Houston Blue: The Story of the Houston Police Department

8. HPD and the Klan

77 8 HPD and the Klan B y 1918, the police department had 176 officers for a city of 153,192. That same year, Mrs. Eva Jane Bacher joined HPD, officially becoming the department’s first female police officer. Another woman, Juvenile Officer Ferdie Trichelle, also served. Bacher would be promoted to detective in 1920. The 1918 Houston City Directory was the first to include a policewoman —in this case referring to Bacher as “Woman Police.” She would be referred to as “Woman Police” the following year as well, although Bacher signed most of her correspondence as “Policewoman.” Bacher next appeared as “Woman Detective” in the 1920-21 Houston City Directory. In 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified and went into effect the following year as the Volstead Act, introducing America to Prohibition. Almost from the beginning, HPD was embroiled with enforcing the federal law. Like modern day police officers tracking drug dealers, early HPD used intuition to capture booze runners. For example, one night in 1920 two motorcycle patrolmen were riding along Sabine Street when they spotted an automobile “with kegs in it.” They pulled over the car and found ten kegs containing almost five gallons of moonshine whiskey. The two suspects were charged with violating the federal law. That same week, HPD detectives teamed up with Prohibition agents and raided a house on Wilson Street, where they found a small quantity of wine and whiskey. The tenants Mr. and Mrs. Tomasino operated a grocery store there, but were both arrested ; these were little more than pyrrhic victories in a war that could never be won. Following World War I, HPD issued “citizen’s keys” to certain responsible individuals on each block. In the event of a crime they could notify HPD simply by inserting the key into the police call box. When the key was inserted, a lever was tripped which sent a telegraphic message to the police department identifying the location. Keys were issued soon after the boxes were installed between 1917 and 1920. Subsequently forty-one boxes were located 78 Houston Blue throughout downtown and had permanent keys in them which any citizen could use to report a crime simply by turning the key which opened the box and then pick up the telephone connected to the police department. Houston was well on its way to prominence in 1920, but there was still plenty of room for frontier style gambling. Motorcycle officers reported arriving at a spot on Leeland Avenue in time to arrest two men readying for their third horse race of the afternoon. According to the police report, they posted a $50 bond for “horse racing in the city limits.” The arresting officers reported that a “big crowd of spectators” was on hand to watch the races. Eva Jane Bacher, the only woman in this picture, was the department’s first female detective. In 1917, she graduated from matron status to a badgecarrying officer because of the growing number of wayward girls and a greater need for social services, especially in downtown. When a new chief took office, he didn’t like the idea of a policewoman and fired Bacher under a policy that enabled him to do so “for the good of the service.” (HPD Museum) HPD and the Klan 79 During the 1920s, Houston, like many other cities in the midst of Prohibition and post-war social change, was faced with a rising crime rate. Immigrants , transients, Prohibition and changing social mores led to a certain amount of status anxiety among white Houstonians. Between 1921 and 1925 Houston Police Department arrests rose five-fold, leading to a rampant fear of crime in the Bayou City. In response, Houstonians blamed HPD for lack of enforcement. Fears were compounded by the impact of the automobile on the youth culture and changing societal traditions, as well as by the fear of racial strife on the heels of the Houston Riot of 1917. The Ku Klux Klan resurfaced nationwide in 1920. That same year, the United Confederate Veterans held their reunion in Houston. Among the attendees was Nathan Bedford Forrest III, the grandson of the post-Civil War Klan organizer. That October, Texas seemed the perfect site to begin recruitment . The new Klan portrayed its incarnation as a “patriotic, ritualistic society ”. However, this soon proved to be a façade. By the early 1920s, many of Texas’ cities making the transition...