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Patrolman Emil J Klaas Jr.

Saturday, 14 March 2020 10:05
Patrolman Emil J Klaas Jr.

 Patrolman Emil J Klaas Jr.

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  Patrolman Klaas Jr.

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 Patrolman Klaas Jr.

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Detective Klaas Jr.

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 Patrolman Klaas Jr.

The Evening Sun Thu Aug 14 1930

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 Detective Klaas Jr.

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 Patrolman Klaas Jr.

The Baltimore Sun Mon Oct 14 1957

 

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 Patrolman Klaas Jr.
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 Patrolman Klaas Jr.
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 Patrolman Klaas Jr.

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 Patrolman Klaas Jr.

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 Inspector Mooney

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 Patrolman Klaas Jr.

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 Patrolman Klaas Jr.

The old saying a picture is worth a thousand words comes to mind. Here if we look at the officers, left coat pocket we see a long leather strap has been fished through his pocket with a nightstick ring on same. As a young officer I often saw old timers walking around with a long leather strap that held their nightstick ring, or in many cases also held their espantoon. Until this photo, I didn't know the reason for the long strap, now I know it was so during the winter months they could fish the strap through the pocket which was opened all the way through allowing officers to get to their pant pocket or firearm. Now their espantoon would be held in its ring, but highly accessible on the outside of the officer's coat.

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Detective Klaas Jr.

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Patrolman Emil J. Klaas Jr.

E Klass

19 Oct 1954

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 POLICE INFORMATION

Copies of: Your Baltimore Police Department Class Photo, Pictures of our Officers, Vehicles, Equipment, Newspaper Articles relating to our department and or officers, Old Departmental Newsletters, Lookouts, Wanted Posters, and or Brochures. Information on Deceased Officers and anything that may help Preserve the History and Proud Traditions of this agency. Please contact Retired Detective Kenny Driscoll.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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NOTICE

How to Dispose of Old Police Items

If you come into possession of Police items from an Estate or Death of a Police Officer Family Member and do not know how to properly dispose of these items please contact: Retired Detective Ken Driscoll - Please dispose of POLICE Items: Badges, Guns, Uniforms, Documents, PROPERLY so they won’t be used IMPROPERLY.

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Sector Map

CD - SE - E - NE - N - NW - W - SW - S

Information on the Laboratory for Scientific Interrogation can be found by clicking anywhere on this line.Devider color with motto

Please contact Det. Ret. Kenny Driscoll if you have any pictures of you or your family members and wish them remembered here on this tribute site to Honor the fine men and women who have served with Honor and Distinction at the Baltimore Police Department.

Anyone with information, photographs, memorabilia, or other "Baltimore City Police" items can contact Ret. Det. Kenny Driscoll at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. follow us on Twitter @BaltoPoliceHist or like us on Facebook or mail pics to 8138 Dundalk Ave. Baltimore Md. 21222

Copyright © 2002 Baltimore City Police History - Ret Det Kenny Driscoll

Published in Justice

Lieutenant Detective John E Klein

Saturday, 14 March 2020 09:58
Lieutenant Detective John E Klein

Lieutenant Detective John E Klein

Sgt Klein

Lieutenant Detective John E. Klein became a member of the Baltimore Police Department in 1899 as a Probationary Patrolman by 1901 he was promoted to Patrolman (Number 10 on a list of near 50 Officers, with a score of 94.5 on his test)

Lieut. John E. Klein, died at age 66, he lived in Arnold, Anne Arundel county, and was by this time retired from  the Baltimore Police Department's Detective bureau, he passed away from an illness he had for only two months. He was the son of John L. Klein, also of this city, and the late Katherine E. Klein. John became a probationary patrolman in 1899. Five years later he was made Sergeant in which capacity he served until he was named to the Detective bureau as a lieutenant in 1921. He continued to work as a plain clothes man up until his retirement in August, 1926. He made his home with his sister, Miss Minnie Klein, in Arnold. Beside his father, he was survived by two sisters Misses Minnie and Lillian Klein, and a brother, Charles F. Klein. Funeral services were held at the chapel, Eutaw Place and Lanvale street, on Saturday at 2 P. M. Interment was in Loudon Park Cemetery, During his career he was involved in capturing the men responsible for the double murder of Vincent Montealto and Jacob Goodle, Jacob was 65 when he was murdered in his bed, by a man with a hatchet. Det. Klein worked with Det William Jenkins and Sgt William Burns to identify a suspect using the newly founded fingerprint labs in Baltimore... they photographed the fingerprints, Things hadn't changed much over the years, for the first police on the scene used the murder weapon to hammer closed a window that used to gain entry into Goodle's room. Witnesses said Goodle had company earlier in the night a L. Brody of 732 S Charles St. He left, but was seen to return around 9:30 PM by Mrs Anders who said shortly after Brody's return, she heard pottering about his room. The suspect was arrested and convicted. In an unrelated Case involving the theft of nearly $1000.00 that was taken during the murder of William B Norris, when he was robbed of his payroll safe deposit box by a gang of bandits in 1922 on August the 22nd, the suspects took the money to a Mrs Hart so she could hid the money for them until things cooled over. This murder took place in Baltimore, but led detectives both North and South of the city, as North as New York, and as far south as Washington Dc. but they got their suspects, when Detectives Cooney, Mintiens and Klein recovered the money in Washington Dc with one suspect and then two more suspect in New York.. In 1921 Det Klein would receive two Awards for his cases, his ability to get confessions, and close cases. In 1922 Lt Det Klein would receive two more awards, and in 1924, he would receive two more awards... There were times when he and his partners would rack up 6 awards or more in a year, they seemed to put down cases, between fingerprint hits and confessions, they knew how to close cases.. never leaving a stone upturned, in cases where it seemed nothing would turn up as for evidence, they would do door to door and talk to everyone until they found a witness that either saw something, or would point them in the right direction. Lieutenant Detective John Klein retired in August of 1926 with more than 11 official commendation. One of his favorite tools as a detective, the Black Jack/Slap Jack, easily slips into the pocket and can be used to bring down a murderer without having to kill him.

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NOTICE

How to Dispose of Old Police Items

If you come into possession of Police items from an Estate or Death of a Police Officer Family Member and do not know how to properly dispose of these items please contact: Retired Detective Ken Driscoll - Please dispose of POLICE Items: Badges, Guns, Uniforms, Documents, PROPERLY so they won’t be used IMPROPERLY. 

Please contact Det. Ret. Kenny Driscoll if you have any pictures of you or your family members and wish them remembered here on this tribute site to Honor the fine men and women who have served with Honor and Distinction at the Baltimore Police Department.

Anyone with information, photographs, memorabilia, or other "Baltimore City Police" items can contact Ret. Det. Kenny Driscoll at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. follow us on Twitter @BaltoPoliceHist or like us on Facebook or mail pics to 8138 Dundalk Ave. Baltimore Md. 21222


Copyright © 2002 Baltimore City Police History - Ret Det Kenny Driscoll

Published in Dignity

Gino Inocentes

Saturday, 14 March 2020 09:28
Gino Inocentes

Gino Inocentes' Police Pictures

Gino Inocentes Baltimore's Police Photographer... Proving Police Involved Shootings aren’t always a Negative Thing... Gino is our Multi-Media Tech for Media Relations Section (aka Public Affairs Section)... What he does for the department is mostly training, and promo videos, along with photography & graphic designs. He used to do a lot of evidence videos while under the academy, where he held the title “Video Analyst/Non-linear Editor”. When they transferred him to Public Affairs Section in 2011, his main tasks were to create and produce all kinds of media for the departments, social media sites, and official websites... His official title is, "Criminal Justice Associate", and like most of our members in the BPD, he takes his job to heart, and provides what could be among the best social media sites, and official website info of any department in this country.

We are proud to have Gino doing what he does to aid in the education, and preservation of our department and departmental history. Below and on various pages within this site you'll find many of Gino's pics; and while Gino's a professional photographer, you don't have to be to have your pics added to this site. We are interested in our history; so, if you have pics of you, your partners, or family; feel free to send them to us for inclusion on the site. We enjoy Gino's work, but all pictures of Baltimore Police are equally important, and equally wanted, and welcome. Email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to find out how to best have your pics added to the site.

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Western District Renovation
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de 7The above pic is major Marcus, Sgt trainer, Patty Driscoll and Ret. Det. Kenny Driscoll
The 2013 FOP-Lodge 3, Candlelight Vigil

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If you have Baltimore Police Pictures, feel free to send them our way, we are always looking for pics of our departmental history, and your BPD pics, stories and items are all part of that history... so scan them and send them in, or mail them to us, and let us scan them for you, once scanned, we'll save an extra copy to disc, and mail it back to you along with your originals... just include a note with return address if you want them back.. we have had people give us picks too, so let us know which you want and we pay for all discs and return shipping.

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POLICE INFORMATION

Copies of: Your Baltimore Police Department Class Photo, Pictures of our Officers, Vehicles, Equipment, Newspaper Articles relating to our department and or officers, Old Departmental Newsletters, Lookouts, Wanted Posters, and or Brochures. Information on Deceased Officers and anything that may help Preserve the History and Proud Traditions of this agency. Please contact Retired Detective Kenny Driscoll.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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NOTICE

How to Dispose of Old Police Items

If you come into possession of Police items from an Estate or Death of a Police Officer Family Member and do not know how to properly dispose of these items please contact: Retired Detective Ken Driscoll - Please dispose of POLICE Items: Badges, Guns, Uniforms, Documents, PROPERLY so they won’t be used IMPROPERLY. 

Please contact Det. Ret. Kenny Driscoll if you have any pictures of you or your family members and wish them remembered here on this tribute site to Honor the fine men and women who have served with Honor and Distinction at the Baltimore Police Department.

Anyone with information, photographs, memorabilia, or other "Baltimore City Police" items can contact Ret. Det. Kenny Driscoll at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. follow us on Twitter @BaltoPoliceHist or like us on Facebook or mail pics to 8138 Dundalk Ave. Baltimore Md. 21222

 Copyright © 2002 Baltimore City Police History - Ret Det Kenny Driscoll

Published in MV

The 1st Seal of Baltimore

Wednesday, 04 March 2020 06:38
The 1st Seal of Baltimore

The 1st Seal of Baltimore

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This seal is the Center Seal from a set of three Electrotypes
It was called The Sesqui-Centennial of Baltimore of 1880
and features what was known as the
Grand Old Seal of the City of Baltimore, designed in 1797

The Maryland Seal and the Baltimore Arms

1 Nov 1880

For The Sun COSMOS 
The Sun (1837-1987); Nov 1, 1880; pg. 6

The Maryland Seal and the Baltimore Arms
In the Library of the City Hall you will find two electrotypes, one of which is called “The Seal of the State of Maryland” the other “The Coat of Arms of Lord Baltimore” and the maker of these electrotypes was mistaken in respect to both of them, for the one is not “The Seal of Maryland” nor is the other “Lord Baltimore Coat of Arms” the first is a copy of one side of the “Eventual Seal Of Maryland” not the seal of the state. And the other is a copy of the counter side of the same seal, with but little on it relating to Lord Baltimore’s Coat of Arms. (1) These misnamed electrotypes are placed at the right and left of another which represents that the Grand Old Seal of the City of Baltimore, made in 1797, and they should be taken away, for they stand out in the picture as falsehood in support of the truth. (2) History is too frequently falsified in marble and in bronze; monuments pierce the heavens transmitting falsehoods to posterity, and error is stereotyped in all the laboratories of the world. The Sesqui-Centennial of Baltimore was one of the grandest spectacles known in the history of North America, and it is to be regretted that so much blazonry of error was brought before the eyes of the people on that occasion. He who has seen the greater and lesser seals at arms of Lord Baltimore is not at a loss to know what is their Lordship’s coat of arms for on both these seals it is accurately blazoned. There you will see the Parly of six, Or and Sable, (3) the blend, counter-charge, and the two leopards, guardant, which are all the heraldic symbols of the coat of arms of the Lords Baltimore. The greater seal at arms is square; the lesser elliptic, and an impression in wax from the greater is to be seen at Annapolis, on the treaty made in 1760 in settlement of the boundary disputes between Penns and the Baltimore’s. There, and there only, can we hope to find a true impression from the blazonry of the coat of arms of the Baltimore. A certain motto, “Industry the Means – Plenty the Result,” painted on the arch at Baltimore and Howard Streets, is called Lord Baltimore’s motto, but, in fact, it is not at all probable that his lordship ever heard of such a motto. It was not a provincial motto, but one of the State originated in the Governor’s Council after the war of the revolution. It is to be hoped, therefore, that this motto will not be sent down to posterity to the credit of Lord Baltimore.
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Rare 1880 John Ryan Type Founders "First Seal of the City of Baltimore" 4.75" tall. Printers type Baltimore City Seal from an 1880 Sesqui-Centennial presentation set by John Ryan & Company Type Founders Baltimore Maryland. Very detailed with a female figure holding the scales of justice and a spear while the devil is at her feet.
2 Dec 1956
Mystery Seal
Paul A Sherwood
The Sun (1837-1987); Dec 2, 1956; pg. M30
Mystery Seal (4)
So far as historians know, to the official seals have been used by the city of Baltimore in the course of his history.
The familiar battle monument seal was officially adopted in 1827 and has been used ever since. Before that, the seal depicting the figure of Liberty overcoming irony was in use. It was adopted by an ordinance of 20 March 1797, and there are several impressions of it on documents still in existence.
The ordinance of 1797 mentions still another, an earlier seal which had been in use by the town commissioners. This early seal was to be the basis for the design of the 1797 seal after certain “necessary alterations” were made on it.
What the early seal look like and what the alterations were, the ordinance does not say, nor are there any known impressions of it.
Pictured is a copper plate which recently came into the hands of Robert F. Skutch a Baltimore antiquary. Mr. Skutch does not know the plate’s history, but he believes it may be one of the early forms of the seal.
Since it bears the date “1797” it is hardly possible that this was the seal of the town commissioners referred to in the ordinance. But it differs somewhat from the 1797 – 1827 seal the most important difference being the number of stars. The official seal had thirteen stars spaced around the edge but this one only has three. There is also some difference between the two on the position of the cap upon the spear.
The piece of copper resembles a printing plate, but the characters are not reversed as they would have been if they were used in printing.
What, then, is it? Wilbur Hunter, Dir. of Pearl Museum, thinks it may have been made as some kind of decoration. It bears some similarity to the type of ornaments once used on fire trucks and firemen helmets. It has two small holes on the back that might have been used for fastening it to something. But why three stars instead of thirteen?
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The Seal of Baltimore is the official government emblem of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. The current seal was adopted for use in 1827. The seal is in the shape of an ellipse with the image of the Battle Monument featured in its center. Around the inner edge of the ellipse are the words CITY OF BALTIMORE, while under the image of the Battle Monument is the year 1797, the year in which the city was first incorporated. Color versions of the seal are in black and gold, representative of the colors of the coat of arms of the Calvert family, a member of whom, Caecilius “Cecil” Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, founded the colony of Maryland.
The Battle Monument, located in Battle Monument Square on North Calvert Street between East Fayette, and East Lexington Streets in Baltimore, Maryland, commemorates the Battle of Baltimore with the British fleet's bombardment of Fort McHenry, the Battle of North Point, southeast of the city in Baltimore County on the Patapsco Neck peninsula and the stand-off on the eastern siege fortifications along Loudenschlager's Hill (later Hampstead Hill, in what is now Patterson Park, east of town. It honors those who died during the month of September 1814 during the War of 1812. The monument lies in the middle of the street and is between the two Baltimore City Circuit Courthouses that are located on the opposite sides of Calvert Street. It was sponsored by the City and the "Committee of Vigilance and Safety" led by Mayor Edward Johnson and Military Commanders: Brig. Gen. John Stricker, Maj. Gen. Samuel Smith and Lt. Col. George Armistead (of Ft. McHenry).
The site of the former first Baltimore County and Town/City Courthouse was originally designated as the location for the newly planned Washington Monument designed by Robert Mills of which the cornerstone had just been laid on the 4th of July, 1815. But fears that the designed shaft of the column would be too tall for the smaller open space of the old Courthouse Square and might fall over onto nearby close-in townhouses so caused a change in location. The monument site for the nation's first president was moved further north of the city into "Howard's Woods" of the "Belvedere" estate of Col. John Eager Howard (1752-1827).
The monument, designed by Baltimore architect J. Maximilian M. Godefroy (sculptor to the Court of Spain) and built in 1815-25, is 39 feet tall and is unusual in having an Egyptian Revival cenotaph base which suggests a tomb. The eighteen layers of the marble base represent the eighteen states that made up the United States at the time of the war. A Griffin is at each corner of the base, like our police ever on the watch, and always ready to protect our city. The column, carved as a Roman fasces, is bound with cords listing the names of soldiers who died during the battle, while the names of officers who died are at the top.
The monument is topped by a Carrara marble statue by Antonio Capellano of a female figure representing the City of Baltimore that wears a crown of victory and holds a laurel wreath in one hand and a ship's rudder in the other. It was hoisted to the top of the column during the middle of the period of construction on the eighth-anniversary ceremonies, Defenders Day, September 12, 1822. Colloquially called Lady Baltimore, the statue was relocated to the Maryland Historical Society on October 5, 2013, in order to preserve it from further damage caused by time and nature. It was replaced by a concrete replica.
The monument is depicted on the seal of the City of Baltimore that was adopted in 1827 and the city's flag adopted in the early 20th century.
The monument is erroneously depicted as being in Washington, D.C. in the film Live Free or Die Hard starring Bruce Willis, which had numerous scenes actually filmed in downtown Baltimore.
The Battle Monument was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 4, 1973. It is contained within the Business and Government Historic District and is within the Baltimore National Heritage Area.
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The Great Seal of Baltimore City
Baltimore City was incorporated in 1797 (Chapter 68, Acts of 1796). As a governmental unit, the City separated from Baltimore County in 1851. The City's name was derived from the Proprietary's Irish Barony.
Baltimore's City's Seal was adopted in 1827. The seal is black and gold in color and contains the emblem of the Battle Monument in the center. Around the monument are inscribed the words, "City of Baltimore," and below the monument is the date, "1797."
The original town of Baltimore was established in 1729, with the Maryland Assembly's "Act for Erecting a Town on the north side of Patapsco, In Baltimore County, and for laying out into lots sixty acres of land..." This act recognized that Baltimore was a good place to load, unload, and sell various trade items. These lots were laid out in 1730, on sixty acres of land purchased from Charles and Daniel Carroll. By 1732, ten additional acres were added.
The flag of the city of Baltimore features the Battle Monument, a local monument erected 1815-1825 in the former courthouse square (at North Calvert Street, between East Fayette and Lexington Streets) to veterans of the War of 1812 during the British attack on September 12-14, 1814, on the city with the bombardment of Fort McHenry and the Battle of North Point along with the siege at the fortifications at Loudenschlager's Hill (now Hampstead Hill in Patterson Park in East Baltimore) which is also the central motif on the city's seal with the date of the city's incorporation of 1797 (port established 1706, town founded 1729, independent city separated from surrounding Baltimore County, 1851). The field is in the Calvert family colors and design, which also appear in the first and fourth quarters of the Maryland state flag.
The flag of the city of Baltimore features the "Battle Monument", which is also the central motif on the city's seal. The field is in the Calvert family colors and design, which also appear in the first and fourth quarters of the Maryland state flag.
The flag is blazoned as follows: Paly of six Or and sable, a bend counter-changed, on an inescutcheon Sable, within an orle of the first, a representation of Baltimore's Battle Monument Argent. Two other designs were submitted for consideration; both included the battle monument and the Calvert's arms.
Respondents to a 2004 survey sponsored by the North American Vexillological Association rated the Baltimore city flag 7.46 on a 10-point scale, making it the 18th best American city flag in the 150 flag survey of American cities.
Respondents to a 2004 survey sponsored by the North American Vexillological Association rated the Baltimore city flag 7.46 on a 10-point scale, making it the 18th best American city flag in the 150 flag survey.
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What if the Seal Didn't Change?
Might the 3rd Issue Badge have looked like This
1797 color

Or a More Modern Patch that Could have Resembled This
BCP HISTORY lady liberty patch 72

BALTIMORE SESQUICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION COLLECTION 1880
Prints and Photographs Division, Maryland Historical Society
201 W. Monument St.
Baltimore, MD 21201

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Might the 3rd Issue Badge have looked like This
1797 color
Or a More Modern Patch that Could have Resembled This
BCP HISTORY lady liberty patch 72
BALTIMORE SESQUICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION COLLECTION
1880
Prints and Photographs Division, Maryland Historical Society
201 W. Monument St.
Baltimore, MD 21201
Finding aid created by Katherine Cowan with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, July 1999
History
The Baltimore Sesquicentennial was celebrated October 11-19, 1880, marking the 150th anniversary of the city's founding in 1730. With the leadership of Mayor Ferdinand C. Latrobe, the city paused to take stock of its growth with advancements in shipping and transportation, and its position relative to other cities in the region and nation, and to appreciate founders like Carroll, Howard, Patterson, Oliver, Stephenson, and Purviance, and recent luminaries like McDonogh, Peabody, and Hopkins.
The festivities included oration, tableaux, meetings, and music; five days of parades of groups including African American social organizations, Masons, school children, military organizations, fire and police departments, letter carriers, and telegraph messengers; concluding with an illumination of the city and pyrotechnic displays. Public schools were in recess for the entire week of October 11-15.
Note: Information on the Sesquicentennial was compiled from Pamphlets 4122 and 5186 in the Maryland Historical Society Library.
Collection Origin
Gift of the Hon. Henry Stockbridge, 1921.
Scope and Contents
The collection consists of 1 box with 11 folders containing ca. 40 photoprints of the Sesquicentennial celebration made in 1880. Views are primarily Baltimore city streets, with monuments, hotels, stores, and business establishments decorated for the event. There are some group portraits and views of parades including floats. Many of the photographs are mounted onto board and are captioned and dated on the margin, identifying street locations and landmarks. Unmounted photographs are not captioned or dated.
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Anne Arundell, Lady Baltimore (1615-1649)
The Calvert women were often overshadowed by their sons or husbands, but a couple of individuals played important supporting roles in the formation and development of Maryland.
Anne Arundell was born in 1615 into an elite English family of noble lineage. Anne's father, Sir Thomas Arundell of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, England had served under King James I and her great-grandmother had been related by marriage to King Henry VIII.
Anne was reputed to be very beautiful, with many potential husbands. But in 1628 when she was only 13, she married Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore and a close friend of the family. Like the Calverts, Anne's family was Catholic, and her father was arrested a number of times because he refused to give up his religion. Cecil's marriage to Anne was fortunate for the creation of Maryland.
Anne inherited lands and money from her father which she and Cecil used to fund the new colony. But there was more to Anne than just her money. She played an important role in raising her son Charles, the future Lord Baltimore, as well as Cecil's younger half-brother Philip, who served as Governor and Chancellor of Maryland.
During her 20-year marriage to Cecil, Anne bore nine children, but only three lived to become adults. She was very well-loved and upon her death at age 34, her husband Cecil composed a memorial verse for her tomb in England in which he described her as "the most beautiful and best wife." The memorial continued, "Here lieth Anne Arundell, Lady Baltimore. Farewell to you most lovely of earthly beauties."
Although neither she nor her husband ever visited the colony that they helped found, Anne was very interested in Maryland. She decorated the ceiling of their home in England with plaster reliefs of the Ark and the Dove, the ships that brought the first colonists to Maryland.
Indirectly, Anne played an important role in the early years of Maryland, and she seems to have been well-loved and respected. In 1649, the Maryland Assembly chose to honor Anne after her death by naming Anne Arundel County after her.
City Hall Hinge 4i
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(1) - The first part of this article is referring to something not pictured, which was more State Seal related than the City Seal above. But for completeness, we kept the entire letter to the editor dated 1 Nov 1880

(2) - This could help explain why many years later in a Sun Paper article they had this Grand Old seal of the City of Baltimore, separate from the set and done in a story as a mystery asking what the seal was

(3) - "Or and Sable" refers to the correct colors on the seal, "Or" is the yellow/gold seen in the Calvert quarter of the Maryland flag. But, was often mistaken as an abbreviation for Orange, Sable is Black. Most say the reason Baltimore is often represented by the colors Orange and Black is due to an early printers error.
(4) - Clicking HERE will take you to the original 1952 article about this seal

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Please contact Det. Ret. Kenny Driscoll if you have any pictures of you or your family members and wish them remembered here on this tribute site to Honor the fine men and women who have served with Honor and Distinction at the Baltimore Police Department.

Anyone with information, photographs, memorabilia, or other "Baltimore City Police" items can contact Ret. Det. Kenny Driscoll at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. follow us on Twitter @BaltoPoliceHist or like us on Facebook or mail pics to 8138 Dundalk Ave. Baltimore Md. 21222


Copyright © 2002 Baltimore City Police History - Ret Det Kenny Driscoll

Published in Fairness

Retroactive Citation of Valor program

Monday, 02 March 2020 10:17
Retroactive Citation of Valor program

deviders Line of duty injured

Citation of Valor
CoV


CITATION OF VALOR

Sworn members who have sustained gunshot wounds, stab wounds, or serious injury under aggravated and hostile circumstances which could result in death or permanent disability while acting in their official capacity are eligible for this award.  

Authority for the issuance of the Citation of Valor lies solely with the Police Commissioner.

It might be important to point out, that while these awards are being awarded “retroactively”, they are not “Retroactive Citation of Valor Awards”. The retroactive, only pertains to the method used to “apply” for them, and or to “issue” them; but that takes nothing away from the award, it is the “Citation of Valor” and your name is added to the current list of 157 others that have received this award, there will be no, Asterisk, no, side note, no nothing to indicate you received this in any way, other than anyone else on the list.

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Retroactive Citation of Valor Program

In 2004 while watching the Military Channel Mrs. Patricia Driscoll the wife of Retired Detective Kenny Driscoll, saw a show about the Purple Heart and the number of injured that never received their awards. The show went on to explain a program that was set up to grant these men and women their awards, "Retroactively." It explained that there is a certain amount of closure involved when a soldier is injured during combat and gets a Purple Heart, which those that are skipped over for the awards miss.

When taken out of combat due to an injury, and sent home, it gives a sense of never having completed the mission and as such the much-needed closure is never received. For years, these men and women walked around feeling as if they never finished the job. Many blaming themselves for their brothers having been killed, injured or having gone MIA in their absence. This brings on PTSD and survivors guilt, mixed with a lack of closure that could have been avoided with something as simple as an award to acknowledge their injuries, service, and sacrifice. An award to let them know their part of the mission is complete, they have done as much as they could, and the military recognizes their service as complete.

Lack of such recognition has been said to have caused issues that have lead to alcoholism, homelessness, and other mental health issues in these soldiers. A program has since been started to retroactively issue awards to those that could prove they were injured during combat. Mrs. Driscoll felt strongly that if she could get her "Retroactive Citation of Valor Program established" it would be necessary to follow the prerequisites for getting the award. She felt the rules should be followed, and that only those that could come up with proper documentation, police, hospital, newspaper or eye-witness reports would be eligible. With that she has always said, she would do all she could to try to help find said information by way of newspaper reports, and by going through the department if possible, but short of that she could nothing else to help them secure the award if the information was not there. We believe to have the award issued to our retired the qualifications for the award would have to be strictly adhered to. Mrs. Driscoll asked her husband and a large group of his friends (disabled, retired and some still active) for their advice. Before long she had a group of advisors, and they all agreed anyone getting this award, or any award for that matter should raise an award to new levels, and never lower its meaning or value for those that have worked so hard to have received the award before them.

This award is "issued" retroactively, but it is not the Retroactive Citation of Valor. There is only one Citation of Valor; the rules set forth to obtain this award are strict. It is awarded SOLEY at the discretion of the Police Commissioner; it is awarded only to Sworn members who have sustained Gunshot Wounds, Stab Wounds, or have who have received Serious Injuries Under Aggravated and or Hostile Circumstances which could result in Death or Permanent Disability while acting in their official capacity.

While these awards are being awarded “retroactively,” they are not a “Retroactive Citation of Valor Award.” The retroactive only pertains to the method used to “apply” for them, and or to the "issuance” of the award. But that takes nothing away from the award, it is the “Citation of Valor,” and your name is added to the current list of 158 others that have received this award. There will be no, Asterisk, no, side note, no nothing to indicate you received this in any way, other than anyone else on the list.

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Those that were injured and received the award are as Follows:

  1. Retired Det. Kenneth Driscoll - Approved, 5 April 2013 for injuries sustained 10 Aug 2001 - 110H01
  2. Retired Officer Gary Lapchak - Approved, 3 Feb 2014 for injuries sustained 28 Oct 1997 - 128J97
  3. Retired Officer Daryl Buhrman - Approved, 3 Feb 2014 for injuries sustained 8 Feb 1981 - 908B81
  4. Retired Officer Kenneth Driscoll - Approved, 21 June 2014 for injuries sustained in 1992 - 107E92
  5. Retired Sgt Robert Bigos - Approved, 21 June 2014 for injuries sustained 9 Sept 1995 - 109I95
  6. Retired Officer Lennell Robinson - Approved, 21 June 2014 for injuries sustained 17 April 1997 - 317D97
  7. Retired Officer Robert Cirello - Approved, 21 June 2014 for injuries sustained 7 Sept 2006 - 207I06
  8. Retired Sgt Edward Mattson - Approved, 5 April 2015 for injuries sustained 13 Oct 1970 - 313J70
  9. Retired Officer Kathy Irwin - Approved, 5 April 2015 for injuries sustained 20 Feb 1993 - 720B71
10. Retired Sgt Donald Voss   Approved, 17 April 2017 for injuries sustained 18 Jun 1972 - 918F72

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#1 - 1. Retired Det. Kenneth Driscoll - Approved 5 April 2013 for injuries sustained 10 Aug 2001 - On 10 Aug 2001 while acting Sergeant and assisting in the arrest of a suspect wanted for multiple Armed Carjacking's, Det Driscoll became involved in a foot chase, during which he fell several times, the first fall was into a ravine near the Jones Falls, where he fell a total of 40+ feet, the first 20ft of that was airborne, as was measured from his last foot step in the dirt to where he landed and bounced then rolled/slid another 20+ feet before coming to rest. As he was lying there for a brief second, he looked up and saw the suspect about 8 to 10 feet away from him getting up, and continuing to flee. So Ken quickly jumped to his feet and gave chase following him down a path, where the two had landed. Ken said he felt as though he may have broken or seriously injured his hip, or hips as his run was sloppy. Still, he ran another 1/4 mile, falling two, or more times, first of which was a 25 to 30ft drop, and then there was another that was between 18 and 20 ft. He had a stick from a tree, stabbed into his stomach that he pulled out, and dropped on the path as he ran after the suspect. When all was said and done, Det Driscoll broke his back, herniated several discs in his back, and neck, he broke and or sprained both wrists, lost the use of his left leg, and can no longer walk. In 2001 he was determined to be Monoplegic, with docs saying he would eventually become full on Paraplegic. With injuries so serious the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program would investigate his case, and review his injuries before awarding Ken full PSOB Benefits, making him the first Baltimore City Police Officer to be awarded these benefits for a Disability, he was able to convert his house into the perfect place for him and his family to live in given his disabilities. He was also made a lifetime member of the Police Hall of Fame, where he has also issued a Purple Heart for this injury. The Commissioner agreed and on 5 April 2013 Approved the Citation of Valor for injuries sustained on 10 Aug 2001. 110H01

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#2 - 2. Retired Officer Gary Lapchak - 1997 - On the date in question Officer Lapchak was responding to a Sig 13 when he slipped on Baltimore's infamous marble steps blowing out his knee. But having heard the call for assistance, and knowing an officer was just inside the house and in need of assistance, Officer Lapchak made his way into the house anyway, providing the much-needed assistance. He was already injured, he wanted to make sure someone else would not be! Gary is a big guy 6'3"- 6'4" so sometimes his presence is enough to calm a room, other times, with his size, comes strength, and he has been forced to use it, in either case, Gary's appearance and strength helped prevent further injuries to a brother officer in need. I wish we had more paperwork on this, But we don't all we have 1st hand knowledge as Ken and Gary have been friends since Gary joined the force and Ken was working when this occurred. Further, in 2008/09 Ken nominated Gary for the Purple Heart from the Police Officers Hall of Fame in Florida, it was an older case, and they were reluctant to hear it, but after reading the events, and hearing Ken's strong feelings on the case, they agreed to take it to the board for a vote; Ken said he believes strongly in the value of awards, and that if given where they were not earned it diminishes the value of that award, in the case of Gary Lapchak, if he were awarded this award, it would not dimish the award at all; in fact it would do quite the opposite, an injured officer continuing on, so that he might help a brother officer in his time of need is about as heroic as one can get. After careful consideration, Officer Lapchak was awarded the Police Officer Hall of Fame's Purple Heart, and a lifetime membership to the Hall of Fame, and we think it would also be fitting to receive the department's equivalent of that Purple Heart and award him the Citation of Valor. The Commissioner agreed and on 3 Feb 2014 Approved the Citation of Valor for injuries sustained on 28 Oct 1997.  128J97

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#3 - 3. Retired Officer Daryl Buhrman - While there are numerous injuries that occurred between Feb 1981 and July of 1989. The first was the one that caused the bulk of Ret. Officer Buhrman injuries and re-injuries to be so severe that he has had a difficult time in walking, and working. Those events read like something from a TV movie, as Ret. Officer Buhrman was working the Southern District 963 post (a foot post) when he saw a fight in which the main aggressor was armed with a knife. This outside Baltimore's famous Hammer-Jack's nightclub, upon seeing the officer the armed suspect fled on foot across a parking lot over a fence through a field and onto an adjoining parking lot when it appeared as though the suspect had run far enough and could go no further, Ret. Officer Buhrman at this point had his man, or so he thought, as he went to arrest him things became ugly, violence had erupted into something he had never expected, and surely didn't see coming. To this day he doesn't know if it was set up in advance, or if it was just a case of wrong place, wrong time, but as he went to arrest the suspect, he was jumped by the suspects buddies, then the suspect also turned on him and Ret. Officer Buhrman was beaten, kicked punched and finally forced to the ground where they jumped on his left knee. Ret. Officer Buhrman never gave up, and eventually, would manage to get everyone on the ground with him, where he cuffed those he could and recovered the knife that was the cause of the chase. All of this reported under cc 9B41629 Feb 1981. It has been a long time since this injury took place, and the aggravated injuries that came as a result of re-injury - I hope you can see in this what we see and while it is sometimes hard to see, we have talked to Ret. Officer Buhrman and feel he deserves of this award, we hope you will agree. The Commissioner agreed and on 3 Feb 2014 Approved the Citation of Valor for injuries sustained on 8 Feb 1981. 908B81

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#4 - 4. Retired Officer Kenneth Driscoll - In this case Officer Driscoll was injured in the line of duty in the Spring of 1992 as he was assigned to the Central District Patrol and working Sector 3, 1A37 car and came across an on-view Signal 13 in the 2200 Blk of McCulloh St. As he entered the house he was informed the suspect was high on drugs and violent, rounding a corner in a hallway he saw a suspect standing over an officer striking and him from behind; Ken has always had respect for the department and his brothers, as such without thinking he quickly ran up behind the suspect, where with the use of an Espantoon he was able to quickly take the fight out of the suspect, and cuff him before he  realized what had happened, and by then he didn't have enough left in him to issue a threat to the officers. As Officer Driscoll was assisting the suspect out to an awaiting wagon, the family whom this suspect had just been beating before the first officer's arrival, decided they wanted to get their licks in on him, so they attacked him, pushing him, and Officer Driscoll out the front door, and off the second floor porch area down to the street. Ken dislocated his shoulder, he went to the ER where doctors did all they could but because Ken did as all police do after falling to the ground, he stood up and shook it off, the doctor missed the fact that he had dislocated his shoulder and reset it, but reset it improperly. It would take nearly a year to find the injury, and by then a surgery was needed to fix a serious shoulder injury. His arm had never healed properly, and a portion of his clavicle had to be removed. This injury played a large role in a later injury that left him wheelchair bound, and at the time nearly ended his career. Recently Ken was upgraded from Monoplegic for a 2001 injury, to Paraplegic for the addition of this injury. They are two separate injuries. One took Ken's left leg, the other took his left arm, I think you would agree this injury, has left Ken not only unable to use his left leg, but when added to, and aggravating now unable to fully use his left arm/hand. Ken was written up for and received a Citation of Valor for the injuries that would eventually lead to his left leg becoming paralyzed, in writing that up this incident was partially described, and someone from the department that is involved in this program recommended writing up this portion of the injuries too, as they are separate, serious and at the time nearly ended ken's career. Ken was considered Monoplegic; like paraplegic means, two limbs, and quadriplegic means four, monoplegic means one limb… The effects of Ken's injuries have increased, and his condition has recently been advanced to paraplegic, a permanent disability, in which his left arm/hand and left leg are too weak to consider anything by paralyzed. The case was reviewed and the Commissioner agreed this was a separate incident; and an incident with injuries stemming from a line of duty incident that was so severe, he was issued a Citation of Valor. - The Commissioner agreed and on 21 June 2014 and Approved the Citation of Valor for injuries sustained in Spring of 1992  107E92

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#5 - 5. Retired Sgt Robert Bigos - On 9 Sept 1995, at 1315 Sgt Robert Bigos was involved in a violent struggle with a suspect during which his knee was blown out requiring several surgeries which ultimately cost him his job forcing him into an early retirement. To this day he still suffers the side effects of being disabled due to injuries that have left him disabled as a result of this Line of Duty Injury. For this, we felt he was within the guidelines of the Citation of Valor, with that the Commissioner was contacted, the same was explained to him and he agreed that the Sergeants injuries were serious enough to warrant his receiving this award.  -  The Commissioner agreed and on 21 June 2014 Approved the Citation of Valor for injuries sustained on 9 Sept 1995  109I95

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#6 - 6. Retired Officer Lennell Robinson - 1997 - Officer L Robinson was injured in the line of duty on 17 Apr, 1997, as he was assigned to the Eastern District street crimes unit and was struck by a drunk driver on said date at which time he received multiple compound fractures to his left leg and nerve damage his left hand resulting in numerous surgeries and rehabilitation. Due to his line of duty injury, he was forced to retire in 1999 from the department but was never awarded the Citation of Valor. We believe he should have been awarded this award and fully deserves it. I hope you will agree, and I thank you for taking the time to review this Award - Patricia Driscoll - The Commissioner agreed and on 21 June 2014 Approved the Citation of Valor for the injuries sustained on 17 April 1997  317D97

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#7 - 7. Retired Officer Robert Cirello - On 7 Sept 2006, at 2154 Officer Cirello was patrolling Patterson Park, he observed two suspicious subjects, up exiting his car to investigate he was struck in the head with an unknown object, shortly after which he felt a burning in his chest, realizing he had been shot he returned fire on the two subjects. Other officers began arriving on scene and found Officer Cirello sitting next to his patrol car, he was bleeding from a head wound, Officer Cardwell, found him bleeding and heard him saying he was shot, The officer checked and found he was shot in the chest, but the bullet didn't penetrate the vest, with that all attention was focused on the head injury. As a result of his injuries, he was taken to Shock Trauma where he was treated and eventually released. Due to his injuries, he would retire from the department but was never awarded the Citation of Valor. We believe he should have been awarded this award and fully deserves it. I hope you will agree, and thank you for taking the time to review this Award - Patricia Driscoll - The Commissioner agreed and on 21 June 2014 Approved the Citation of Valor for the injuries sustained on 7 Sept 2006  207I06

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#8 -8. Retired Officer Edward Mattson - On 13 Oct 1970 was a Tuesday, during a demonstration at Baltimore City Jail a riot broke out, where more than 20 people were arrested, many for what might seem to be a simple charge of Failing to Obey a Lawful Order, but others for things like Inciting a Riot, and still others of Assaulting police and worse one was charged with Attempted Murder. As Ret Sergeant Mattson was trying to maintain order and that riot broke he grabbed his Prisoner Mr. Lively, (Walter Lively, Junior, 28 of the 800 block of North Broadway, the former director of the Baltimore urban coalition and a self-described organizer for Milton Allen, the Democratic states attorney candidate.) during the struggle, Sgt Mattson's Espantoon was taken by someone in the crowd and Mr. Lively was assaulting Sgt Mattson with a homemade club fashioned from a 2x4) Having been struck in the head Sgt Mattson was saved by then Major Tony Glover who arrived after a 13 was called. Sgt Mattson had to undergo numerous surgeries, and to be quite honest has not been the same since. It has affected his thoughts and outlook on life. Still, Sgt Mattson is proud to have been a Baltimore Police Officer and Sergeant, and we are proud to have followed in his footsteps. These events took place 44 years ago, and we feel the time has come so it is with this information that we hope you will agree, Retired Officer Edward Mattson meets the requirements of and deserves the Citation of Valor. - The Commissioner agreed and on 5 April 2015 Approved the Citation of Valor for the injuries sustained on 13 Oct 1970  313J70

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#9 -9. Retired Officer Kathy Irwin - On 20 Feb 1993 Officer Kathy Irwin was affecting an arrest on a Shoplifter when she was violently attacked and assaulted, so severe were her injuries that she was not only forced to retired 66/2/3 Line of Duty, but she also became a major part of the argument for state laws to be changed, making Assault on Police a felony. Often crimes like this that affect the lives of our officers become lost in the paperwork, we forget there is an officer, a person, a member of our Baltimore Police family, that has not only lost the ability to do the job they love, but that may also never work again, and often these officers, forced into retirement feel as though they have been thrown out, across the country disabled police almost all say the same thing, "It felt like I was put out with the garbage!" and yet anyone one of them would do whatever was asked of them to be part of that family they love so much…. Kathy was no different, she was injured, she was rejected, and when duty called for her to testify in Annapolis to have Assault On Police become the Felony that it is today, instead of the misdemeanor or common law crime it used to be. Kathy also often does things like run Bull and Oster Roasts to help officers in distress may have been taken out of the Police Department, but the police department has not been taken out of her. She still bleeds blue, this based on her injuries how they came about and the results, still to this day she suffers chronic pain but still to this day would do anything for her brothers and sisters active or retired she was there. She was serving her brothers and sisters. With this information, I hope you will agree Retired Officer Kathy Irwin meets the requirements of and deserves the Citation of Valor- The Commissioner agreed and on 5 April 2015 Approved the Citation of Valor for the injuries sustained on 20 Feb 1993  720B71

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#10 -10. Retired Sergeant Donald Voss -18 June 1972 - Three Police Injured in Melee
The Sun (1837-1989); Jun 19, 1972; pg. C20 - Three police injured in melee Crowd of 300 in Cherry Hill Hurls Rocks
A police officer was knocked unconscious, and two others were injured yesterday (18 June 1972) in a stone-throwing melee that resulted in two arrests. The incident occurred at 7:20 P.M. when a crowd of about 300 persons gathered in the 2500 block Norfolk Street, Cherry Hill. As police officers attempted to capture a handcuffed escaped from the Maryland Training School for Boys. Fifty police officers were summoned to deal with the crowd, which dispersed about 8:30 Taunted Officer During the melee persons in the crowd taunted the officers and threw rocks at them. Most seriously injured was Sgt. Ronald Voss, of the Southern district, who was beaten and kicked unconscious as he attempted to aid another officer who had handcuffed two girls. The handcuffed girls fled during the struggle. Also injured were Patrolman Edward Eilerman and Patrolman Richard Curley. All three officers were taken to Mercy Hospital where Patrolmen Eilerman and Curley were reported, in satisfactory condition and Sergeant Voss in fair condition. Two juveniles were arrested. A police spokesman said the incident, the second major attack on police in as many weeks, was unprovoked and apparently spontaneous. End of Article

Sgt Voss would complain of pain, headaches and other difficulties brought on by this attack. His complaints would be heard for nearly two years, when on 7 July 1974, as he was pondering one of the most difficult decisions in his career, he would receive a notice from the medical section ordering him to report to Church Home Hospital for evaluations and testing. It seems someone up above made his mind up for him that he was not meant to go out on the Baltimore Police Strike. He said he was leaning heavily toward crossing the line and continuing to do his job, but before his mind could be completely made up, he received a letter from medical section ordering him to respond to the hospital where he would be admitted and kept for nearly two weeks for observations and testing. After testing, he would continue working, but due to complications from his injuries, he was advised again by a medical section that it was time for him to put in for his retirement. To this day Sgt Ronald Voss continues to have complications brought on by the injuries of that attack on 18 June 1972. We have the newspaper articles to support these claims, therefore based on the requirements of this award we recommend Retired Sergent Ronald Voss for the Citation of Valor, and we hope you will agree. The Commissioner agreed and on 17 April 2017 Approved the Citation of Valor for the injuries sustained on 18 June 1972  918F72

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A list compiled by Officer Robert P. Brown, (Bobby Brown) Southern District, of recipients of this prestigious award. This award was started by Commissioner Donald Pomerleau in 1972 but he went back to 1966 to include those persons that could have received this award. BOLD indicates that they were shot or severely wounded but could not find anything about the Citation of Valor on them.
** Indicates that they were awarded the Medal of Honor as well.

Name of Recipients / Rank / Date of Injury

Edward D. Siebor - P/O - 1967
Richard Webb - P/O - 1967
Sterling H. Fletcher- Sgt - 1969
John E. Lewis - P/O - 1969
Wiley M. Owens - P/O - 1969
Charles L. Kirk - P/O  - 1970
Stanley Sierakowski - Sgt - 1970                        
Joseph Michael - P/O - 1970
James L. McFillin Jr. - P/O - 1970
Daniel J. Calhoun - Sgt - 1970
Edward Mattson - Sgt - 1970
William C. Mack - P/O - 1971
Frederick W. Dickens - P/O - 1971
Charles P. Smith - P/O  - 1971
Jan D. Walters - P/O - 1972
James H. Harris - P/O - 1972
Darrell D. Duggins - Lt - 1972
Joseph J. Kaczynski - P/O - 1972
George L. Deares - P/O - 1972
Francis Hoyt - P/O - 1972
Donald Voss - Sgt - 1972
Thomas Whalen - P/O - 1973
Donald F. Haupt - Lt - 1973
Charles A. Walker - Det - 1973
Raymond J. Clements - P/O - 1974
Gary Dresser  ** - P/O  - 1974
Glenn Hauze - P/O  - 1974
Joseph E. Hlafka - P/O - 1974
Alric K. Moore - P/O - 1974
Theodore E. Staab - P/O - 1975
Alvin E. Martin - P/O - 1976
John A. Swiec - P/O - 1976
Calvin Mencken - P/O - 1976
Charles Mitchell - P/O  - 1976
Neil C. Splain - P/O - 1976
Andrew F. Leso - P/O - 1977
Joseph E. Wolfe - P/O  - 1978
Clayton Wright - P/O - 1978
Lawrence B. Bennett - P/O - 1978
Wardell James - P/O - 1978
Michael Dunn - P/O - 1979
Charles T. Nelson - P/O - 1979
William D. Albers - P/O - 1979
David Garayoa - P/O - 1979
Michael J. Cassizzi - P/O - 1979
John H. Miller - P/A - 1979
William J. Surratt -  P/O - 1979
Thomas Lewis - P/O  - 1980
Charles H. Benjamin - P/O - 1980
Ralph E. Greaves - P/O - 1980
Durwood A. Hood Jr. - P/O - 1980
James V. Weglein - P/O  - 1980
Robert S. Schmelz III - P/O - 1981
Daryl Buhrman Ret Officer - 1981
Charles M. Frye - P/O - 1982
Raymond A. Howard - P/O - 1983
David L. Williams - P/O - 1983
William H. Bessling - P/O - 1983
Theodore Black - P/O - 1984
James Clark - P/Oe - P/O - 1984
Donna M. Cooper - P/O - 1984
John C. McNamara - P/O - 1984
John F. Baker - Sgt - 1984
Jesse J. McClain Jr. - P/O - 1984
Stephen D. Martin - P/O - 1985
David L. Williams - P/O - 1985
John F. Heiderman - P/O - 1985
Terrance P. McLarney - Sgt - 1985
Timothy F. Wade - P/O - 1986
Paul Renaud - P/A - 1986
David R. Dull - P/O - 1987
Paul C. Dunn - P/O  - 1987
Roy. N. Grant - P/O - 1987
Thomas E. Martini - P/O - 1987
Eugene J. Cassidy   ** - P/A - 1987
Jeffrey C. Wright    ** - Lt - 1988
Denise M. Monaghan - P/O - 1988
Guy E. Gerstel ** - P/O - 1988
Alfred Brown - P/A  - 1988
Vincent Moore - P/O - 1989
Herman Brooks ** - P/O - 1989
William J. Martin ** - P/O - 1989
Graham B. Sylvester - P/O - 1990
Carl E. Trogdon - P/O - 1990
Harry G. Harcum - P/O - 1990
Bryan T. Donahue - P/O - 1990
Lamont D. Bivens - P/O - 1990
Michael J. Johnson - P/O - 1990
Gerald M. Hensley - P/O - 1991
Michael H. Waudby - LT  - 1991
David C. Cheuvront II - P/O - 1992
Samuel Bosley - P/O - 1992
Jimmy Young - P/O - 1992
Ira N. Weiner ** - P/O - 1992
Frederick J. Dillon - P/O - 1992
Andrew Snakowsky -  P/A 1992
Kenneth Driscoll Ret Det. - 1992
Gregory A. Jenkins - P/O - 1993
Daniel Brown - P/O - 1993
Hezzie T Sessomes - Sgt - 1993
Herman Jones - P/O - 1993
Kathy Irwin Conrad - P/O 1993
Antonio L. Murray - P/O - 1994
Eric Dawson - P/O - 1994
Kevin Baskette - P/O - 1994
Charles A. Seward  Jr. - P/O - 1994                                                       
Donald Schultz - P/O  - 1995
Bob Bigos Ret Sgt - 1995
Charles D. Carroll - P/O - 1996
Christopher M. Street - Sgt. - 1996
Owen E. Sweeney Jr.   ** - LT - 1997
Gary Lapchak Ret Officer - 1997
Lennell Robinson Ret. Det. 1997
Michael Wingler - Sgt - 1998
Jerry K. Weaver - P/A  - 2000
Kevon Malik Gavin Sr. ** - P/O - 2000
David F. Azur - Det - 2000
Michael J. Cowdery ** - P/A - 2001
Ronald A. Beverly   ** - P/O - 2001
Anthony R. Molesky  ** - P/O - 2001
Willie W. Grandy - P/O - 2001
Kenneth Driscoll - Ret. Det. - 2001
Christopher B. Houser - P/O - 2002
James L. Howard - P/O - 2002
Robert J. Adams - Det - 2002
James S. Guzie - P/O  - 2002
Steven Henson - P/O  - 2002
Michael H. Smith - Det - 2002
Thomas Newman  ** - Det - 2002
Paul E. Thompson - P/O  - 2003
Christian Schaeffer - P/O  - 2003
John R. Dolly Jr. - P/O - 2004
Brian Winder ** - P/O - 2004
Andrew Lane - P/O - 2005
Joseph Banks - P/O  - 2005
Robert T. Hayes - P/O - 2005
Robert Cirello Ret. Officer - 2006
Troy L. Chesley ** - Det. - 2007
David Hare - P/O - 2007
Jemell Rayam - P/O - 2007
Loretta Francis - P/O - 2007
Karen Brzowsky - P/O - 2007
Steven Mahan - P/O - 2007
Krzystof Gelsa - P/O - 2007
Pedro Perez - P/O - 2008
Anthony Jobst - P/O - 2008
Hayden Gross - P/O - 2008
Mark Spila - P/O - 2008
Dante Arthur - P/O - 2009
Thomas R. Portz Jr. - P/O - 2010
Todd Strohman - P/O - 2010
Daniel Harper ** - P/O - 00-00-0000
Kurt Roepcke - Sgt - 00-00-0000
Matthew McClenahan - P/O - 00-00-0000
Michael Rice - P/O - 00-00-0000
Jordan Moore - P/O  - 00-00-0000
Keith Romans ** - P/O - 03-21-2010

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Please contact Det. Ret. Kenny Driscoll if you have any pictures of you or your family members and wish them remembered here on this tribute site to Honor the fine men and women who have served with Honor and Distinction at the Baltimore Police Department.

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Copyright © 2002 Baltimore City Police History - Ret Det Kenny Driscoll

 
Published in Fairness

Sergeant Ed Mattson

Monday, 02 March 2020 00:37
Sergeant Ed Mattson

Sergeant Ed Mattson

 

Ed Mattson saw Baltimore's 1968 riots in person, and he watched the recent Freddie Gray riots on TV. He's still struggling to understand both.

He's canoed the Amazon from Peru to Brazil, wrestled a 20-foot anaconda, summited mountains, and jumped out of planes. But there's one thing retired Baltimore police sergeant Ed Mattson hasn't done.

"I can never truly say I had a black friend. Even today."

Mattson sits and speaks at the kitchen table of the suburban Baltimore home that he and his wife have filled with 19th century children's books and antique oil paintings. His blazer hangs over a chair, an award on its lapel for his service during Baltimore's 1968 riots. As the Freddie Gray case and its aftermath have captured worldwide attention over the past several weeks, and the U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation into Mattson's former department—the one that gave him that award and several others—Mattson has had much on his mind.

Recently, while grocery shopping, Mattson overheard a woman discussing the Freddie Gray riots. "She said, 'You know, I was never racist or anti-black, but I am now,'" Mattson says. "And I thought: Wow. This."

"I'll be truthful with you," he says, "I know guys that—is racist the right word? Or they just don't understand other people? I think the bulk of [officers] are honest, hardworking men that just go to work and do a job. I'm sure they don't go and say, 'Now today we're gonna go out and beat up a black guy.' I know this doesn't happen."

Thousands of protesters, in Baltimore and beyond, see the situation differently.

"I know guys that—is racist the right word? Or they just don't understand other people?"

Mattson grew up in East Baltimore, born into a family of Italian factory workers. In the late '40s and early '50s, Mattson remembers, "Baltimore was like Mayberry." Everyone he knew lived in row homes, and the community had a small town feel. Policemen would threaten to tell your father on you, and kids intent on mischief would follow the lamplighter on his rounds through the neighborhood, turning off the gaslights he'd lit one by one. Both Mattson's grandfather and great-grandfather had been bootleggers and owned speakeasies during Prohibition. He came of age in an all-white neighborhood, graduated from an all-white high school, and served in a nearly all-white Marine Corps.

"We thought life for everybody was good," Mattson says. "It was America, man. The war's over, prosperity's here! But then came Lyndon Baines Johnson with his Great Society, where he wanted to help the downtrodden. When you're young, you don't see downtrodden." But after his stint in the Marines, Mattson came home to Baltimore, and started working as police officer—a white beat cop in primarily black neighborhoods.

"And I realized there were downtrodden people, there were people who didn't rise up," he says. "And I just used to look at it and say, 'Why is it like that?'"

Walking his beat in the early 1960s, Mattson says he did not perceive racial tension. Mostly, his job meant taking care of "humbles" (minor crimes, like loitering), and caring for people as he found them. He did see more of "the seamier side of life" than he'd noticed in his own neighborhood (more drug use, more public drunkenness), and he wondered why the black middle class seemed so small, compared to the white communities he knew.

"You went out on house calls, and there'd be two or three babies who have no milk," he says. "And you'd take it out of your money, out of your pocket, and buy them milk and bread. All the cops I knew did that."

Baltimore, 1968.
Baltimore, 1968.
Getty Images

But by the late '60s, the country was rapidly changing, and Mattson underwent riot training.

After Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, Baltimore exploded. By the third night of rioting, Mattson says, the police were under attack with everything from bullets to Molotov cocktails. "The firemen would come, and they would shoot at the firemen," he says. "And I thought: I could understand shooting at the police. I could really fathom that. But I couldn't understand [attacking] the firemen or the ambulance service, cause they are there strictly to help.

"It was just constant, it never ended: morning, noon, and night," he says. "All the food stores were burnt out. All the liquor stores were burnt out, the clothing stores. There's whole blocks of it that are gone. It looks like Berlin after we bombed it in World War II."

Of Mattson's nearly two decades on the force, those days meant the most to him.

"I saw incredible acts of heroism by guys I worked with—pulling people out of burning buildings, saving lives," he says. "The Baltimore Police saved Baltimore in 1968, there's no doubt about it. The Guard didn't do very much, State Police didn't. The Army came in; they didn't do it. We did it."

After the riots, Mattson went back to his old beat. But his daily foot patrol led him through a different Baltimore.

"People started hatin' each other," he says. "It was like a cloud hung over the city. It just seemed like the friendliness was gone—the trust—on both sides. I couldn't understand how they could burn our city down. And I guess they couldn't understand how I couldn't understand how they could burn our city down."

Last month's violence hit a much narrower swath of Baltimore, and community organizing within those neighborhoods has drawn broad support. Cleanup efforts have spanned racial and economic divides, and social media has helped to democratize protest and storytelling. Last week, CVS corporate announced plans to rebuild its burnt-out and looted locations.

Police form a line near Baltimore's Mondawmin Mall on April 27, 2015.
Police form a line near Baltimore's Mondawmin Mall on April 27, 2015.
Brendan Smialowski/AFPGetty Images

Mattson says the recent riots are an example of what he thinks has gone wrong with policing since his time on the force. He and his wife watched as Mondawmin Mall was looted on live TV. "There were no police officers there," he says. "I said to my wife, 'Why aren't the cops responding to this?' And then we found out why: Cause they were told to stand down. In our day, that would've never happened."

But some things haven't changed. That video of Gray's arrest, where he's dragged to the wagon? "That's just normal," Mattson says. "Typical arrest. People fight you in battle, or resist you—you gotta strong-arm em." He also recognizes State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby's description of what investigators believe happened to Freddie Gray in the van as "bouncing."

"Should they have seatbelted him in?" Mattson asks. "Probably. Should they have restrained him more? Probably. Should they have took him to the hospital? I'm sure they should have. But it didn't happen, and so you got this.

"And poor Freddie Gray's going to be made a martyr. But Freddie Gray's not exactly a martyr, you know? He's dead, is what he is. And you feel sorry for him. But also, I feel sorry for the other eight guys that got killed [in Baltimore] last week by gunfire, not by police officers."

Mattson spent his career on one side of the system. So he knows that system is flawed.

"Everybody's guilty 'til proven innocent, you know that; it ain't the reverse of that," Mattson says. "I tell my grandsons: 'Do not get involved in the criminal justice system. It's an oxymoron. There's no such thing as 'criminal justice.' Once you get your foot in, your whole body goes in. You're involved forever."

More than half a century after Mattson tried to keep the peace in his smoldering city, he has an idea as to why it burned, both in 1968, and again this spring. It comes down to one thing, really.

"They feel like they're left out of society. You want to make somebody mad? Ignore 'em. And that's what we've done."

 

Published in Dignity

Sherlock Holmes' London

Friday, 21 February 2020 12:03
Sherlock Holmes' London

Sherlock Holmes' London

As the Detective Stalks Movie Theaters, our Reporter Tracks Down the Favorite Haunts of Arthur Conan Doyle and his Famous Detective

Sherlock holmes pal knfe

One summer evening in 1889, a young medical school graduate named Arthur Conan Doyle arrived by train at London’s Victoria Station and took a hansom cab two and a half miles north to the famed Langham Hotel on Upper Regent Street. Then living in obscurity in the coastal town of Southsea, near Portsmouth, the 30-year-old ophthalmologist was looking to advance his writing career. The magazine Beeton’s Christmas Annual had recently published his novel, A Study in Scarlet, which introduced the private detective Sherlock Holmes. Now Joseph Marshall Stoddart, managing editor of Lippincott’s Monthly, a Philadelphia magazine, was in London to establish a British edition of his publication. At the suggestion of a friend, he had invited Conan Doyle to join him for dinner in the Langham’s opulent dining room.

From This Story

Amid the bustle of waiters, the chink of fine silver and the hum of dozens of conversations, Conan Doyle found Stoddart to be “an excellent fellow,” he would write years later. But he was captivated by one of the other invited guests, an Irish playwright and author named Oscar Wilde. “His conversation left an indelible impression upon my mind,” Conan Doyle remembered. “He had a curious precision of statement, a delicate flavor of humor, and a trick of small gestures to illustrate his meaning.” For both writers, the evening would prove a turning point. Wilde left with a commission to write his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which appeared in Lippincott’s June 1890 issue. And Conan Doyle agreed to produce a second novel starring his ace detective; The Sign of Four would cement his reputation. Indeed, critics have speculated that the encounter with Wilde, an exponent of a literary movement known as the Decadents, led Conan Doyle to deepen and darken Sherlock Holmes’ character: in The Sign of Four’s opening scene, Holmes is revealed to be addicted to a “seven-percent solution” of cocaine.

Today the Langham Hotel sits atop Regent Street like a grand yet faded dowager, conjuring up a mostly vanished Victorian landscape. The interior has been renovated repeatedly over the past century. But the Langham’s exterior—monolithic sandstone facade, with wrought-iron balconies, French windows and a columned portico—has hardly changed since the evening Conan Doyle visited 120 years ago. Roger Johnson, publicity director of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, a 1,000-strong band of Holmes devotees, points to the hotel’s mention in several Holmes tales, including The Sign of Four, and says it’s a kind of shrine for Sherlockians. “It’s one of those places where the worlds of Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes come together,” he adds. Others include the Lyceum Theater, where one of Conan Doyle’s plays was produced (and a location in The Sign of Four), as well as the venerable gentlemen’s clubs along the thoroughfare of the Strand, establishments that Conan Doyle frequented during forays into the city from his estate in Surrey. Conan Doyle also appropriated St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in central London as a setting; it was there that the legendary initial meeting between Holmes and Dr. Watson took place.

Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of Charles Doyle, an alcoholic who would spend much of his later life in a mental institution, and Mary Foley Doyle, the attractive, lively daughter of an Irish doctor and a teacher; she loved literature and, according to biographer Andrew Lycett, beguiled her children with her storytelling. Marking the sesqui­centennial of Conan Doyle’s birth, Edinburgh held a marathon of talks, exhibitions, walking tours, plays, films and public performances. Harvard University sponsored a three-day lecture series examining Holmes’ and Conan Doyle’s legacy. This past spring, novelist Lyndsay Faye published a new thriller, Dust and Shadow, featuring Holmes squaring off against Jack the Ripper. And last month, of course, Holmes took center stage in director Guy Ritchie’s Hollywood movie Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson.

A persuasive case can be made that Holmes exerts just as much hold on the world’s imagination today as he did a century ago. The Holmesian canon—four novels and 56 stories—continues to sell briskly around the world. The coldly calculating genius in the deerstalker cap, wrestling with his inner demons as he solves crimes that befuddle Scotland Yard, stands as one of literature’s most vivid and most alluring creations.

Conan Doyle’s other alluring creation was London. Although the author lived only a few months in the capital before moving to the suburbs, he visited the city frequently throughout his life. Victorian London takes on almost the presence of a character in the novels and stories, as fully realized—in all its fogs, back alleys and shadowy quarters—as Holmes himself. “Holmes could never have lived anywhere else but London,” says Lycett, author of the recent biography The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “London was the hub of the empire. In addition to the Houses of Parliament, it had the sailors’ hostels and the opium dens of the East End, the great railway stations. And it was the center of the literary world.”

Much of that world, of course, has been lost. The British Clean Air Act of 1956 would consign to history the coal-fueled fogs that shrouded many Holmes adventures and imbued them with menace. (“Mud-coloured clouds drooped sadly over the muddy streets,” Conan Doyle writes in The Sign of Four. “Down the Strand, the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light which threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement.”) The blitz and postwar urban redevelopment swept away much of London’s labyrinthine and crime-ridden East End, where “The Man With the Twisted Lip” and other stories are set. Even so, it is still possible to retrace many of the footsteps that Conan Doyle might have taken in London, to follow him from the muddy banks of the Thames to the Old Bailey and obtain a sense of the Victorian world he transmuted into art.

He first encountered London at the age of 15, while on a three-week vacation from Stonyhurst, the Jesuit boarding school to which his Irish Catholic parents consigned him in northern England. “I believe I am 5 foot 9 high,” the young man told his aunt, so she could spot him at Euston station, “pretty stout, clad in dark garments, and above all, with a flaring red muffler round my neck.” Escorted around the city by his uncles, young Conan Doyle took in the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and the Crystal Palace, and viewed a performance of Hamlet, starring Henry Irving, at the Lyceum Theater in the West End. And he went to the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, then located in the Baker Street Bazaar (and on Marylebone Road today). Conan Doyle viewed with fascination wax models of those who had died on the guillotine during the French Revolution as well as likenesses of British murderers and other arch-criminals. While there, the young man sketched the death scene of French radical Jean-Paul Marat, stabbed in his bath at the height of the Revolution. After visiting the museum, Conan Doyle wrote in a letter to his mother that he had been irresistibly drawn to “the images of the murderers.”

More than a decade later, having graduated from medical school in Edinburgh and settled in Southsea, the 27-year-old physician chose London for the backdrop of a novel about a “consulting detective” who solves crimes by applying keen observation and logic. Conan Doyle had been heavily influenced by Dr. Joseph Bell, whom he met at the Edinburgh Infirmary and whose diagnostic powers amazed his students and colleagues. Also, Conan Doyle had read the works of Edgar Allan Poe, including the 1841 “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” featuring inspector C. Auguste Dupin. Notes for an early draft of A Study in Scarlet—first called “A Tangled Skein”—describe a “Sherringford Holmes” who keeps a collection of rare violins and has access to a chemical laboratory; Holmes is aided by his friend Ormond Sacker, who has seen military service in Sudan. In the published version of A Study in Scarlet, Sacker becomes Dr. John H. Watson, who was shot in the shoulder by a “Jezail bullet” in Afghanistan and invalided in 1880 to London—“that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.” As the tale opens, Watson learns from an old friend at the Criterion Bar of “a fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital [St. Bartholomew’s],” who is looking to share lodgings. Watson finds Holmes poised over a test tube in the middle of an “infallible” experiment to detect human blood stains. Holmes makes the now-immortal observation: “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.” (Holmes pieces together a series of clues—Watson’s deep tan; an injury to his left arm; a background in medicine; a haggard face—to deduce that Watson had served as an army doctor there.) The physician, intrigued, moves in with Holmes into the “cheerfully furnished” rooms at 221B Baker Street.

The address is another shrine for the detective’s devotees—although, as any expert will attest, 221 Baker Street existed only in Conan Doyle’s imagination. In the Victorian era, Baker Street went up to only number 85. It then became York Place and eventually Upper Baker Street. (Conan Doyle was hardly a stickler for accuracy in his Holmes stories; he garbled some street names and invented others and put a goose seller in Covent Garden, then a flower and produce market.) But some Sherlockians have made a sport out of searching for the “real” 221B, parsing clues in the texts with the diligence of Holmes himself. “The question is, Did Holmes and Watson live in Upper Baker or in Baker?” says Roger Johnson, who occasionally leads groups of fellow pilgrims on expeditions through the Marylebone neighborhood. “There are arguments in favor of both. There are even arguments in favor of York Place. But the most convincing is that it was the lower section of Baker Street.”

One drizzly afternoon I join Johnson and Ales Kolodrubec, president of the Czech Society of Sherlock Holmes, who is visiting from Prague, on a walk through Marylebone in search of the location Conan Doyle might have had in mind for Holmes’ abode. Armed with an analysis written by Bernard Davies, a Sherlockian who grew up in the area, and a detailed 1894 map of the neighborhood, we thread through cobblestone mews and alleys to a block-long passage, Kendall Place, lined by brick buildings. Once a hodgepodge of stables and servants’ quarters, the street is part of a neighborhood that is now mainly full of businesses. In the climax of the 1903 story “The Empty House,” Holmes and Watson sneak through the back entrance of a deserted dwelling, whose front windows face directly onto 221B Baker Street. The description of the Empty House matches that of the old town house we’re looking at. “The ‘real’ 221B,” Johnson says decisively, “must have stood across the road.” It’s a rather disappointing sight: today the spot is marked by a five-story glass-and-concrete office building with a smoothie-and-sandwich take-away shop on the ground floor.

In 1989, Upper Baker and York Place having been merged into Baker Street decades earlier, a London salesman and music promoter, John Aidiniantz, bought a tumbledown Georgian boardinghouse at 239 Baker Street and converted it into the Sherlock Holmes Museum.

A fake London bobby was patrolling in front when I arrived there one weekday afternoon. After paying my £6 entry fee (about $10), I climbed 17 stairs—the exact number mentioned in the Holmes story “A Scandal in Bohemia”—and entered a small, shabby parlor filled with Victorian and Edwardian furniture, along with props that seemed reasonably faithful to the description of the drawing room provided by Watson in “The Empty House”: “The chemical corner and the acid-stained deal-topped table....The diagrams, the violin case, and the pipe rack.” Watson’s stuffy bedroom was one flight up, crammed with medical paraphernalia and case notes; a small exhibition hall, featuring lurid dioramas from the stories and wax figurines of Sherlock Holmes and archenemy Professor Moriarty, filled the third floor. Downstairs in the gift shop, tourists were browsing through shelves of bric-a-brac: puzzles, key rings, busts of Holmes, DVDs, chess sets, deerstalker caps, meerschaum pipes, tobacco tins, porcelain statuettes and salt and pepper shakers. For a weekday afternoon, business seemed brisk.

But it has not been a universal hit. In 1990 and 1994, scholar Jean Upton published articles in the now-defunct magazine Baker Street Miscellanea criticizing “the shoddiness of the displays” at the museum, the rather perfunctory attention to Holmesian detail (no bearskin rug, no cigars in the coal scuttle) and the anachronistic furniture, which she compared to “the dregs of a London flea market.” Upton sniffed that Aidiniantz himself possessed only superficial knowledge of the canon, although, she wrote, he “gives the impression of considering himself the undisputed authority on the subject of Sherlock Holmes and his domicile.”

“I’m happy to call myself a rank amateur,” Aidiniantz replies.

For verisimilitude, most Sherlockians prefer the Sherlock Holmes Pub, on Northumberland Street, just below Trafalgar Square, which is packed with Holmesiana, including a facsimile head of the Hound of the Baskervilles and Watson’s “newly framed portrait of General Gordon,” the British commander killed in 1885 at the siege of Khartoum and mentioned in “The Cardboard Box” and “The Resident Patient.” The collection also includes Holmes’ handcuffs, and posters, photographs and memorabilia from movies and plays recreating the Holmes stories. Upstairs, behind a glass wall, is a far more faithful replica of the 221B sitting room.

In 1891, following the breakout success of The Sign of Four, Conan Doyle moved with his wife, Louise, from Southsea to Montague Place in Bloomsbury, around the corner from the British Museum. He opened an oph­thalmological practice at 2 Upper Wimpole Street in Marylebone, a mile away. (In his memoirs, Conan Doyle mistakenly referred to the address as 2 Devonshire Place. The undistinguished, red-brick town house still stands, marked by a plaque put up by the Westminster City Council and the Arthur Conan Doyle Society.) The young author secured one of London’s best-known literary agents, A.P. Watt, and made a deal with The Strand, a new monthly magazine, to write a series of short stories starring Holmes. Fortunately for his growing fan base, Conan Doyle’s medical practice proved an utter failure, affording him plenty of time to write. “Every morning I walked from the lodgings at Montague Place, reached my consulting-room at ten and sat there until three or four, with never a ring to disturb my serenity,” he would later remember. “Could better conditions for reflection and work be found?”

Between 1891 and 1893, at the height of his creative powers, Conan Doyle produced 24 stories for The Strand, which were later collected under the titles The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. As the stories caught on, The Strand’s readership doubled; on publication day, thousands of fans would form a crush around London bookstalls to snap up the detective’s latest adventure. A few months after arriving in London, the writer moved again, with his wife and his young daughter, Mary, to Tennison Road in the suburb of South Norwood. Several years later, with his fame and fortune growing, he continued his upward migration, this time to a country estate, Undershaw, in Surrey.

But Conan Doyle, a socially and politically active man, was drawn repeatedly back to the bustle and intercourse of London, and many of the characters and places he encountered found their way into the stories. The Langham, the largest and by many accounts best hotel in Victorian London, was one of Conan Doyle’s haunts. Noted for its salubrious location on Upper Regent Street (“much healthier than the peat bogs of Belgravia near the River Thames favored by other hoteliers,” as the Langham advertised when it opened in 1865) and sumptuous interiors, the hotel was a magnet for British and American literati, including the poets Robert Browning and Algernon Swinburne, the writer Mark Twain and the explorer Henry Morton Stanley before he set out to find Dr. Livingstone in Africa. It was at the Langham that Conan Doyle would place a fictional king of Bohemia, the 6-foot-6 Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, as a guest. In “A Scandal in Bohemia,” published in 1891, the rakish, masked Bohemian monarch hires Holmes to recover an embarrassing photograph from a former lover. “You will find me at The Langham, under the name of Count Von Kramm,” the king informs the detective.

Another institution that figured both in Conan Doyle’s real and imagined life was the Lyceum Theatre in the West End, a short walk from Piccadilly Circus. Conan Doyle’s play Waterloo had its London opening there in 1894, starring Henry Irving, the Shakespearian thespian he had admired two decades earlier during his first London trip. In The Sign of Four, Holmes’ client, Mary Morstan, receives a letter directing her to meet a mysterious correspondent at the Lyceum’s “third pillar from the left,” now another destination for Sherlockians. Conan Doyle was an active member of both the Authors’ Club on Dover Street and the Athenaeum Club on Pall Mall, near Buckingham Palace. The latter served as the model for the Diogenes Club, where Watson and Holmes go to meet Holmes’ older brother, Mycroft, in “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter.”

Although Holmes made his creator wealthy and famous, Conan Doyle quickly wearied of the character. “He really thought that his literary vocation was elsewhere,” says Lycett, the biographer. “He was going to be somebody a bit like Walter Scott, who would write these great historical novels.” According to David Stuart Davies, who has written five Holmes mystery novels and two one-man shows about Holmes, Conan Doyle “wanted to prove that he was more than just a mystery writer, a man who made puzzles for a cardboard character to solve. He was desperate to cut the shackles of Sherlock from him,” so much so that in 1893, Conan Doyle sent Holmes plummeting to his death over the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland along with Professor Moriarty.

But less than a decade later—during which Conan Doyle wrote a series of swashbuckling pirate stories and a novel, among other works, which were received with indif­ference—popular demand, and the promise of generous remuneration, eventually persuaded him to resuscitate the detective, first in the masterful novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, which appeared in 1901, then in a spate of less well-regarded stories that he continued writing until he died of a heart attack in 1930 at age 71. In addition to the Holmes stories, Conan Doyle had written some 60 works of nonfiction and fiction, including plays, poetry and such science-fiction classics as The Lost World, and amassed a fortune of perhaps $9 million in today’s dollars. “Conan Doyle never realized what he’d created in Sherlock Holmes,” says Davies. “What would he say today if he could see what he spawned?”

Late one morning, I head for the neighborhood around St. Paul’s Cathedral and walk along the Thames, passing underneath the Millennium Bridge. In The Sign of Four, Holmes and Watson set off one evening on a “mad, flying manhunt” on the Thames in pursuit of a villain escaping in a launch. “One great yellow lantern in our bows threw a long, flickering funnel of light in front of us,” Conan Doyle wrote. The pursuit ends in “a wild and desolate place, where the moon glimmered upon a wide expanse of marshland, with pools of stagnant water and beds of decaying vegetation.” Today the muddy riverbank, with rotting wooden pilings protruding from the water, still bears faint echoes of that memorable chase.

I cross St. Paul’s churchyard, wind through alleys and meet Johnson in front of the stately Henry VIII gate at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Founded in 1123 by a courtier of Henry I, Barts is located in Smithfield, a section of the city that once held a medieval execution ground. There, heretics and traitors, including the Scottish patriot William Wallace (portrayed by Mel Gibson in the film Braveheart), were drawn and quartered. The square is surrounded by public houses—one half-timbered structure dates to Elizabethan times—that cater to workers in the Smithfield meat market, a sprawling Victorian edifice with a louvered roof where cattle were driven and slaughtered as late as the 1850s. In the hospital’s small museum, a plaque erected by the Baker Street Irregulars, an American Holmesian group, commemorates the first meeting of Holmes and Watson in the now-defunct chemistry lab.

We end up in Poppins Court, an alley off Fleet Street, which some Holmes followers insist is the Pope’s Court in the story “The Red-Headed League.” In that comic tale, Holmes’ client, the dim-witted pawnbroker Jabez Wilson, answers a newspaper ad offering £4 a week to a man “sound in body and mind” whose only other qualifications are that he must have red hair and be over 21. Wilson applies for the job, along with hundreds of other redheads, in an office building located in an alley off Fleet Street, Pope’s Court. “Fleet Street,” wrote Conan Doyle, “was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope’s Court looked like a coster’s [fruit seller’s] orange barrow.” The job, which requires copying out the Encyclopaedia Britannica for four hours a day, is a ruse to keep Wilson from his pawnshop for eight weeks—while thieves drill into the bank vault next door. Studying a 19th-century map of the district as the lunchtime crowd bustles past us, Johnson has his doubts. “I don’t think Conan Doyle knew about Poppins Court at all, but it’s very convenient,” he says.

Conan Doyle, adds Johnson, “simply invented some places, and what we’re doing is finding real places that could match the invented ones.” Holmes’ creator may have exercised artistic license with London’s streets and markets. But with vivid evocations of the Victorian city—one recalls the fog-shrouded scene Conan Doyle conjures in A Study in Scarlet: “a dun-coloured veil hung over the house tops, looking like the reflections of the mud-coloured streets beneath”—he captured its essence like few other writers before or since.

 Devider

221 Baker street Apt B

The Baltimore Legend Of Sherlock Holmes
William M Dame
The Sun (1837-1987); Mar 30, 1947;
pg. MA9

The Baltimore legend of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes, famous English detective, lived in Baltimore, in Frick’s Folly, Park Avenue and McMackin Street.
This theory – they prefer to call it a deduction – is advanced to buy the Six Napoleons, a group of Baltimoreans who are such ardent admirers of the Baker Street sleuth that they have formed an organization and meet once a month to discuss his adventures. The Six Napoleons explained – or deduced – Holmes’ Baltimore visit from the following facts. Holmes was a chemist and student of anatomy. His books reveal he was a connoisseur of oysters. The group of houses on the west side of Park Avenue, below McMechen Street, are replicas of the houses on Baker St., London. (Note there is a Baker Street within a mile if the Park Avenue, McMechen Street area, that may have drawn Holmes to the area.) Holmes, it was a perfectionist, they say, and where would he have gone, except Baltimore to get the best in medical science and the best in oysters? They clinch the argument with the statement that the city directory for 1876 list a Holmes at the Park Avenue address. Lloyd H. Denton, one of the Napoleons, explains how the Baker Street house happened to be built on Park Avenue: “Charles P. Frick, a merchant, visited his brother in London and was quite taken with the style of the houses on Baker Street. On his return to Baltimore, he built an almost identical row of houses, complete even with the blue fan lights.” James T. Hyslop, British advice of counsel in Baltimore, backed up Mr. Denton story of Frick’s folly, saying, “You have my word on it, those houses are good copies. I had to think twice to realize this is Baltimore, and not London.” Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character, created by Sir Arthur Cannon Doyle. However, the Six Napoleons, and studying Holmes, have associated him with so many varied subjects, that they have grown to know him as a real person. Last August, Alan Robertson organized a Sherlock Holmes society for Sherlock Holmes admirers. They had their first meeting early in September, when plans of an organization were made. Mr. Robertson, a lawyer, was elected Tantalus: Mr. Hyslop, Commissionaire, and Paul S. Clarkson, also a lawyer, was chosen Gasogene. The titles of the officers are taken from different events in the life of Sherlock Holmes. To understand them to require some knowledge of the “sacred writings of Cannon Doyle. The name of the group comes from the book. “The adventures of the six Napoleons.” The six Napoleons is a Psion society of the Baker Street irregulars, the national organization. Founded in 1934 one Christopher Morley and Vincent Starratt met on Holmes’s birthday, January 6, the idea spread and Psion societies, or chapters, or started in 15 cities. Every year, on January 6, members of the many chapters meet in New York for the annual convention. Promptly at 6 PM the delegates rise and drink a toast to “the woman.” Irene Adler, who once got the better of Sherlock Holmes. A subscription to “the Baker St., Journal, and a regular quarterly of Sherlockiana.” Published by the parent group, has been presented to the in knock Pratt library by the six Napoleons. The candidate for membership must be a true “Conanical” to pass the entrance examination “an exam that would make the average college graduate scurry for cover.” “We make the exam tough to discourage travelers,” says Mr. Robertson, “since our organization is composed of serious men pursuing a serious hobby.”

As an example of the questions used in the entrance exam the Tantalus offered the following:

1. What was the nature of the use of the hypodermic syringe mentioned in “the adventure of the missing three-quarter?”
2. What happened to the egg laid by the Christmas goose quote?
3. What was the title of the book in a knock J Trevor’s pocket when he was murdered?
4. What made the sheep lame?
5. What did the dog do in the night time?

The group is not seeking members. However, they will consider the candidacy of anyone who proves his true love for Sherlockiana, and can pass the exam. Explaining the real purpose of the group, “Napoleon” Robertson says, “we are men who find great enjoyment in the works of Sir Arthur Cannon Doyle. Our mutual interest has brought about a genuine feeling of comradeship. “It is significant,” he continues, “that only in a democracy can men gather and discuss the stories. In many countries, the Holmes tales are banned since they don’t conform with the policies of the government. In contrast to this, Sherlock Holmes is required reading for all applicants for membership on the Egyptian police.” The six Napoleons meet irregularly, about once a month. Mr. Robertson, the Tantalus, gives members time to prepare their arguments while he makes plans for any special events. “Then,” said Mr. Denton, “we meet at the call of the Tantalus.” The “bylaws” of the group state that each member pays for his own food and drink. There are no dues. At a typical meeting, the six Napoleons start their discussions at dinner. If one member has discovered something unusual, he presents his theory and tries to prove his point. Otherwise, the members chat back and forth around the table. At the annual dinner in New York, it is customary for members at the head of the table to be challenged from the floor. Any question is permissible if it relates to Sherlockiana. The national “bylaws” state that if the challenge party cannot answer the question, he must buy drinks for the house. The question might be: “what is the address of the redheaded league?” The casual reader could never answer; but the student of the Conanocals would answer, “7 Popes Court, Fleet St., London.” With the six Napoleons, the talk goes from one phase of Sherlockiana to another. No matter how hot the argument, there is an error of friendly seriousness at the meeting. Quite often, the discussion of the “sacred writings” lead to other fields, comparing Holmes is times with the present day. In discussing, “the hound of the Baskerville’s,” an argument started about the effectiveness of bloodhounds, as a result, members have been in correspondence with the FBI and police of Maryland and New York. Capt. Alexander Emerson, of the Baltimore Police Department, attended a recent meeting, and gave a talk on his experience with bloodhounds. He supported the theory that the hounds are effective only up to a certain point… They are not infallible. Then he digressed to talking about his experience with the vice squad. As a part of the January meeting, the members made a pilgrimage to the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, the father of the detective stories. They had to climb a fence to do it, but they gathered about the tomb and bowed their heads. In the future, any candidate must be willing to do the same. When “the red Mill” played at Ford’s theater, Jack waiting and Jack August and, who played Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in the show, or luncheon guests of the Napoleons. Mr. Whiting also dropped in on the January meeting. The members are usually busy with some phase of Sherlockiana. Matt are. Fairlie, CHEMIST from Annapolis, is engaged in research to prove whether or not Holmes chemistry work was accurate. Irvin Paxton has been trying to discover the true identity of the sculptor who made the famous bust of Napoleon. His investigation has taken him deep into history. Paul S Clarkson is making a study of the extent of Holmes is knowledge of Shakespeare; while Joseph F. Purdy has written a paper on “the hound of the Baskerville’s.” Mr. Robertson has prepared two legal briefs on compounding a felony and commuting a felony, based on his research into early endless statutes, and Blackstone’s commentaries, as applied to Sherlock Holmes. Mr. Hyslop, the commissionaire, has special standing in the group. His father was a member of the fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, the outfit to which Dr. John H. Watson was attached as a surgeon. Since the first meeting, the Napoleons have been trying to get a bust of Napoleon; the kind that once were available intense and stores for a dime. Friends of the members are eating in the search. Mr. Robertson is offering “honorary membership to the person who will present us with the bust we seek.” Mr. Denton says, “Holmes is a real character, a real man to all of us. He’s 93 now; we hope he lives to be 193.” According to British postal authorities, more mail is addressed to “Sherlock Holmes, 220 1B Baker St., London.” Than any other individual in the British Isles. Up to now, no mail has been sent to Holmes on Frick’s Folly.

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Published in Knowledge

Capt. William J. Forrest

Friday, 21 February 2020 11:35
Capt. William J. Forrest

Capt. William J. Forrest

Sergeant William J Forrest   Sgt Wm. Forrest 1907 (The Father)

This was brought to me as if it was one person; turns out there are two entrance on duty dates, making this a father, son team.. Still the son, served nearly 50 years... 46 years and 8 months to be exact. To figure out when Inspector Forest began his career we'll work backwards from his "Final Roll Call" The Obituary listed in the Baltimore Sun, Mar of 1967- This may be the longest working police our department has ever had, (or so his nephew says) This could have been true at the time, as he did serve the near 46 years and retire at 70 years of age or greater. But better we have a son following in his dad's footsteps and doing what every father wants, he surpassed his father's great job on the force and went on to become one of the longest working police, making it from Patrol to Inspector, from a time when horses and wagons were used to a time when automobiles were used, and before he left the K9 unit was in affect.

There is an article where he was mentioned in 1897 when he was being considered for promotion to Sergeant, (At the time you had to have either 3 or 5 years in patrol to be considered for Sergeant, if we go with the lessor of the two and say 3 years, 1897 consideration would mean he may have been on since 1894. Bobby Brown looked into it for me and came up with a start date for the father of  1888, and was promoted in 1903 (1-12-1903) .

The father was mentioned in the Sun Paper in 1904, twice, both times he was Sergeant, the first was 30 May 1904 the second was 28 Oct 1904. He can be seen in the 1907 Blue Book "Baltimore Police History", he is pictured and was Sergeant.

In 1911 his son follows in his footsteps,  he was promoted to sergeant on 5-8-1918, and to Lieutenant on 6-1-1922. It is the son that appears in the paper in 1922 (article below) Sometime between the 1918 and 1922 date, Wm. J Forrest Jr was promoted to Round Sergeant. In 1946, the Sun Paper has the son William J Forrest Jr Listed as Captain, and in 1955 he is listed as Inspector. He retired in 1956, and passed away in 1967. During his time on the force Inspector William J Forrest Jr, was commended 4 times in 1922, 7 times in 1923, 4 times in 1924 and 1 time in 1925 for a total of 16 commendation of a 46 years career.

The Father and Son would show up in the news more than what you will find on this page, but these were some of the reports found, or sent to us... We'll try to separate the reports out so we'll know father from son. These articles, from 1922, 1930, 1946, 1955, 1956 and 1967 are all from the son's career. In the 1956 article, 21 Aug 56 to be exact - The report said the City was honoring Inspector Forrest at a luncheon. The Baltimore Sun began its report by first thanking the Inspector Forrest for his nearly 46 years faithful service” which would make the Inspector near 70 years of age at the time of his retirement.

Between Father and Son they saw major changes in law enforcement, a father coming on in 1888 when the Mounted unit was begun, and the Son retiring in 1956 when the K9 unit was founded. One saw the years of wagons and Bobby Caps, the saw motor vehicles, and what would become the best K9 unit in this country, perhaps the world. The things this family saw in law enforcement.

In 1967 The Sun Passed away, born in 1876, made him 91 at the time of his death. Survived by his wife, Nettie Lockwood Forrest; a daughter, Miss Frances Forrest two brothers, Julian I. Forrest who retired as a major in the Police Department, and Carroll Forrest; as well as a sister. Mrs. Helen Meyers, all of Baltimore. I am not sure how long he was on, but will include everything we have found and that was sent to me, so you can take a look for yourself.

The Following are reports of both the Father and the Son...

1967 – 5 Mar, 1967 A requiem high mass for William J. Forrest, a retired Baltimore city police inspector will be offend at 10 A.M; Tuesday at the Immaculate Conception Church, Baltimore and Ware avenues. Towson. Mr. Forrest. who lived at 333 Dixie Drive, Towson, died Friday night at Franklin Square Hospital after a stroke a month earlier. Mr. Forrest retired in 1956 as an inspector after 48 years in the Police Department. As inspector he commanded a number of police operations including be Southwestern, Southern Pres and Northwestern districts and the Pine Street station. Backed Foot Patrolman. A police administration or the old school Mr. Forrest argued that the foot patrolman was the nucleus of the police force. Unlike radio patrols, he said. Foot patrolmen have a personal knowledge or their beats. Inspector Forrest became a foot patrolman in 1911 and was promoted to sergeant, round sergeant, lieutenant and captain before being appointed an inspector in 1946. Formed the Sanitation Squad among his tasks as inspector was the organization of a sanitation squad to inspect rooming houses to see that they met standards of the city housing code. He received 9 commendations for arrests of murderers and burglars over his years with the Baltimore Police Department. His survivors include his wife, the former Nettie Lockwood; a daughter, Miss Frances Forrest two brothers, Julian I. Forrest who retired as a major in the Police Department and Carroll Forrest; and a sister. Mrs. Helen Meyers, all of Baltimore. (The Son)

1956 – The Baltimore Sun Paper wrote an article on the then retiring Inspector William J. Forrest Jr. in the article he is thanked for his nearly 46 years of “faithful” service. News reports from his time as a Police Sergeant, a Round Sergeant a Lieutenant, Captain, and finally Inspector, lets, keep track of those years… and well either have proof of a start date, or enough evidence to conclude his start date.  1st Sun paper’s report on the City’s honoring of Inspector Forrest at a luncheon, where on 21 August 1956 the Baltimore Sun begins its report by first thanking the Inspector Forrest for his nearly 46 years faithful service” they then introduce some of those in attendance, such as Mayor D’Alesandro, they also mention the police commissioner (James Hepbron) as being present, along with many other City and State officials, of varying ranks ranging from Patrolman, to Chief Inspector. The Ballroom of Emerson Hotel shortly past noon, on this day was filled to capacity. Inspector Forrest himself worked his way up through the ranks, and at age 70 (according to the paper) he is survived by no one who has been a Baltimore policeman longer.  Anselm Sodaro, State Attorney acted as Toastmaster at the head table, where the guest of Honor was flanked by his wife, and a daughter, Miss Frances Forrest. There was no "Principal speaker," but many a police official were expected to follow the Mayor in reminding the inspector that this was "his" day. A gift the nature of which was kept secret, was ready for the presentation. It was the result of contributions from every member of the police department. Jerome J. Sebastian. Auxiliary Bishop of Baltimore will offer the prayer. In charge of the arrangements for the luncheon was is Police Inspector by the name of Bernard J. Schmidt. (Side Note: Bernard Schmidt, who went on to become Baltimore’s Police Commissioner from 1961 to 1966... Early in PC Schmidt’s tenure as Police Commissioner he was in an elevator in the old Headquarters building when a young patrolman entered same; after a few floors the PC turns to young officer and asked if he knew who he was? The young man apologized, but said he did not know. PC Schmidt said it is OK, and that he understood. It wasn’t long after that day, in that elevator, that pictures of the Commissioner were hung in roll call rooms of all 9 districts so everyone would know what the PC looked like, a tradition started).  Anyway back to 1956… The luncheon was held and went off without a hitch… except for the line about 46 years’ service... - So let’s begin (The Son)

1955 – In 1955 the Sun Paper made a report on a Use of Force report against 2 Patrolman (9 Aug 1955) Inspector Forrest at the time (Listed as Police Inspector William J Forrest) it was reported that Inspector Forrest was assigned to investigate the charges that the two officers of the Southwestern administered a savage beating to a man they had arrested the Friday before 5 Aug 1955. The suspect was charged with disorderly conduct. The investigation reports made out by the accused patrolmen. Benjamin Leddon and Charles Butka, have not yet been supplied, Inspector Ford said. When all the official reports are in, he said, they will be made available to Inspector Forrest for use in his investigation. The alleged victim of the beating, John Minnick, 27 of the 1000 block of West Lombard Street, was arrested after police were called to break up an incipient fight at a tavern in the 1100 block of West Pratt Street. 1 Unmarked When He Got In Witnesses said the fight never developed, but! Minnick was! Arrested on the street outside. At a hearing in Southwestern Police Court Saturday morning it was stated in testimony that Minnick was unmarked when he got into the police patrol car for the three block ride to the station, but that when he was seen later at the station he was almost unrecognizable. Police said he required hospital treatment the accused patrolmen said they were forced to battle with Minnick because he tried to grab Patrolman Leddon's gun. One of the policemen was injured in the struggle. The court was told Magistrate Howard L. Aaron fined Minnick $25 for disorderly Conduct, suspended the fine and jailed him for 30 days on charges of assaulting the two policemen. This report was made Aug 9, 1955 (The Son)

1946 – In 1946 the paper reports Capt. William J. Forrest has been promoted to Inspector and has two police Lieutenants have been promoted to Captain. (10 Jan 1946) It went on to say, Inspector Forest will be placed in the command of the Southern and Central Districts. Lt Alfred Cormack has been named to succeed Inspector Forrest as captain in the Northwestern District, and Lieut. Thomas S. Dunn, of the Northeastern District, will assume command of the Southwestern District to fill the vacancy created by the recent retirement of Capt. Lawrence King. With filling of the fifth inspector's position, created by the last Legislature, Commissioner Atkinson announced that the city's eight districts will now be divided between four ·or the inspectors. Inspector Joseph H. Itzel will Command the Eastern and Northeastern districts, Inspector John H. Mintiens will head the Northwestern and Northern districts and Inspector John R. Schueler will be placed in charge of the Western and Southwestern districts. M. Joseph Wallace is chief inspector. (The Son)

1930– In Early December 1930 He was listed as a Lieutenant in the arrests of two robbery suspects accused of robbing a luncheon owner of $11 dollars at gun point. It took the good Lieutenant’s men a total of 15 minutes to capture these two desperados. The victim in this case was a, John Furman proprietor who runs a lunch room in the 1100 Block of Haubert Street. The incident took place at around 10 o’clock am when two armed men came in, one pointed a gun at him and demanded his daily take. Furman, handed them all he had approximately $11 dollars (his startup money, as this is a luncheon and the Robbers came in well before lunch time, they only got startup money for the day). The men were captured and arrested by Southern District Patrolmen John Peters and Martin Contey. Once at the Station the men identified themselves as Earnest Frost, 24, and Delmar Bull 22, both were sailors (this was an issue with Baltimore as far back as its founding days as a Port City, whereas criminals would come in on ships, commit crimes then either get back on the boat to leave the city, or a criminal transient simply move about the city without a trace) In this case, the police found $11 on one, and a pistol on the other. – The second incident titled Robbed at Gun Point, tells of Max Feldman, the owner of a Deli in the 4700 Block of Gwynn Oaks Ave, reported to the police that two men robbed him of $20 at gun point the night before. Feildman said one of the men about 25 entered the shop and asked for a sandwich, a second man drew a pistol and told him to get into the rear room. The two then took the $20 from the cash drawer. William T Sherwood night manager of the Guilford garage, Calvert and 34th Street reported that a man tried to steal an automobile from his garage at around 10:30 last night, as Sherwood attempted to stop him, he drew a pistol. Sherwood wisely backed off and let him go (without the automobile) In his same report City Police were on the lookout for three escaped suspects out of the Frederick City Jail, the three had sawed their way out, they said, one of those arrested had a diamond filling in his tooth, that was somehow used to saw through the bars to freedom, (I guess you could say they chewed their way out) And now we hear more about our Famed Lieutenant Williams, as Mr. Friedman saves $300 by picking it from the floor of the Callow Ave Streetcar on which the robbery occurred. One of the thieves had dropped the loot on the floor while taking the entire amount from the grocer’s pocket. The Robbery was accomplished by jostling Mr. Freidman so that he did not feel a hand slip into the inside pocket of his suit coat. So violent was the jostling Mr. Friedman was about to tell the two men, one in front of him the other behind to leave him alone when he noticed the money on the floor of the car. He noticed too that his pocket was empty and his Bank book was gone. The Struggle followed the theft, Me Friedman grabbed for the nearest thief, the second thief joined in the fray and the three men left the streetcar at Liberty and Redwood Streets. They fell to the street and two $50 bills from the $300 Mr. Friedman had salvaged fluttered to the ground. Mr. Freidman stopped to pick up the money and the two thieves ran, one east on Redwood street and the other west on the same thoroughfare. Cased by Patrolman, A cab driver, Anthony Aquilla, 18 was sitting in his parked machine near the car stop when three men left the trolley. He called a patrolman Mr. Friedman and the Patrolman got into a cab and followed the pickpockets east on Redwood, losing him in a crowd at Charles Street. Then Mr. Friedman, who lives at 1233 South Cary Street, went to the Western District where he told his story to Capt. John S Cooney and Lieutenant William J Forrest. So from this we not only get a little history of the times, by we see in in 1930 Inspector Williams was a Lieutenant (The Son)

1922 – Monshine raid made late September 1922 Southern district police, headed by Lieutenant William J. Forrest and Sergeant Clarence C. Kendall, yesterday 20 September 1922 raided 415 South Hanover Street, where they charge, they discovered a 200-gallon still, a 100-horspower boiler, 18 50· gallon fermenters, 500 pounds of rye meal and eight gallons of moonshine liquor. They arrested Albert Leuba and Arthur Chicks, both of 125 West Barre street, who were turned over to Edward J Lindholm, deputy internal revenue collector, who seized the illicit outfit. Leuba and Chicks were arraigned before J Frank Supplee Jr, United States Commissioner, and held for a hearing September 29th  Sumuel .J. Hall and Chester E. Nolas, of Rising Sun Md., were released on bail for court after a hearing before the Commissioner on charges of manufacturing and possessing liquor. The charges developed from the discovery of a 200-gallon still at Rising Sun. Palmer C. Rakes, also arrested. was held on an additional charge of resisting and obstructing an officer. A continuance was ordered in the case against Norman A. Clark, whose address was given as 543 Wayne street, accused of being the principal in distilling operations at Earleigh Heights, Anne Arundel county, where a 1,000 gallon still was found. M Carenda and William Woods are implicated under the warrant of arrest. David King, negro, arrested at the time, turned Government witness. Joseph Feriara. Russell Torres and Herman Constantine, of Baltimore, and Delmar Sutphin and Edward Wilkins, of Hising Sun, charged with manufacturing and possessing liquor, were released on bail for court. (The Son)

1907– History of the Baltimore Police Department 1774-1907 Original book released in 1907, Lists William J Forrest on Page 56 with a photo, as a Sergeant, at the time in order to meet eligibility requirements as a Sergeant, one had to have at least 3 years in Patrol, and while we have him in a 1907 Book which would make him a member since at least 1904, we have other news articles putting him in the news in 1904, also listed as Sergeant, meaning we are looking at 1898/99 – But then, there is a final article in which they were considering him for promotion to the rank of Sergeant and that was 12 May 1897. So assuming it was his first chance for promotion, and he came on 3 years earlier 1894… and he retired in 1956 it would mean he did 62 years on force, now assuming he came on at 21 years of age, he would have been 83 at retirement not 80 as was believed. We already know the newspaper was incorrect as to the 1911 date they gave him as a start date, their own articles show he was on in 1897, 1904, 1907, 1922, 1930, 1946, 1955, and 1956. The main question now is, was the 3 year rule in affect, and is so did he start in 1894 or 95. (The father)

1904 – 28 Oct 1904 (the year of the Great Fire) the Baltimore Sun article Titled “Policemen Transferred” subtitled Sergeant Carberry Sent to Northwestern Distirct’ It began by saying, “The Following changes were made yesterday 27 October 1904, by the Board of Police Commissioners: Sergt. William J. Forrest Northwestern to Central... it names an additional 7 Sergeants or patrolmen that were moved around before continuing… The Changes were made “for the good of the Department” and ere brought about after the hearing of the case of Sergt. Carberry, who was before the board shortly before the changes were made? The three patrolman removed from the Central District were in Sergeant Carberry’s squad and testified against him at a hearing. It was decide at the hearing that there was much feeling among the men and that it would be best to scatter them apart. Patrolmen William L Thomas, who testified against the sergeant, was allowed to remain in his district. Probationary Patrolman George J. Will, of the Western district, was made a regular patrolman and Alexander H. Hobbs was made a probationer and assigned to the Central District by Orders of the board, Detective Todd Hall was given $25 donated by Mr. Allen Mclane in investigating the death of Mayor McLane. For services rendered by the detective in investigating the death of Mayor McLane. Detective Hall reported that the death of the Mayor was accidental. (The father)

1904 – 30 May 1904 Two raids were made In the Northwestern district Yesterday why officers in plain clothes under the direction of Capt. Schultz. Shortly after 1 o'clock in the morning Round Sergeant Thomas Hood, Sergeant William J. Forrest and Patrolmen James E. Abbott and Harry Webster entered the saloon of George L Jeannert, 589 Baker street, and surprised the 19 occupants all colored. All bands were sent to the station in the patrol wagon, it being necessary to make two trips. Justice Goldman committed Jeannert for court on the charge of selling liquor on Sunday. The saloon of Mrs Kate Keaveney, at 540 Dolphin street, was raided about noon by Patrolmen Robert T. Neal, Albert McLane and Peter Coughlin, of the Northern district. When the officers entered the place they found five negroes standing before the bar and there was a rush tor liberty. One dashed through the house and made his escape by leaping over the rear fence. The other four were taken to the station, with several glasses of beer. Mrs. Keaveney was released on bail tor court by Justice Goldman on the charge of selling liquor on Sunday. (The father)

1897 – 12 May 1897 - Patrolman Plum's Promotion. The list or patrolman’s names considered as eligible by Captain Baker and prepared the day previous was produced. It contained the names of Plum, Miller, Forrest, Bishop, and Green. Commissioner Johnson named Plum. (The father)

captain william forrest
Captain William J Forrest Son
later promoted to Inspector

inspector william forrest badge1
Original Inspector badge and case belonging to Inspector William J Forrest

inspector william forrest badge2The original badge issued to Inspector William J Forrest
pistol6

While we can see this isn't the same holster, or for the same make model gun, we can see it is made by the same leather smith, we can see that portion where the two straps come together and look like a seven almost, and that it is unique to both holsters - We can also see from information in the photo that this was custom made for a Smith & Wesson "Baby Russian"  a .38 Cal. Revolver often carried by our Police back in the late 1800's early 1900's - we should also note, that during these time a lot of officers carried their pistols in their pocket, hence the need of a pocket holster. We have had several serious injuries, even some deaths caused by this seriously unsafe method of carrying a weapon.

1 black devider 800 8 72

The following are Holsters one time owned by Inspector Forrest

The following two Holsters were purchased from a seller of antique firearms, leather and other police related Antiquities. This seller was selling these for Charles "Charlie" Klein, Charlie is 84 years old as of the time of this post (April 2014) he said he got these from his Uncle William Forest, a one time Inspector.   

57iPocket Holster from the Late 1800's early 1900's
57iiPocket Holster from the Late 1800's early 1900's
59Pocket Holster from the Late 1800's early 1900's
57iuyAudley Saftey Holster Pat. 13 Oct. 1914
57audyAudley Saftey Holster Pat. 13 Oct. 1914

765Audley Saftey Holster Pat. 13 Oct. 1914
57 17On the right we see the rear of the Audley Safety Holster Pat. 13 Oct. 1914
58
On the right we see the rear of the Audley Safety Holster Pat. 13 Oct. 1914

The Audley Safety Holster Company was established in the early 1900s, prior to 1905, by F. H. Audley who had previously been a Saddle, Harness and Boot maker. These were trades he had learned early in life as a young boy and developed over 30 in the Saddlery and Harness business.

Having started his own saddlery business in New York, at 2557 Third Avenue (Near 139th Street), in approximately 1876 and operating until 1885, F. H. Audley closed his business and went into business with Mr. P. H. Comerford remaining in Saddlery, Harness & Boot making. In 1891, Frank H. Audley went back into business himself and although making quality saddlery and boots, he struggled over the next 10 years until the turn of the century.

In the early 1900s, F. H. Audley moved his shop to 8 Centre Market Place, across from Police Headquarters and it was at this time he starting getting a lot of exposure to Police equipment. From this time, F. H. Audley filed many patents for various pieces of Police equipment which he developed and sold to many of the New York City Police Officers that utilized he services from his accessible location.

The most famous of these inventions was the Audley Safety Holster which F. H. Audley applied for patents in 1912 and they were approved October 13, 1914. The holster incorporates a spring loaded steel catch in the body of the holster which securely holds the pistol in place. It can only be released by using the index finger to depress the catch. It is virtually impossible for anyone other than the person wearing the holster to do this. No other retaining strap is required.

They were popular with many officers in WW1 and were also used by many American Police Departments. The Audley Company was taken over by the Folsom Arms Co., which in turn was absorbed by the Cortland Bootjack Co, and eventually became the JayPee holster company. This particular model was probably used by a motor cycle or horse mounted officer of the 1920-30 period.

Francis H. Audley Died in May of 1916 and by chance, I was able to find a copy of the Obituary from the New York Times May 11, 1916

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