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

REPORT ON THE TOPIC OF THE DAY Tuesday, October 24. 1967 WHY? OFFICERS SUCH AS CHARLES DAVIS (LEFT) AND MIKE MAHONEY ·HAVE SEEN RACIAL DOUBLE STANDARD FADE ON MIAMI FORCE !!J(i the rage of "burn whitey," the problem of minority group policemen has jumped to a new high in importance ••• To the poor mani to the rich ,:nan ••• to the in-between man.,. - In Denver ••• and in Chicago • , • and everywhere in the United States. To determine how Denver stacks up in its handling of minority group policemen, The Denver Post sent one of its top reporters, Dick Thomas, across the country. Thomas went to Atlanta, Ga., to Miami, Fla., to Chicago, and to Kansas City in Kansas and Missouri to find the answers. You'll find the m in this special Post Bonus issue-a .sec.. ····i tion demanding attention in today's wo rld, Is there a 11 c.olor line" in police work? Are members of minority groups getting the short end of the stick in this all• important line of public service? Or are members of the majority group being discriminated against in fa vor of the minority group policemen? "Give a man a badge and a gun. a federal agent in Denver once said, "and you're giving him just about as niuch authority as any man can have. 11 But does a Negro policeman have as much authority as a white policeman? Are there Negroes commanding white officers? Or are Negroes bypassed? Or are they promoted ahead of white officers? With the riots of the past summer hitting a high point in ~ll1l ~f~t=~::·=·=·:·.?=·=:~:=·=·=·=·=·=·=·=·=·=)D·~=·=·=·=·=·=t·=·=·=·=·=·=·=·=·=·=x=tr~tr=·=·t=·=·q:r::=\f:'=·~·t=·(=·=~~·=·=·=·\{f ·=·=t~·= =\=\~?-:=:~:=:

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·:·: -{ ···.=~·-·:·~· -~·-··\··:=·: =·:: '.=·: ·=<=·=·~: '.~:'.: \It:Nt'.CL(143.215.248.55t?'.:1~(!}:!'.~'.!'.~::-tti=:=::::'.!'.~'.:Y=·=:=:=:=·=·=·=W~i'.i �2 T H E D E N V E R P O S T Tuesday, Oct. 24, 1967 tlanta Promotes Negro • I hout Civil S r ·ce Ex By DICK THOMAS Dent)er Post Staf f Writer ATLANTA, Ga.-"Better cut out the noise back there " shouted the white woman on the porch. ' "Here comes the nigger police again. " When he reached the porch, Sgt. Howard Baugh asked the woman what the trouble was. She ignored the question. . ,, " Nobody here called no nigger police, she snapped. Finally she claimed no one had called at all. And to Baugh's knowledge no one at that address, in a transitional nejghborhood. has asked for police aid since. The ·oman's reaction was the kind Negro policemen iil alma t any Southern city could expect. . Sgt. C. J. Perry bad similar expenences. One woman, outraged at hearing a Negro answer the telephone at headquarters, demanded to talk to his superior. He transferred her to Perry. "Another nigger!" she exclaimed. "What the hell's going on down there? You got an all- igger police department?' ' Perry Can Laugh Now It wasn·t funnv at the time . but Perry can laugh now as he tells about it. " She thought all hope bad been lost," he said. Baugh, now 43, and Perry, now 47, are Ne"ro patrol lieutenar.t.s on the Atlanta PoIiC: Department. Baugh ta~es _ a . certain pride in the fact that his district_~n~ludes the Georgia State Capitol, the bailiwick of segre :itionist Gov. Lester .Maddox . Their commanding officer is the m u c h respected. nationally known Chief Hubert T. Jenkins 60, a member of President Jo ~ ~ son 's National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorder s and a past president of the Int~rnational Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). . By his own admission, J enkins also is a former Ku Kl ux Klansman. Many Things Have Chang_ed But a lot of things have changed m Atlanta since the days when thousands of hooded Klansmen trooped up Stone Mountain 15 miles east of here to burn crosses and deal with the "1'1egro problem" with chains. rope and shotguns. No longer does a Georgia office seeker have to be a Klan member to be elected. "I'm a law enforcement officer," says Jenkins. "Regardless of what they say over at the State Capitol, the U.S. Supreme Court decisions are the law of the land." So Atlanta the most progressive of all Southern citi~s. bas bad a fully integrated police department for three years. Three of the 875-man department's 96 Negroes are lieutenants. Two are sergeants. Baugh is expected to make captain within a month. It hasn't always been that way, of course. Until six years ago Negro policemen were forbidden to patrol white neighborhoods. If a white was involved in a crime in a Negro neighborhood , the policy was for the Negro policeman to "detain" him and summon white officers to make the arrest. If t h e suspect was taken to jail, he could be sure that even there he wouldn't have to " mix" with Negroes. Onlv three vears ago the Atlanta Police Department dis banded its old 6 p.m. watch -an all-Negro outfit that supplemented the three rei-iiar ( all white) patrol watchesand assigned Tegroes throughout its r anks. Other Negroes derided them as "the YMCA cops." · The change from a segregationist department to one in which a Negro can now hope to make captain was long and gradual, and although political and citizen pressures sometimes had to make up for bis own lack of enthusiasm, no one discounts the importance of Jenkins' personal leadership. George Coleman, managing editor of the Atlanta Daily World, a Negro newspaper with a circulation of 25,000, calls Jenkins "the best police chief there's ever been in Atlanta. "He's a good man," Coleman said. "He's a flexible man. He and the mayor (Ivan Allen Jr.) are men who are logical in their thinking and who are able to see the chang-ing times. And they both used to be ardent segregationists." Incident Recalled Coleman recalled an incident several years ago when a white policeman called a Negro college professor "boy." Jenkins called his men together and told them : "Look the terms 'nigger' and 'boy' are offensive 'to 40 per cent of our population. Let's not use them any more." "It wasn't an order, exactly;• Jenkins told a Post reporter. "I just explained to them that if they offend people, it's going to make their job harder and create a lot of tr ouble we wouldn't ordinarily have. "But it came out on the front page of the New York Times the next day." Jenkins said be has "always bad good support from the mayor and the leaders of this community. Call it the power structure or whatever-the people who pay most of the money to get things done. "This has never been a labor community," he said. "It's always been a white c?lIar community, a business and commercial community. And if you l:t::.ve street fights or disturbances they don't like it. It's bad for business.-not only Negro business but white business as well ." Demands Still Coming In "We haven't satisfied all the Negroes," he said. "They're always demandfog this, that and the other thing. But in the Police Department we're trying to deal with people. Not with black people or white people. With people. Their color isn't importanl" Baugh, Perry and the other Negro ?fficers in Atlanta who have won promotions have done it on the basis of work performance and conduct, not on competitive civil service examinations. But there is no reason to believe they wouldn't have made it had there been civil service. Perry has a bachelors degree in French and English from Atlanta's Morehouse College and was a junior high scho.ol teacher before joining the department 16 years ago. Baugh, a former Marine drill instru~tor and one of the first Negroes ever recrmted into that branch of service, attended the University of Hawaii during his ·hitch in service but didn't graduate. He later took a Restriction s o n Unifo rm s When Negroes first came on the department i'1 1948 the year after Jenkins became chief they Jere forbidden to wear their unifor~ to or from work. Their court testimony was given in plain clothes. And although they answered to their first names in court, anyane who was white was called ·JI / Mister. Segregation was so complete that Negro officer couldn't report for work at police headquarters. They answered musters and a'ld chawred into uniform at the Butler Street YMCA in a Negro section downtown. LT. C. J. PERRY He ca n laugh about it now. en s three-year course in industrial chemistry, under a Veterans Administration-approved tutor, while working for an Atlanta chemical firm. Since joining the department 15 years ago he has taken a supervisory course of 170 hours sponsored by the IACP and a Georgia Tech computer course, also under IACP auspices. The department is in the P:ocess of converting to electronic records-keepmg. Basis of Promotions Jenkins makes all promotions, however, on the basis of his men's past performance, giving some weight to results ~f _0:31 board examinations conducted by d1vis1on commanders. Men promoted to lieutenant or captain are on probation for a year_ before they are given civil service job protection. Ser geants and detectives have no such safeguards. They can be removed and demoted to patrolman again at any time. Since the men are under closer supervtsion there, practically all command officers come up through ·the detective bureau headed by Supt. Clinton Chafin. "Our Negro detectives' educational background, over-all, is probably be~ter ~an .~at of the white detectives," Chafin said. We have 15 Negro detectives now. "But because so many opportunities have opened up in the last few years that they haven't bad before, we're probably going to have -a hard time getting Negroes with such good educations from now on." Like J enkins Chafin doesn't think much of examination~ as a means of choosing men . . for supervisory positions. "A lot of times a man you think will make a good supervisor might not be the highest scorer on the exam," he said. '_'I'm dead set against examinations for detectives. "The two things we really try to watch for are a man ·s conduct and integrity, and his workload . Of course you have to ta~ into consideration educational factor s-his report-making ability and his ability to go into court and testify. "But we make no allowances. We treat all our people the same and expect as much from one as we do from the other." Attorney Disappointed Lack of a merit system is a source of disappointment to Richard C. Freeman, the liberal attorney who heads the Atlanta Board of Aldermen's Police Committee. "It embarrasses me for my city, for myself and for my Police Department when an officer who may be a damn good man and a good supervisor gets up before a television camera or a group of people to explain something and can hardly speak English," he said. "Our Negro officers by and large are ~s good or better than their coun~erp~ts , ID the white ranks " Freeman said. We ve been fortunate. We've got a couple of lieutenants I'd put up against anybody." . And Freeman said he favors puttmg more Negro commanders on the force. Pressing Need for It "It s not only helped the social situation but it's helped . the department," he said. " There's been a pressing need for it. B u t I'll say this. I'm absolutely, 100 per cent opposed to promoting any man just because he's black. He's got to be qualified." Freeman said low pay, the Jlazards of the job and the low esteem in which pol~cem1:n seem to be held have all put a crimp ID recruiting efforts. Work hours of Atlanta policemen have been dropped. from 48 to 40 a week in the ~ast four years, however, and r ecent pay raises will give beginning patrolmen $450 a year more than they used to get, although the pay is still low-$5,486 a year under the new schedule. . At the urging of the Police Committee a two-year course in police administration is being set up at Georgia State College in Atlanta. Jenkins said there would be more Negro policemen in Atlanta now if he could find CHIEF HERBERT T. JENKINS Once a member of the Klan. LT. HOW ARD BAUGH State Capito l in his distri ct. them. The city's population of 513,200 . is about 43 per cent Negro, a 5 per cent mcrease since the 1960 census. Negroes made up less than 11 per cent of the poli<:t: force. "We make a special effort to recrmt qualified people," he sa id. "Just peo~Ie. In one 12-month period we had 1,700 applicants and only 46 of them were found to be qualified and employed." Chief Given Praise . "I've gotten a lot of things done just by making casual suggestions," he said. "The chief is very easy to work with. ,;There was only one Negro lieutenant on the department when I came on the committee. Now there are three. There were no Negro.es in traffic. So. I asked the superintendent of traffic why there weren't. Next time I drove through downtown I looked up and there they were. "I'm working now to get a captain. And as soon as I get a captain I'm going to try for a superintendent (equivalent to Denver's division chiefs). But I know you can't make all these changes at one time." Even though at one time there was a strong Klan influence in the Atlanta Police Departm~nt, Lieutenants Baugh ~~d Perry said they encountered little hostihty from white officers when they made their rank. "I think this/' Baugh said. "Where a w~te officer might not like me, he might not like a white supervisor for the same reason. I've never wofried, particularly, abo~t my men loving me, but I would and I contmue to hope that they respect me." All commanders in Atlanta act as counselors to men in the lower ranks . Of the 40 men on Baugh's counselor list, 34 are . wh~te. Perry has 30 whites out of 34 on his list. Both men's comm~mds are also predominantly white. " "Strangely enough/' said Perry, th~re was very little rese ntment among the whit~ officers. There was some, I guess, but 1t wasn't particularly noticeable ." Editor Coleman of the Wor ld, who as a police reporter had a ha~d in getting Negroes their present place m the Atlanta department, thinks the much-he:alded "Atlanta climate" in racial matters 1s exaggerated and tha t a lot remains to be done. But he adds : "Atlanta fo r Negroes, is a hell of a lot better tha~ any other place I've seen, I'll say that." �TH E D E N VER PO ST Tuesday, Ocl. 24, 1967 as~ Negro Strength Fade in Miami u as at used t - was set up in a little 30-by-50-foot building in the downtown Negro section. They had one or two patrol cars and about a dozen bicycles, which were used by the beat men who patrolled Liberty City. Besides the downtown and Liberty City Negro neighborhoods, Negro officers were permitted to patrol Cocoanut Grove, a third largely Negro section in south Miami. Then, when Headley became chief in August 1948, all Negro patrolmen with a year or more of experience were placed under civil service. With that the double standard came into being. Lieutenant Smith was the 34th Negro to join the department. He came on in 1950. Fortified with two years of college engineering study at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Va., Smith was one of the first two officers to pass the patrolman sergeant examination. He and three other Negroes failed their first lieutenant's exam in 1962. Two years lata- he placed 12th in a field of 125 whites and Negroes with a score of 90.5, six points off the leader 's, and finally got his bars in April of last year. " Since that time, H he said, "it's clear the examinations are available, and if a guy's willing to apply himself there's no reason he shouldn t take it and pass it." But Smith said, too, that other things keep Negroes from joining the department. be no such egro policeman, even ·me there were 86 Negro l I\ iami Police Department. s were all "patrolmen," and hen them made some rank they were Iman sergean . ' Only a white a policeman. ib1y the reason for liami's double a r d w ~ that ... oes didn't have cation to pass the same entrance o ·onal examinations as white men. would seem to be some truth in lice Chief Walter E. Headley said . ~egroes ave pa~sed the entrance ce the double standard was elimiveral years :igo. As a result, Negro ,...__ _ ....._ on He.idle 's 680-man dep31iment fro 86 to 50. o, Lt. Leroy A. Smith, il, won a promotion in competition . emen. arl.lnent's white entrance examnow app ·cable to . egroes, too, albeen a college freshman level aptitude and intelligence tests modm time to time by the Miami Civil 1 Board to meet special police needs. patrolman test was gauged at e 1cni t e eighth grade level. "'llil. were just like the difference beeen ay and night," said Joe A. Yates, (l;j_--J Service Board's assistant execut · e .,e~retary. "The colored entrance exa.~ 1u~ on was basically just to see whether ey c uld read and write, and their prom otion;;J exams were the simplest kind of q es ,· s from about six books. ring Consequences they asked that they be given the assification title (policeman instead Iman) . They were warned, frankly, t .y were making a bad mistake, but 0 y msisted on it and they got it. Now they'll suffering the consequences." "E··~ Negro sergeant on the department --got ·s rank in competition agamst • ' '.~Oe:S only. .Eve Lieutenant Smith, who has two y :ar:; -:if college and who was carrying bool:a ,.n his squad car on how to study .-:nm :e was inter viewed by a Denver Post Jl!ll'CeT, failed his first exam for his pres~ t r-i. • "Wlten the department decided to elevate f its Negro officers to sergeant in -1950s it took five examinations to men to pass, Headley said. The ry six-month waiting period beams was waived. le Standa rd St ays double standard has been mainin the detective bureau. Under a 1mrt ental reorganization plan recomemle - by the International Association u.1ti -.Is of Police in 1963, all detectives upposed to have sergeant's r ank. white ones do, but the 10 Negro vesti ators haven't been able to pass the vil •iervice examination. Frm::r- years ago the Negro investigators ed · e department and the Civil Service oar , in an unsuccessful attempt to win c.r.a'J-::iti."'ation as sergeants without having pra~s the examinations. E ven though ey l lSt the suit, Headley said, the dep .artment administratively gave them a o- 1e-c;t pay increase.

,~1g a:ant's

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

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

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

•

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

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