prepared to enforce Prohibition and its vice laws. Yet when a person of importance was caught in the net of vice enforcement, the legal apparatus was often forgiving. One night in 1927, the journalist and writer Louis Adamic happened to be on hand at 2:30 a.m. when “a star of world-wide fame, the sister of another famous celebrity, near stars, maids in waiting, and a bevy of attending sheiks and bull fighters” were hauled in “more or less cock-eyed drunk.”
Adamic then related what happened next:
“Come along, sister, and give me a hand,” the cop addresses the star. “I’m goin’ to print you.”
“Not by a damn sight. Let go my arm—take your paw off’n me, you mammal,” she replies indignantly….
The officer puts a brawny arm of enforcement around a classic waist. This is too much. He is kicked efficiently amidship. Another cop comes to the rescue of his mate. He is assaulted by the remainder of the bevy…. Much swearing, screeching, kicking, pulling of hair, and everything. The cops work methodically and effectively…. The best way of quieting a temperamental and irate movie queen, it has been found, is to sit on her.
Alas, the fun soon came to an end:
But before this printing process is completed there is a great scurrying down the corridor and a whole brigade of bondsmen, wirepullers and fixers come charging upon the scene. The climax is quickly past. The Records are inspected to see that aliases are used, warnings issued against giving anything to the paper, and the guests prepare to depart. The star, now somewhat sobered, feels that the parting shot is expected of her—an exit is after all an exit—and drawing herself up to her full five feet six inches she withers with a single glance the offending officer who has printed her and declares so that all may hear, “You damn big bum, I’ll let you know that I’m a lady.”
That was how the elite were treated. In March 1929, two plainclothes officers stopped a Finnish immigrant whom they had mistaken for a suspect. Indignant, the man launched into a tirade about the police that suggested that the man held “radical” political views. The officers responded by hauling him into police headquarters and working him over with brass knuckles. Only after the man, face pulped and bloodied, abjectly proclaimed his newfound admiration for the police was he released. The district attorney brought charges against the officers in question, but they were later dismissed.
Cops sometimes acted violently because they believed the system was corrupt. “Good men would not serve on juries, nor would they take time from their private interests to act as witnesses in court trials—if they could get out of it,” wrote Leslie White in his 1936 classic,
Me, Detective
. “Business men and good citizens did not want their homes robbed and their daughters raped, but they did want liquor for themselves, and prostitutes and gambling were good for business.” As a result, some officers took it on themselves to dispense justice. For, as Detective White put it, “[a] smart lawyer can keep a crook out of jail … buy or bamboozle a jury, but he cannot prevent the cops from beating the hell out of a crook.”
So some did. People arrested by the police were often detained for days—sometimes even for weeks—before being brought before a judge. Prisoners were frequently held incommunicado—no contact with family or friends, much less an attorney—until they confessed. When faced with hardened cons, the police routinely shifted prisoners into cold, dark cells without beds or chairs or into “sweat boxes.” They also resorted to “the third degree.” Typically, this involved round-the-clock questioning and sleep deprivation, a form of torture that almost always produced the desired confession. When it didn’t—or if the police were simply pissed—the “third degree” could also involve beating prisoners with clubs, fists, orrubber hoses. Central Division
Adamic then related what happened next:
“Come along, sister, and give me a hand,” the cop addresses the star. “I’m goin’ to print you.”
“Not by a damn sight. Let go my arm—take your paw off’n me, you mammal,” she replies indignantly….
The officer puts a brawny arm of enforcement around a classic waist. This is too much. He is kicked efficiently amidship. Another cop comes to the rescue of his mate. He is assaulted by the remainder of the bevy…. Much swearing, screeching, kicking, pulling of hair, and everything. The cops work methodically and effectively…. The best way of quieting a temperamental and irate movie queen, it has been found, is to sit on her.
Alas, the fun soon came to an end:
But before this printing process is completed there is a great scurrying down the corridor and a whole brigade of bondsmen, wirepullers and fixers come charging upon the scene. The climax is quickly past. The Records are inspected to see that aliases are used, warnings issued against giving anything to the paper, and the guests prepare to depart. The star, now somewhat sobered, feels that the parting shot is expected of her—an exit is after all an exit—and drawing herself up to her full five feet six inches she withers with a single glance the offending officer who has printed her and declares so that all may hear, “You damn big bum, I’ll let you know that I’m a lady.”
That was how the elite were treated. In March 1929, two plainclothes officers stopped a Finnish immigrant whom they had mistaken for a suspect. Indignant, the man launched into a tirade about the police that suggested that the man held “radical” political views. The officers responded by hauling him into police headquarters and working him over with brass knuckles. Only after the man, face pulped and bloodied, abjectly proclaimed his newfound admiration for the police was he released. The district attorney brought charges against the officers in question, but they were later dismissed.
Cops sometimes acted violently because they believed the system was corrupt. “Good men would not serve on juries, nor would they take time from their private interests to act as witnesses in court trials—if they could get out of it,” wrote Leslie White in his 1936 classic,
Me, Detective
. “Business men and good citizens did not want their homes robbed and their daughters raped, but they did want liquor for themselves, and prostitutes and gambling were good for business.” As a result, some officers took it on themselves to dispense justice. For, as Detective White put it, “[a] smart lawyer can keep a crook out of jail … buy or bamboozle a jury, but he cannot prevent the cops from beating the hell out of a crook.”
So some did. People arrested by the police were often detained for days—sometimes even for weeks—before being brought before a judge. Prisoners were frequently held incommunicado—no contact with family or friends, much less an attorney—until they confessed. When faced with hardened cons, the police routinely shifted prisoners into cold, dark cells without beds or chairs or into “sweat boxes.” They also resorted to “the third degree.” Typically, this involved round-the-clock questioning and sleep deprivation, a form of torture that almost always produced the desired confession. When it didn’t—or if the police were simply pissed—the “third degree” could also involve beating prisoners with clubs, fists, orrubber hoses. Central Division
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