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30 4 Houston’s Crime Problem D espite a number of strides in upgrading local law enforcement, one local newspaper lamented in 1873, that “at no time in her history, has [Houston] been so immersed in crimes as at the present. The terrors of the blade of the assassin and the bullet of the murder have become a matter of almost daily occurrence.”1 Citizens had little reason to feel protected by the HPD at this time. In March 1873, a Daily Houston Telegraph editorial lamented the fact that officers frequented the barrooms with the same regularity as did private citizens, noting, “It appears that some officers of this city have been in the habit of imbibing too much whiskey … a policeman who allows himself to get under the influence of ardent spirits should be promptly dismissed from the force.”2 In 1873, the position of secret policeman was retitled either “special agent” or “detective.” The main distinction between regular plainclothes officers and the special agents was that special agents reported directly to the mayor and Police Committee rather than city marshal.3 In 1875, a resolution passed which solely authorized the mayor to oversee the special agents, with funding provided by a “Secret Service Fund.” Curiously, no specific tasks were enumerated for the agents. Most likely, their duties were intelligence-related and might have included the reporting illegal activities by police officers.4 With the election of Governor Richard Coke in January 1874, Reconstruction soon ended in Texas. While most of the South still had to contend with depleted treasuries and the collapse of their economic infrastructures, Houston and Texas stood on the brink of unrivalled progress. Physical and commercial expansion was in full gear by the summer of 1874. Improvements included the deepening of Buffalo Bayou, the creation of the Sixth Ward and the inauguration of a new street railway system. Although the new rail system consisted of a streetcar drawn by a mule with the capacity Houston’s Crime Problem 31 to carry twenty-three people, it is certain that its accident rate could not even approach that of Houston’s 21st century light rail. Former Confederate President Jefferson Davis visited the city in June 1875, and while impressed, commented that the “streets are far wider than are or ever will be needed for business.” Fortunately his recommendations to narrow the streets “by at least fifteen to twenty feet” never came to fruition.5 In late January 1874, the HPD was called on to protect its constituents against epidemic disease. According to the ordinance, police were responsible for prohibiting smallpox victims from entering the city. In addition, the city marshal’s duties included having his officers determine which houses contained infected individuals. Once it was ascertained which locations were affected, a guard was to be posted to make sure the individuals did not make contact with healthy citizens. Despite the end of Reconstruction in May 1874, there were still two black police officers on the force, which was composed of twelve men and a city marshal. Although few records indicate the presence of black police officers in America between 1850 and the 1870s, historians have uncovered black police officers in northern cities beginning in the 1870s and more notably in Midwestern cities such as Chicago and Cincinnati. During the Reconstruction era of the 1870s, one-third of the New Orleans department was African American, as were three out of every five police commissioners.6 But these advances in the South proved ephemeral. Houston City Directories first began identifying all police officers as well as their race in 1877. The 1877–1878 Directory listed 9 patrolmen, of which two were black.7 In any case, between 1878 and 1924, there was always at least one, and at most three, black officers on HPD. One historian asserts that none served more than five years in this capacity.8 Except for the identification of Nathan Davis in 1878 (served 1878–1881),9 there has been little success in identifying any of these AfricanAmerican police pioneers. Initially, black police officers were appointed and referred to as “special officers .” They were not paid on par with their white colleagues and were typically assigned to black neighborhoods, a restriction that would still hold well into the twentieth century. It would not be until 1892 that they were given full arrest powers. By most accounts, although they had full arrest powers according to state law previous to 1892, it was departmental policy that a...

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