He was graduated from St. Thomas in 1958 and became chief security officer for the Golden Rule Department Store in St. Paul. Then he joined the city’s police department.
One morning Dolan reported for roll call at the main police headquarters in the Public Safety Building. After inspection the lieutenant read off the list of assignments for the day. He said, “Dolan, you will work Car 309 with Officer Schwartz.”
Dolan climbed into the car beside Schwartz and all the old memories came flooding back of how he once hated this gruff policeman who had booted him in the pants. He remembered wryly his vow to one day get revenge.
Now “Red” Schwartz’s hair was sprinkled with gray. He was heavier and the lines on his face were deeper. His hands, though, were just as big and powerful as Dolan had remembered, and he had the same stern air of authority about him.
Dolan said nothing about the remembered indignities, and the older man apparently did not recognize the rookie as one of the youngsters who had given him such a bad time out on Selby Avenue. He could not know, either, that he had had such a strong influence on the youth who sat beside him.
They made their rounds without incident that day until late in the afternoon when the car radio said: “Car 309 ... Hague and Dunlap ... a child has been struck by a car....”
Schwartz picked up the transmitter and said: “309 to Hague and Dunlap ... 4:05.” He swung the car toward the scene of the accident. A little girl lay beside the curb, and her weeping mother was wiping blood from her daughter’s face with a cloth. The child had darted from the curb into the path of an automobile. There had been a screech of brakes and the girl had been hurled to the curb, unconscious.
As Dolan recalled the scene later in talking to me: “Schwartz, as big as he was, was out of the car ahead of me. He went straight to the little girl and her mother and I never would have believed those big hands could be so gentle. He soothed the mother with a few words, and when he saw the girl wasn’t seriously hurt, he picked her up in his arms and carried her into her home as though she were his own daughter.”
Then Dolan added, “I was very proud of Schwartz that day and of being his partner in Car 309.”
Twelve years after receiving the kick in the pants from Schwartz, Dolan was among the students selected to attend the Treasury Department’s Law Enforcement School at 711 12th Street in downtown Washington, D. C. He finally had decided to become a Secret Service agent, and now he was receiving basic training with rookie agents from the Customs Bureau, the Narcotics Bureau, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and units of the Internal Revenue Service.