a very fi ne man. But one Negro commander
isn't enough. We've never had a captain or
a lieutenant, and we don't have any Negro
commanders over district stations."
Although he was critical of the gap in
Negro policemen, Dr. Bryant said it wasn't
a simple matter to correct.
Lieutenant's Exam a Barrier
"The big stumbling block seems to be that
they can't pass the lieutenant's exam," he
said. "The men themselves realize their
shortcomings. Two of them told me they
just simply flunked the exams. One veteran
sergeant didn't answer 22 questions, and he
has a college degree."
He said 7 of the 11 Negro detectives on the
department also have college educations.
Colonel Warren doesn't. He has only a high·
school diploma.
Warren's progression through the rank::was sporadic, and was helped along
times by civil rights organizations.
"I think the idea of making Cliff asf'
Continued on page 8
tr-
�8
THE DENVER PO S l
Tuesday, Oct. 24, 1967
Men JUdged
By Abilities
Continued from page 7
to the chief was just one of those things
where they put somebody in a position to
satisfy some of the complaints," Dr. Bryant
said.
Aide to Three Chiefs
LT. COL. CLIFFORD WARREN
Top-ranked Negro in Missouri.
Warren actually was assistant to three
chiefs over seven years. He served under
Bernard C. Brannon and the present chief,
Clarence Kelley, plus Col. E. I. Hockaday,
a Missouri State Highway Patrol officer who
served as interim chief between Brannon's
departure and Kelley's selection.
Later, apparently in response to complaints by civil rights organizations, he was
made night commander of operations with
more than 450 men and women under his
control.
During this three years, Warren said, he
"tried to determine the nature of some of
the complaints and do something about
them."
Warren said the department's policies concerning Negroes have changed in the last
few years.
"We have undergone a complete reorganization in which Negro officers are assigned
throughout the department," he said. "This
was not in response to the complaints. Plans
had been made prior to the complaints, but
we were trying to put each man in a job
where he could best serve.
"We're making every effort to get away
from the idea of a Negro officer or a white
officer," he added. "We go on the man's
ability. Many of our district commanders
often don't know whether a man's Negro
or white. He sends the men out, and if they
happen to be partners they work together. "
Asked whether he thought he had ever
spent an unreasonable time in rank, Warren said, "Fr ankly, from the time I was a
patrol officer up to becoming a sergeant of
detectives, yes. It took me 16 years.
Testing Stricter Now
"But things are different now. If you
make the top of the (promotion) list, that's
it. We've had stricter testing procedures the
last 15 years."
Was his delay in making sergeant because of discrimination?
"Actually, I don't know. Let's put it that
way. After I did make sergeant I advanced
through the ranks the same as white officers."
Herman Johnson, a member of the city's
H u m a n Relations Commission and vice
president of the Missouri chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, had a different view of promotions.
The department still "gets all military
when you start pressing them about promotions for Negroes," he said. "They give
you this hokum that they didn't pass the
exam, or that they passed the exam but
failed the oral, or that they've got demerits
against their records."
Negroes Apparently Stay Away
MAJ. BOSTON DANIELS
Chief of detectives.
Both department and Negro spokesmen
agree, however, that the over-all shortage
of Negro policemen in Kansas City, Mo., is
a recruiting problem more than anything
else. Many Kansas City Negroes apparently don't want to be policemen.
Current estimates by the City Planning
Commission place Kansas City's population
at about 585,500 in a metropolitan area of
more than 1.3 mi1Iion. Johnson said about
102,000 citizens in the city proper are Negro,
or about 17 to 18 per cent. The 50 Negro
officers on the Police Department constitute 5.4 per cent.
MOTORCYCLE POLICEMEN NATHANiEL VEAL (LEFT) AND RUSSELL LEASBURG
Assignments for Negr9 officers in Miami indicate the doub le standard has ended.
The department now is trying to do something about recruiting more Negroes. A Negro sergeant works full time at it in Negro
neighborhoods, and cooperation is being
sought from ·predominantly Negro churches
and civil rights organizations.
But Johnson said deep-seated resentment
against the department is going to make it
difficult.
"The mere fact that you don't have open
occupancy is a factor, " he said. "A Negro
policeman generally can't move into a better neighborhood and live with his peers. He
has to live with the thugs," Johnson said,
referring to the crime rates in the ghettoes.
Another factor, he said, is Negroes'
traditional inability to make rank higher
than sergeant.
centages-it just worked out that way.
"If we can find a good, qualified man,
regardless of who it is, we're going to grab
him," he said. " Our Negro officers do a
real good job."
IL
But the Police and Fire Departments
both had been segregated in recent years.
"They sent Negro officers to poliae Negro
parts of town," said Todd H. Pavela, executive director of the city's Commission on
Human Relations. Most of our police brutality complaints, until two years , ago, were
- against Negro officers. They were sort of a law unto themselves.
" Boston (Major Daniels) got his reputa~
tion for his excellent police work in the Negro community. He was sort of the unofficial Negro chief of police."
Pay Is 'Pretty Good'
Increasingly Tolerant View
"The police department salary may be
mediocre for a white man but it's pretty
good for a Negro," he said. "Auto assembly lines, post office work or teaching are
about the only jobs with comparable pay.
But if they don't advance beyond the lower
ranks, they figure , 'Why bother?' "
Capt. Clifford Holbert, the department's
per·sonnel officer, said recruiters are concentrating now on trying to . hire recently
discharged servicemen or graduates of police science courses at Kansas City's Metropolitan Junior College or Central Missouri
State College at Warrensburg.
Regular recruiting pitches a.re -made at
Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base outside
Kansas City, Whiteman AFB at Knob
Noster, Mo., and Ft. Leonard Wood n ea r,
Waynesville, Mo. Missouri law requires that
all Kansas City policemen be Missouri residents.
But, says Dr. Bryant, " We have a hard
time finding Negro recruits even when we
go out of town."
More recently the city has taken an increasingly tolerant racial view, partly because of the leadership of Mayor Joseph H.
McDowell and partly as a r·esult of outside
pressures.
Four years ago the men in the two allNegro f i r e companies were assigned .
throughout the department, and there are
now a Negro district chief, 13 captains and
a lieutenant in the Fire Department ranks.
Negro and white police officers have been
working side by side for two years, and a
community relations unit was established
about a year ago.
Kansas City, Kan., Picture
The Kansas City, Kan., population of
about 180,000 also is between 17 and 18 per
cent Negro, and the 41 Negro officers make
up 18.4 per cent of the Police Department.
Chief J . Frank Steach said there's been
no conscious effort to equate the two per-
'On
Road to Progress'
Last Sept. 7 the three-man city commission passed a fair housing ordinance patterned after the Colorado state law.
" The better-thinking Negro people in this
town want good government, and it's being
provided by the current administration,"
Major Daniels said. "The clergy and the
Negro leaders feel we're on the r oad to
progress."
In the department itself, he said, "Right
now we're riding all our district cars
mixed. One Negr-o and one white officer.
That's in all our heavy districts.
"And it's workable. We try to give it
everything we have. The boys are willing
to work together, and they are."
�THE DENVER POST





REPORT ON THE TOPIC OF THE DAY
Tuesday, October 24. 1967
WHY?
OFFICERS SUCH AS CHARLES DAVIS (LEFT) AND MIKE MAHONEY ·HAVE SEEN RACIAL DOUBLE STANDARD FADE ON MIAMI FORCE
!!J(i
the rage of "burn whitey," the problem of minority group
policemen has jumped to a new high in importance •••
To the poor mani to the rich ,:nan ••• to the in-between
man.,.
- In Denver ••• and in Chicago • , • and everywhere in
the United States.
To determine how Denver stacks up in its handling of
minority group policemen, The Denver Post sent one of its
top reporters, Dick Thomas, across the country. Thomas went
to Atlanta, Ga., to Miami, Fla., to Chicago, and to Kansas
City in Kansas and Missouri to find the answers.
You'll find the m in this special Post Bonus issue-a .sec.. ····i
tion demanding attention in today's wo rld,
Is there a 11 c.olor line" in police work? Are members of
minority groups getting the short end of the stick in this all•
important line of public service? Or are members of the
majority group being discriminated against in fa vor of the
minority group policemen?
"Give a man a badge and a gun. a federal agent in
Denver once said, "and you're giving him just about as niuch
authority as any man can have. 11
But does a Negro policeman have as much authority
as a white policeman? Are there Negroes commanding white
officers? Or are Negroes bypassed? Or are they promoted
ahead of white officers?
With the riots of the past summer hitting a high point in
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�2
T H E D E N V E R P O S T Tuesday, Oct. 24, 1967
tlanta Promotes Negro
•
I hout Civil S r ·ce Ex
By DICK THOMAS
Dent)er Post Staf f Writer
ATLANTA, Ga.-"Better cut out the noise
back there " shouted the white woman on
the porch. ' "Here comes the nigger police
again. "
When he reached the porch, Sgt. Howard
Baugh asked the woman what the trouble
was. She ignored the question.
. ,,
" Nobody here called no nigger police,
she snapped. Finally she claimed no one had
called at all. And to Baugh's knowledge no
one at that address, in a transitional nejghborhood. has asked for police aid since.
The ·oman's reaction was the kind Negro
policemen iil alma t any Southern city could
expect.
.
Sgt. C. J. Perry bad similar expenences.
One woman, outraged at hearing a Negro
answer the telephone at headquarters, demanded to talk to his superior. He transferred her to Perry.
"Another nigger!" she exclaimed. "What
the hell's going on down there? You got an
all- igger police department?' '
Perry Can Laugh Now
It wasn·t funnv at the time . but Perry can
laugh now as he tells about it. " She thought
all hope bad been lost," he said.
Baugh, now 43, and Perry, now 47, are
Ne"ro patrol lieutenar.t.s on the Atlanta PoIiC: Department. Baugh ta~es _ a . certain
pride in the fact that his district_~n~ludes
the Georgia State Capitol, the bailiwick of
segre :itionist Gov. Lester .Maddox .
Their commanding officer is the m u c h
respected. nationally known Chief Hubert T.
Jenkins 60, a member of President Jo ~ ~
son 's National Advisory Committee on Civil
Disorder s and a past president of the Int~rnational Association of Chiefs of Police
(IACP).
.
By his own admission, J enkins also is a
former Ku Kl ux Klansman.
Many Things Have Chang_ed
But a lot of things have changed m Atlanta since the days when thousands of
hooded Klansmen trooped up Stone Mountain 15 miles east of here to burn crosses
and deal with the "1'1egro problem" with
chains. rope and shotguns. No longer does
a Georgia office seeker have to be a Klan
member to be elected.
"I'm a law enforcement officer," says
Jenkins. "Regardless of what they say
over at the State Capitol, the U.S. Supreme
Court decisions are the law of the land."
So Atlanta the most progressive of all
Southern citi~s. bas bad a fully integrated
police department for three years. Three of
the 875-man department's 96 Negroes are
lieutenants. Two are sergeants. Baugh is expected to make captain within a month.
It hasn't always been that way, of course.
Until six years ago Negro policemen were
forbidden to patrol white neighborhoods. If
a white was involved in a crime in a Negro
neighborhood , the policy was for the Negro
policeman to "detain" him and summon
white officers to make the arrest. If t h e
suspect was taken to jail, he could be sure
that even there he wouldn't have to " mix"
with Negroes.
Onlv three vears ago the Atlanta Police
Department dis banded its old 6 p.m. watch
-an all-Negro outfit that supplemented the
three rei-iiar ( all white) patrol watchesand assigned Tegroes throughout its r anks.
Other Negroes derided them as "the YMCA
cops."
·
The change from a segregationist department to one in which a Negro can now hope
to make captain was long and gradual, and
although political and citizen pressures sometimes had to make up for bis own lack of
enthusiasm, no one discounts the importance
of Jenkins' personal leadership.
George Coleman, managing editor of the
Atlanta Daily World, a Negro newspaper
with a circulation of 25,000, calls Jenkins
"the best police chief there's ever been in
Atlanta.
"He's a good man," Coleman said. "He's
a flexible man. He and the mayor (Ivan
Allen Jr.) are men who are logical in their
thinking and who are able to see the chang-ing times. And they both used to be ardent
segregationists."
Incident Recalled
Coleman recalled an incident several years
ago when a white policeman called a Negro
college professor "boy." Jenkins called his
men together and told them :
"Look the terms 'nigger' and 'boy' are offensive 'to 40 per cent of our population.
Let's not use them any more."
"It wasn't an order, exactly;• Jenkins told
a Post reporter. "I just explained to them
that if they offend people, it's going to make
their job harder and create a lot of tr ouble
we wouldn't ordinarily have.
"But it came out on the front page of the
New York Times the next day."
Jenkins said be has "always bad good support from the mayor and the leaders of this
community. Call it the power structure or
whatever-the people who pay most of the
money to get things done.
"This has never been a labor community," he said. "It's always been a white c?lIar community, a business and commercial
community. And if you l:t::.ve street fights or
disturbances they don't like it. It's bad for
business.-not only Negro business but white
business as well ."
Demands Still Coming In
"We haven't satisfied all the Negroes," he
said. "They're always demandfog this, that
and the other thing. But in the Police Department we're trying to deal with people. Not
with black people or white people. With
people. Their color isn't importanl"
Baugh, Perry and the other Negro ?fficers in Atlanta who have won promotions
have done it on the basis of work performance and conduct, not on competitive civil
service examinations.
But there is no reason to believe they
wouldn't have made it had there been civil
service.
Perry has a bachelors degree in French
and English from Atlanta's Morehouse College and was a junior high scho.ol teacher
before joining the department 16 years ago.
Baugh, a former Marine drill instru~tor
and one of the first Negroes ever recrmted
into that branch of service, attended the
University of Hawaii during his ·hitch in service but didn't graduate. He later took a
Restriction s o n Unifo rm s
When Negroes first came on the department i'1 1948 the year after Jenkins became
chief they Jere forbidden to wear their unifor~ to or from work. Their court testimony was given in plain clothes. And although they answered to their first names
in court, anyane who was white was called
·JI
/
Mister.
Segregation was so complete that Negro
officer couldn't report for work at police
headquarters. They answered musters and
a'ld chawred into uniform at the Butler
Street YMCA in a Negro section downtown.
LT. C. J. PERRY
He ca n laugh about it now.
en
s
three-year course in industrial chemistry,
under a Veterans Administration-approved
tutor, while working for an Atlanta chemical
firm.
Since joining the department 15 years ago
he has taken a supervisory course of 170
hours sponsored by the IACP and a Georgia
Tech computer course, also under IACP
auspices. The department is in the P:ocess
of converting to electronic records-keepmg.
Basis of Promotions
Jenkins makes all promotions, however,
on the basis of his men's past performance,
giving some weight to results ~f _0:31 board
examinations conducted by d1vis1on commanders. Men promoted to lieutenant or
captain are on probation for a year_ before
they are given civil service job protection.
Ser geants and detectives have no such
safeguards. They can be removed and demoted to patrolman again at any time.
Since the men are under closer supervtsion there, practically all command officers
come up through ·the detective bureau headed by Supt. Clinton Chafin.
"Our Negro detectives' educational background, over-all, is probably be~ter ~an .~at
of the white detectives," Chafin said. We
have 15 Negro detectives now.
"But because so many opportunities have
opened up in the last few years that they
haven't bad before, we're probably going to
have -a hard time getting Negroes with such
good educations from now on."
Like J enkins Chafin doesn't think much
of examination~ as a means of choosing men
.
.
for supervisory positions.
"A lot of times a man you think will
make a good supervisor might not be the
highest scorer on the exam," he said. '_'I'm
dead set against examinations for detectives.
"The two things we really try to watch
for are a man ·s conduct and integrity, and
his workload . Of course you have to ta~
into consideration educational factor s-his
report-making ability and his ability to go
into court and testify.
"But we make no allowances. We treat
all our people the same and expect as much
from one as we do from the other."
Attorney Disappointed
Lack of a merit system is a source of
disappointment to Richard C. Freeman, the
liberal attorney who heads the Atlanta
Board of Aldermen's Police Committee.
"It embarrasses me for my city, for myself and for my Police Department when
an officer who may be a damn good man
and a good supervisor gets up before a television camera or a group of people to explain something and can hardly speak English," he said.
"Our Negro officers by and large are ~s
good or better than their coun~erp~ts , ID
the white ranks " Freeman said. We ve
been fortunate. We've got a couple of lieutenants I'd put up against anybody." .
And Freeman said he favors puttmg more
Negro commanders on the force.
Pressing Need for It
"It s not only helped the social situation
but it's helped . the department," he said.
" There's been a pressing need for it. B u t
I'll say this. I'm absolutely, 100 per cent
opposed to promoting any man just because
he's black. He's got to be qualified."
Freeman said low pay, the Jlazards of the
job and the low esteem in which pol~cem1:n
seem to be held have all put a crimp ID
recruiting efforts.
Work hours of Atlanta policemen have been
dropped. from 48 to 40 a week in the ~ast
four years, however, and r ecent pay raises
will give beginning patrolmen $450 a year
more than they used to get, although the pay
is still low-$5,486 a year under the new
schedule.
.
At the urging of the Police Committee
a two-year course in police administration
is being set up at Georgia State College
in Atlanta.
Jenkins said there would be more Negro
policemen in Atlanta now if he could find
CHIEF HERBERT T. JENKINS
Once a member of the Klan.
LT. HOW ARD BAUGH
State Capito l in his distri ct.
them. The city's population of 513,200 . is
about 43 per cent Negro, a 5 per cent mcrease since the 1960 census. Negroes made
up less than 11 per cent of the poli<:t: force.
"We make a special effort to recrmt qualified people," he sa id. "Just peo~Ie. In one
12-month period we had 1,700 applicants and
only 46 of them were found to be qualified
and employed."
Chief Given Praise
.
"I've gotten a lot of things done just by
making casual suggestions," he said. "The
chief is very easy to work with.
,;There was only one Negro lieutenant on
the department when I came on the committee. Now there are three. There were
no Negro.es in traffic. So. I asked the superintendent of traffic why there weren't. Next
time I drove through downtown I looked up
and there they were.
"I'm working now to get a captain. And
as soon as I get a captain I'm going to try
for a superintendent (equivalent to Denver's
division chiefs). But I know you can't make
all these changes at one time."
Even though at one time there was a
strong Klan influence in the Atlanta Police
Departm~nt, Lieutenants Baugh ~~d Perry
said they encountered little hostihty from
white officers when they made their rank.
"I think this/' Baugh said. "Where a w~te
officer might not like me, he might not like
a white supervisor for the same reason. I've
never wofried, particularly, abo~t my men
loving me, but I would and I contmue to hope
that they respect me."
All commanders in Atlanta act as counselors to men in the lower ranks . Of the 40
men on Baugh's counselor list, 34 are . wh~te.
Perry has 30 whites out of 34 on his list.
Both men's comm~mds are also predominantly white.
"
"Strangely enough/' said Perry, th~re
was very little rese ntment among the whit~
officers. There was some, I guess, but 1t
wasn't particularly noticeable ."
Editor Coleman of the Wor ld, who as a
police reporter had a ha~d in getting Negroes their present place m the Atlanta department, thinks the much-he:alded "Atlanta climate" in racial matters 1s exaggerated
and tha t a lot remains to be done.
But he adds :
"Atlanta fo r Negroes, is a hell of a lot
better tha~ any other place I've seen, I'll
say that."
�TH E D E N VER PO ST Tuesday, Ocl. 24, 1967
as~ Negro Strength Fade in Miami
u as
at
used t
- was set up in a little 30-by-50-foot building in the downtown Negro section.
They had one or two patrol cars and
about a dozen bicycles, which were used by
the beat men who patrolled Liberty City.
Besides the downtown and Liberty City
Negro neighborhoods, Negro officers were
permitted to patrol Cocoanut Grove, a third
largely Negro section in south Miami.
Then, when Headley became chief in August 1948, all Negro patrolmen with a year
or more of experience were placed under
civil service. With that the double standard
came into being.
Lieutenant Smith was the 34th Negro to
join the department. He came on in 1950.
Fortified with two years of college engineering study at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Va., Smith was one of the first two
officers to pass the patrolman sergeant examination. He and three other Negroes
failed their first lieutenant's exam in 1962.
Two years lata- he placed 12th in a field
of 125 whites and Negroes with a score of
90.5, six points off the leader 's, and finally
got his bars in April of last year.
" Since that time, H he said, "it's clear the
examinations are available, and if a guy's
willing to apply himself there's no reason
he shouldn t take it and pass it."
But Smith said, too, that other things keep
Negroes from joining the department.
be no such
egro policeman, even
·me there were 86 Negro
l
I\ iami Police Department.
s were all "patrolmen," and hen
them made some rank they were
Iman sergean . ' Only a white
a policeman.
ib1y the reason for liami's double
a r d w ~ that ...
oes didn't have
cation to pass the same entrance
o ·onal examinations as white men.
would seem to be some truth in
lice Chief Walter E. Headley said
. ~egroes ave pa~sed the entrance
ce the double standard was elimiveral years :igo. As a result, Negro
,...__ _ ....._ on He.idle 's 680-man dep31iment
fro 86 to 50.
o, Lt. Leroy A. Smith, il,
won a promotion in competition
. emen.
arl.lnent's white entrance examnow app ·cable to . egroes, too, albeen a college freshman level
aptitude and intelligence tests modm time to time by the Miami Civil
1
Board to meet special police needs.
patrolman test was gauged at
e
1cni t e eighth grade level.
"'llil.
were just like the difference beeen ay and night," said Joe A. Yates,
(l;j_--J Service Board's assistant execut · e .,e~retary. "The colored entrance exa.~ 1u~ on was basically just to see whether
ey c uld read and write, and their prom otion;;J exams were the simplest kind of
q es ,· s from about six books.
ring Consequences
they asked that they be given the
assification title (policeman instead
Iman) . They were warned, frankly,
t
.y were making a bad mistake, but
0 y msisted
on it and they got it. Now
they'll suffering the consequences."
"E··~ Negro sergeant on the department
--got ·s rank in competition agamst
•
' '.~Oe:S only.
.Eve Lieutenant Smith, who has two
y :ar:; -:if college and who was carrying
bool:a ,.n his squad car on how to study
.-:nm :e was inter viewed by a Denver Post
Jl!ll'CeT, failed his first exam for his pres~ t r-i.
•
"Wlten the department decided to elevate
f its Negro officers to sergeant in
-1950s it took five examinations to
men to pass, Headley said. The
ry six-month waiting period beams was waived.
le Standa rd St ays
double standard has been mainin the detective bureau. Under a
1mrt ental reorganization plan recomemle - by the International Association
u.1ti -.Is of Police in 1963, all detectives
upposed to have sergeant's r ank.
white ones do, but the 10 Negro
vesti ators haven't been able to pass the
vil •iervice examination.
Frm::r- years ago the Negro investigators
ed · e department and the Civil Service
oar , in an unsuccessful attempt to win
c.r.a'J-::iti."'ation as sergeants without having
pra~s the examinations. E ven though
ey l lSt the suit, Headley said, the dep .artment administratively gave them a
o- 1e-c;t pay increase.


,~1g a:ant's


rank gives the white detec;ve;;
three-step increase over patrolnnanl!i
y.
_
' 1y stock answer is, I'm ready when
t !ey are," Headley said. "We'd have a Neg'."!'O t t lain as far as I'm concerned, if
t tey c an cut the mustard. The only obsta- _
•.aule- they have is themselves. They
c an ,., k just as well as anybody else."
.s~~ nments Bear H im O ut
The-
assignments which Negro officers
the Miami department seem to
· dioirt._ Headley means what he says. Two
e , signed to traffic downtown, two are
!11or~cle officers and two are in the depi!cib.ent's K9 corps-assignments which in
· · WJ
.lll
Not Expose d to Caree r
O FFICER FRED CA RTER AT WORK
Miami force lily white no more.
many cities Negroes don't get. There also
is a Negro policewoman, and the o n I y
Negro in a class of 31 men who started
police academy training Sept. 25 already
had made cadet sergeant.
Miami's police force was lily white until
the wartime manpower shortage of 1944
coincided with an influx of Negro sailors
assigned to 7th Naval District headquarters.
It was largely through the work of Dr. Ira
P . Davis, a Negro dental surgeon who then
beaded half of the segregated civil defense
effort in Dade County, that the department
finally started hiring black policemen.
Negro sailors looking for action poured
into the central Negro neighborhoods downt o wn, and gambling, prostitution a n d
muggings skyrocketed. The Navy tried to
cope with the problem by assigning white
shore patrolmen in jeeps to the area. It
didn't work.
Negro SPs Sought
Davis finally persuaded Navy authorities
they should put Negro SPs on foot beats in
the neighborhood.
"The moment they got in here a n d
started working, all this stuff dropped to
practically nothing," Dr. Davis, now 71,
said. "They were the first Negro SPs in the
Navy, and that was the very thing I needed
to show it could be done and the impact it
could have."
Maj. Dan Rosenfeld, then Miami's city
safety director, and Dr. Davis then discussed the possibility of putting on some
Negro policemen. Rosenfeld agreed, but was
afraid to let the public know about it until
the men already were trained and ready to
go to work.
As a result, Davis said, five men were
selected from among Davis' civil defense
auxiliary police and were trained in secrecy
a t the Liberty City housing project on the
north side of town. They were sworn in on
the street in front of Davis' dentistry office on Aug. 31, 1944.
For several years the wartime policemen,
Negro and white, had no civil service status
because, Headley said, "They hired anything that could see lightning, hear thunder
and hold up a uniform."
Additional Re strictions
There were additional restrictions on Negro officers. They couldn't wear their uniforms except during duty hours. A separate
" precinct station"-the only one in Miami
" With their family backgrounds, Negroes
haven't been exposed to law enforcement as
a career, like the Monahans and Rileys,"
he explained. "What I'm saying is, I'm the
firs t generation. When I went to school there
were no Negro policemen.
"Their families think it's dangerous. It's
a job no Negro has ever worked in before."
Smith said he felt Negroes were failing
their exams because they aren't used to having to think about academic subjects.
" A Negro who decides to become a policeman makes the decision as a man," he
said. "He's got out of high school at 18 or
19 and maybe he's wor ked in a warehouse
moving crates back and forth for three or
four years.
"He's transferring from a job not related
to police work. He hasn't been in a situation where he's been turning these things
over in his mind. Ttterefore he fails the
exam.
"I think if we could get these guys to
warm up before taking the exams we could
enhance their chances of passing. I personally don't feel the exams are that hard."
_
The same is true of Negro officers who
fail the sergeant's exam , he said. Many of
them wait until the exam notice is posted,
four to six weeks before it's scheduled, and
only then start to study.
"It's not the idea that they're not qualified. It's that they're going into the examination cold. It's like a football team going
out on the fie.Id without knowing its plays.
They may look like football players but
they're not mentally conditioned to play the
game."
Social Stigma Linked to Job
Making Negroes want to be policemen is
another factor, Chief Headley sai<;I. Negro
children thr ew rocks at some of the early
patrolmen, and they were looked down upon
by some Negro adults.
"Since we changed our standards the bus
company here has integrated and has probably hired 400 of them as drivers," said
Lt. Col. Paul M. Denham, assistant chief
for operations.
"A lot of these men are the type of men
we'd like to have on the police department
-well-educated, cleancut and courteous-but
they'd rather go to work for the bus company than apply to our department, even
though our salary scale is higher. Apparently there's a social stigma attached to being
a policeman."
There already has been one adult education class in Miami to help applicants pass
the Civil Service entrance exams. A police
lieutenant is assigned full time at the University of Miami to a "war on poverty"
program aimed at getting more men pre-
3
re
Iiminary training in police work, but if a
man makes more than a specified low income level he can't take it.
Another program is being launched at
Miami-Dade J unior College, where officers
already on the department can take policerelated courses with the department paying half the cost.
In all of these programs the man himself
has to want to do the work.
" Of course since the civil rights movement got under way, a lot of Negro leaders want us to appoint them qualified or
not," Chief Headley said. "But I don't go
for that."
Lieutenant Smith Ag rees
Neither does L ieutenant Smith, who is second in command of a 60-man patrol shift
and wbo wears an expert revolver badge
because he studied books on shooting as
well as putting in his r equired time on the
pistol range.
"I can see a dual system where under
certain conditions they give field commissions, like in New York or in military service," he said. "But if a Negro cannot pass
the civil ser vice examination, in an integrated society, I say no. The only way he
should become a leader is to walk through
the leadership doer .
"If they want to help him, set up t h i s
warmup program for him, fine, but don't
cut the standard.8.-. We're trying to move
forwar d. We're trying to prove our worth."
Dr. Davis, one of Miami's most respected
Negro leaders and the only Negro on President Johnson's Advisory Committee on Older Americans, expressed the same philosophy.
"We had a hard time convincing some of
our early officers that they had to take the
patrolman's exam first before they could
take the sergeant's exam," he said. "They
wanted to be merely appointed to the rank
like one Negro officer was in P alm Beach.
"If you're demanding the same kind of
treatment, then doggone it, you've got to
make yourself understand you have to
qualify. You got to measure up."
"
CHIEF WALTER E. HEA DLEY
" I'm ready w hen they are."
,
LT. COL. PAUL M. DEN HAM
" There's a social stigma . . . "
I
�4
TH E D E NV ER POST
Tuesday, Oct. 24, 19~7
Negroes Feel
Bias a Fact on
Denver Force
What chance does a Negro have for advancement and higher pay on the Denver
Police Department?
Depending on who says it, the answer to
that question is either '·none at all" or " as
much as anybody else."
. .
The department, and especially the C1_v1l
Service Commission, have come under fire
recently from Negro community leader s who
say a Negro - because of his. race - ~as
virtually no chance of becomm~ a pohce
command officer. The deck 1s stacked
against him.
.
History would seem to be on the side of the
critics.
It has been 20 years since the department
began hiring Negroes in any quantity, a~d
in all that time no policeman whose skm
was black has ever advanced higher than
.
.
patrolman or detective.
Some of the men most vitally involved m
the dispute tend to talk in absolutes, oversimplifying what is really a complex problem in a few carefully chosen sentences.
Negroes Believe It's Fact
Whether the racial discrimination charged
by Denver Negro leaders actually exists has
been open to argument, but the impo~tant
fact remains that many Negroes genumely
believe it is there.
It was in the hope that something could
· be done to change this belief that Mayor
Tom Cw-rigan wrote the Civil Service Commission last August and asked it to reexamine its testing procedures.
"The power to change things," said J ames
F . Reynolds, director of the Colorado Civil
Rights Commission and a Negro himself,
" lies in the other community where they
really don't believe it exists."
Civil rights leaders across the country
have \ate\y turned a critica\ eye on police
departments which don't have representative numbers of minority policemen within
their ranks.
Much of the impetus for this movement
stemmed from the r-eport of the President's
Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, which recommended
that all departments recruit and train " a
sufficient number of minority-group officers
at all levels of activity and authority."
'Quota ' System
From this beginning, apparently, came
the "quota system" that many civil rights
spokesmen and some police departments have
adopted as gospel. If the1 e is X per cent
Negro citizens in a community, there should
be X per cent Negro policemen and X per
cent Negro command officers.
Other departments have resisted quotas as
unwarranted intrusions on entrance and promotional systems that have worked with
varying degrees of s uccess for years.
"Frankly," said Detective Sgt. Paul Montoya, a member of Denver's largest minority,
"I resent outside influences using statistics
as a basis for careers. It destroys the minorities and causes hard feelings all around.
It's none of their business."
"Nobody gave me anything on this job,"
said Police Chief Harold Dill, a man who
took two entrance examinations, three sergeant's exams and two for captain. "I had
to work and scratch for everything I got."
Viewed against the broad background of
the civil rights movement and incidents of
urban rioting, however, the scarcity of Negro
policemen in Denver's or any other department takes on extra importance, Negro
spokesmen say.
'Would Help in Tension'
Police-minority relationships to rioting
are of extreme importance," Reynolds said.
"Take a look at your rioting about the
country. In the majority of incidents this
was the trigger, and I don't think it was an
accident. "
DETECTIV E CLAREN CE N ELSO N AND DETECTIVE SGT. PAUL MONTOYA OF DENVER DISCUSS AN INVESTIGATION
Se rge ant Montoya, o n ly Denver office r quoted dire ctly in this article, said the local syste m is " not pre dicated on merit."
" If we had more Negro officers in command and more Negro officers period, it
would help in some of these tension spots
right here in our own city," said the Rev.
Cecil Howard, pastor of Shorter Community
AME Chur ch and chair man of the East
Denver Ministerial Alliance.
" If a person of color were able to relate
to Negro officers I think it would help immeasurably. But they don't have enough
Negro officers for the younger Negroes to
be able to relate to. They see faces that are
hostile.
" We don't feel the white power structure
is really in sympathy with the need for
more Ne~;ro oi-tken., the Rev . Mr. Hughes
said. " They think the minority situation
here is pretty stable. But we had two or
three close calls last summer."
Negro leaders feeJ there is discrimination
against Negro officers in both the department and Civil Service procedures-perhaps
not openly, maybe even not consciously.
Their prime targets are tests used by the
commission, its oral review boards and assignments that Negro officers get on the
Police Department.
Reynolds, City Councilman Elvin Caldwell and others have urged the commission
to make a thorough study of its testing procedure to determine whether it is completely
fai r to minority officers.
Built-In Disadvantage
"I wonder if the tests themselves don't
have a built-in cultural disadvantage," Reynolds said. " W.e have found that many tests
being used by employers - especially some
of the older ones - serve the purpose of
trapping and screening out minority applicants.
"This wasn't done deliberately, but many
of them were compiled by middle class college graduates, and many who don't fit into
that category have a difficult time passing
them .
"I think, too, that the police department
has traditionally limited the assignments
given Negro policemen so that their experience as they approach the promotional exams is very limited."
Several Denver policemen said, however,
that although experience is some help the
tests are weighted more on book knowledge
than on practical police work.
One officer whose name doesn't appear
in this article said there are a few command officers who have made it all the way
up the line with practically no experience
on the street.
"If you've got a desk job you can sit there
and study on city time," he said. "Out on
the street you can't. ' 1
Montoya, the only officer who agreed to
be quoted by name, said the present testing
system "stinks," but not of discrimination.
" It's not predicated on merit, " he said.
"and dammit, when you don't have a system
based on merit it's worthless. The men deserve to be led by the best qualified and
most deserving man, and the present system doesn't do it."
He said he wasn't talking about any individuals but the system itself. As for the
charges .of poor assignments for Negroes
Montoya said, " If, you're a quality officer ,I
defy anybody to shunt you off somewhere.
The work is out there."
Councilman Caldwell, who was complaining
about Jack of Negro commanders in the department long before it became a part of the
national civil rights picture, said the oral
·board reviews are one possible source of discrimination.
Wants Minority. Person on Board
"I think a minority member should sit on
the oral board not only for purposes of promotion but hiring as well," be said. "to the
best of my knowledge there hasn't ever been
one, but it's been suggested previously.
"One that I would recommend would be
Chief J ames Byrd of Cheyenne, who is a
highly respected individual and who would be
completely objective in bis thinking." Byrd
is a Negro.
Caldwell said of p r i m a r y importance,
though, is Negroes' belief that a " completely
independent outside agency" should go over
the present testing procedw·es in fine detail
to weed out any possible areas of bias.
Caldwell, Reynolds and the Rev. Mr. Howard said removal of any testing bias, broad: .
ening assignments and providing a wider
range of training opportunities would be the
most logical ways to solve the problem.
The Rev. Acen P hillips, vice chairman of
the East Denver Ministerial Alliance, wants
quicker action. He suggested " compensatory
promotions" for Negro officers who have
been "discriminated against for 50 years."
The Rev. Mr. P hillips would have the department appoint a Negro division chief or
captain- he didn't mention the lower ranks
of lieutenant or sergeant- and have that man.
given special on-the-job training for a period
before he is given a command.
He said he didn't think this would cause
dissension among the other commanders on
the department because "they know, down
deep, that there has been this discrimination."
Reynolds and the Rev. Mr. Howard said
they couldn't agree.
"While recognizing the validity of what Mr.
P hillips s:;iid, I'm inclined to think that approach would detract from the man's selfrespect as well as his esteem among other
members of the police force," Reynolds said.
" I'm not sure that tearing down the system
is a good idea."
" I would prefer the training route," said
the Rev. Mr . Howard. " Because whoever is
in there ought to be capable and know what
he's doing."
.
Paradoxically, if a strict quota system were
applied in Denver it would be the city's ·
67,750 Spanish-Americans who would have the
most legitimate complaint as far as numbers are concerned.
.
12. 9 Pct. of Population
·
They make up 12.9 per cent of Denver's
estimated 525,000 citizens, and the 50,000 Negroes in Denver constitute about 9.5 per cent .
There are 18 Spanish-American policemen,
2.15 per cent of all men on the force, and
23 Negroes, 2.75 per cent.
But three Spanish-Americans have made
rank. Besides Montoya, 42, they are Lt.
Chr is Herrera, 51, and Sgt. Louis Lopez, 35.
Lopez recently qualified for lieutenant.
Of the 23 Negro officers now on the force,
eight haven't been eligible for promotion because or time-in-grade requirements. Three
of them weren't even on the force when the
last examination for sergeant was given Nov.
28, 1964. The other five didn't have their
required five years in grade as patrolmen.
Five eligible men, including the two with
the most education, the two with the highest
intelJigence ratings and two with 17 years
of service and an automatic 10-point seniority advantage, have never bothered to take
an examination.
That leaves 10 men who have tried for
promotion and didn't make it. Nine of them
took the sergeant's examination one or more
times, and three have passed, but were
too far down the list certified by the Civil
Service Commission to have any" hope of
getting their rank.
Detective Vern Hudley, 54, of the J uvenile
Bureau passed the 1960 examination but was
114th on a list of 134 men certified. Only
26 sergeants were appointed.
Two Negroes passed the 1964 examination.
They are Detective Clarence Nelson, 41, who
wound up 70th on a list of 93 men certified, ,
and Patrolman- Carnell, Green, 39, who placed ,
91st. 1'his time there were only 16 men promoted.
Civil Service records show that no Negro
has ever failed an oral board review.
Even had they been graded on the basis of
the written test alone, l-Iudley, Nelson and
Green couldn't have won their promotions.
Hudley tied with nine other men for 99th
place on bis wr itten exam when only 26 men
were promoted. Gr een tied with five other
men for 62nd place, and Nelson was among
(Continued on page 5)
�TH E DEN V ER POST
5
Tuesday, Oct.24.1967
Dept. Seeks Better Negro Assignm ents
Continued from page 4)
a group of even tied in 78th place when 16
men were promoted.
All three men passed their oral board reie vs with scores in the middle to upper 70s.
Nelson's final place on the list - largely
becaw,e of his seniority points-was eight
men above where he placed on the written
examination .
Hudley's fi nal position on the certified list
vas 15 place below his written test ranking
a nd Green tumbled 29 places.
On the 1960 test which Hudley took, the
written exam coum.ed for 60 per cent of the
total score , the or al review was 25 per cent,
efficiency r ating 5 per cent and seniority
10 per cent.
On the 1964 exam. the oral board rating
was r aised to 29 per cent of total scor e and
efficiency rating shrank to 1 per cent. Veteran ·s preference points. if any, are added
to a man·s score after the other four factors
are computed.
Green and Hudley had no veterans ' points,
and 'elson had five .
Of the six Negro officers who have failed
the sergeant" s examination, three made one
attempt apiece , two took it twice and one
m an tried three times. The 10th officer in
the group who has tried to make rank took
only the police property custodian 's exam,
failing it five years ago.
Contrast Noted
By contrast with the Negroes , all 10 Spanish-surnamed officers who have been e)jgible for promotion have tried to make it.
Herrera , who has a high school education,
failed the sergeant's exam twice before
passing it fou1th down on the list in 1958.
He passed his first lieutenant's examination
14th down and took a second one that moved
him up to sixth place and won his promotion .
Montoya placed 12th on his first sergeant's . examination in 1956 but has since
failed the lie utenant's exam three times. He
has fo ur years of college.
Lopez placed 20th on the 1964 sergeant's
exami.nati.on wi.th the help of five veterans'
points. He came jn later with prooi oi a
se.rvice-<:onnected disability that r esulted in
his getting five more veterans' points and
moving up to sixth place on the list.
Two other Spanish-surnamed officer s have
passed too low on the lists to get their
stripes. They are Alexander Nieto J r. , 38,
and Phil Villalovos, 39.
Neqroes Have More Ed ucati on
Taken as a group the Negro officers have
slightly more education than the SpanishAmericans, but their average intelligence
ratings are nearly eight points lower.
This may reflect nothing more than the
comparative quality of education the men
have received.
Chief Dill pointed out the department has .
been trying to help qualified Negro officers
get better assignments. He said there are
more Negro detectives and technicians,
comparatively, than there are among the
white officers .
There were no Negro detectives at all
before Dill became chief. Detective and
technician are appointive r anks in which a
m an with fi ve years of service r eceives $768
a year more than a patr olman with the
same length of service. Base pay for a sergeant is $9,096 a year , or $576 more than a
detective or technician makes.
'Cred:t to De partment'
"Our Negro policemen, I think, are a
credit to the Police Depa rtment," Dill said.
"They're just as good and just as intelligent as anyone else. And I'd say we have
one of the best civil service systems in the
country. The opportunities ar e here. There
can't be any separate standards when
you're handling a group of people . Either
you qualify or you don't."
Dill said he thought the problem would
wo1k itself out in time, as more Negro officers come on the department and gain
enough seniority to have an edge on their
examinations.
But Negro leaders say that until a ll suspicion of discrimination is r emoved, it's going to be difficult to recruit more Negroes.
Negro policemen themselves seemed more
than a little reluctant to discuss the problem.
"Whatever Dill says is right," was all one
of them would say.
" There hasn't been any discrimination
against me," another said. " I think if a Negro officer has the stuff he can get made
(departmental slang for winning a promotion) just like anybody else."
Another man. a veteran on the force , said
he likes the job he's now in and is afra id
that if he made sergeant he might get a
less choice assignment.
Ve t e ran of Force Speak~
Besides, he said, "when I go home after
a day on the street rm tired. I want to r elax. Maybe cut the lawn. I don·t want to go
sit behind a post and stud y the books for
eight hours.
"I do all right ," he said when asked if he
felt he were ever a victim of discrimination. " Tlmse so-called leaders. I wonder
sometimes . . . "
Councilman Caldwell poin ted out, perhaps
with justification, that a_ Negro policeman
might tell a white reporter a different story
tha n he would tell another Negro.
"If the offi cers on the force think opportunities to advance are· TeaJly, truly open ,
some of the younger men will take advantage of it," Reynolds said. " Those who have
already given up perhaps will not.
" And if they have given up, they probably
wouldn 't make command officers anyway.
To be a topnotch supervisor in anything, a
person has to have the desire ."
So far little has been done about the problem.
Ted Bach, Civil Service Commission president, said the commission is willing to put
qualified Negroes on its oral review boards.
Chief Byrd of Cheyenne is "a little too close
to Denver" and will probably be ruled out
on the chance he might know some of the ·
Denver officers, Bach sa id.
Metro State so that when they 're 21 they 'll
be kind of hooked on the department already."
Meantime the nagging suspidon of discrimination against Negro policemen probAds Place d in Ne g ro Pap e r
a bly will continue. It's a subtle thing.
The commission recently began advertis:
Lt. Leroy A. Smith, a Negro patrol coming for Negro officers in the Denver Blade,
mander
on the Mia mi , F la ., Police Departthe city's weekly J'i!egro newspaper , and a
ment who used to have the same feeling
plan is being worked out for t he city to pick
about his own depart ment , descr ibed it to a
·up part of the tui tion for a ny policema n wh.o
wants to take· police science courses a t • P ost reporter this way:
" It's like when you (a Negro) go into a
Metropolitan $tate College .
'
r estaura nt. There are no signs, maybe no• But the commission has no plans to seeJ~ .
body says a word to you , but you get the
further outside study of its testing proce- i
dm'es.
·
·
· ,,. · · feeling this is not a 'go' r estaurant."
The psychological impor tance, to minori, ,
It had A Chicago ctmsul tc.\nt, J~CAUe K'. .
ties,
of seeing a fr iendly face among their
Boyer, in for two days last month to review.
police officers and commanders- can't be
jts entrance and promoti011ar reqvh ements.
overstressed, Reynolds said.
' Bach sa id " he didn't _find too. much wr ong
.
· wlJh our testing procedure as it is now."
Apprecia tio n Lac king
· · The commission is doing research to see ~ · "Peo.ple in other parts of town tend to unhow it can better adapt its testing to pracderestimate the humility inflicted on minoritical police . work : an_d Bach said he fa vor~ :
ty people by insensitive, unfeeling police,"
eliminating v terans , points ·from co~sider- '
he said. They lack a n appreciation of what
ation in al) promotional testing '-- somej'.IJin~,
thi s really does."
that can't ·be done without a ·constitutional.
And Mayor Currigan added :
ameridment i.J1 Colorado. ·
·'
·
"I thi nk that in _general the community
Fed e ral_ Mon ey, So ught



leaders in Denver are probably no differ" We' re working on it;' . s.aLd Safety M_a n--: ' ent than they are any other place.




ager Hugh ¥cClearn. " We're putting in for a
-· " They have been slow to recognize - and
little bit of money ($113,300) from the Of-'
I'm speaking of the broad pr oblem, not
fice of Law Enforcement Assistance in the
just the Police Department - the . imporJ ustice Department to ma ke a study in the
tance, the vitalness , of employment and edareas of r ecruitment and in-service training.
ucation and all the .other factors that a re
" We're working with a group from the
involved her e for our Spanish-named and
Denver Advertising Club to help us put on a
Negro people.
real campaign for engendering interest in
"I don't think , fra nkly, that we have come
the job. We'r e working on several trainin·g
close to a Newa rk or a Detroit or a Watts.
programs - trying to work out some sort
But you don 't .have to have a Newark or a
of a deal wher e we can get young fellows
Watts or a Detroit to have a sif.uation that
out of high school and get them going to
discredits a community."
MINORITY OFFICERS VA LUED HIGHLY
Chicago Racial Out reaksC
CHICA GO-It was a Sunday aiternoon \ate
last July. Two Negro boys were playfully
wrestling on the sidewalk in fro nt of Big
Jim's Liquor and Food Store on Chicago's
South Side.
Suddenly one of them slipped and fell
against the plate glass window. It cracked.
Big J im Nicholaou, a white businessman
in a predominantly Negro neighborhood , remonstrated the boys and - called the police
to report the damage.
Tbat was about all there was to it- almost.
' -'-
'"\ .
,<
,_



•




,
Not Very Popu lar in Are a
Big Jim wasn 't very popular in the neighborhood, and the rumor began to get
around :
He had taken one of the boys' bicycles to
avenge the broken window.
It may have been the rumor that brought
Julius Woods, a 40-year-old transient , to
Big Jim's place the following Tuesday morning.
That's what the neighbo rhood liked to believe, anyway. He had gone to get the bicycle back. N'icholaou said Woods tried to
rob him. Whatever the reason , Woods and
Nicholaou quarreled in the alley behind the
store. Big J im pulled a gun and killed
Woods.
This time the rumor was that Woods was
the father of one of the boys and he was
shot five times in the back as he tried to
rega in possession of his son's bicycle. It
was repeated as fact by an irresponsible
radio station.
Commander William B. Griffin of the
Grand Crossing police district and Lt. Robert A. Wi!Jiams of the Chicago Police Department's Human Relations Section were
in the office of the Chicago Da ily Defender
when the crowds began building up. There
was already talk of burning.
Hurri e d Back to Ne ighborhood
The two men hurried back to the neighborhood. It was in Griffin 's district. Gr iffin
got on the phone immediately to contact the
area's Negro youth gangs, starting with the





SUPT. JAMES B. CONLISK JR.
DEPUTY CHIEF· SAM NOLAN
Sole fact o r: W ho's best man?
"Our citizens don't wa it to find out
Blackstone Rangers , worst of the lot.
Their leaders promised him the gangs
would stay out of it. Griffin knew the promises were good. He had dealt with the gangs
before , and they understood each other.
Williams , meanwhile, was rounding up
more than 50 persons to fan out across the
neighborhood and tell it straight:
Nicholaou was being charged with murder. The man he shot didn't even know the
boys . There was no bicycle. Big Jim's place
had been closed on Mayor Dick Daley's orders pending a hearing to revoke his liquor
license.
C lose Watch Kept
Men under Griffi n's command shut down
the neighborhood liquor stores and taverns,
and kept a close watch on gasoline stations. They spread the true word to shopkeepers and asked them to pass it along.
Shopkeepers see a lot of other persons in the
course of a day's business.
Sgt. Neal Wilson spent a good part of his
day on the street, but also managed to
make 175 telephone calls countering the rumors.
I
"
The crowds g~t unruly anyway. A hundred Task Force policemen had to be called
in . Befo re that Tuesday night was over , 52
persons had been arrested . But there was
no burning and no riot.
Potentially explosive racial skirmishes
aren't uncommon in Chicago, although the
city weathered this past summer with none
that developed into ful1-fledged riots like the
two of the summer before .
One of those was touched off by a policeman's shooting a P uerto Rican youth. The
other start ed when two officers- one Negro,
one white- turned off a fire hyd rant tha t
had been opened so some neighborhood
kids could cool off in the spray of water.
Both Hap pen t o Be Negroes
"Unfortunately," says Deputy Chief Sam
Nolan of the Chi cago P D's Community Services Division, "our citizens don't wait to fi nd
out what the investigation will show. Their
minds are made up as soon as the act is
done."
And it is largely beca use of quick action
by men like Griffi n and Williams that more
"ontinued on page 6
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