AUGUSTINE E. COSTELLO.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES OF THE POLICE.
Said Mr. Goff at one of the sittings of the Lexow Committee:—
We have, Mr. Chairman, called attention heretofore to what may be justly termed “slaughter-houses,” known as police-stations, where prisoners in custody of the officers of the law, and under the law’s protection, have been brutally kicked and maltreated, almost within view of the judge presiding in the Court.—Vol. iv., p. 3,598.
Slaughter-houses is not a bad term. The cases in which witnesses swore to violent assault on prisoners in the cells by policemen were numerous. That which immediately provoked this observation was a typical one of its kind.
One Frank Prince, who had been keeping a disorderly house in Ninety-eighth Street, had the temerity to refuse to pay the 100 dollars a month blackmail which had been demanded by the police. His house was raided, and he was taken to the station-house. He was accused before the Captain of having said that he would make him close the other disorderly house in the district, which presumably was under the Captain’s protection. Now not to pay blackmail yourself was bad enough; but it was far worse to threaten to dry up the contributory sources of police revenue. The poor wretch denied that he had ever uttered such a threat. “Take him into the cell and attend to him!” said the Captain. Prince was marched out by the wardman, who was also blackmail collector for the precinct. When they reached the cell, the turnkey and the wardman kicked him through the doorway, and then following him in fell to beating him about the head with a policeman’s billy. They kicked him violently in the abdomen, inflicting permanent injuries, and declared he deserved to have his brains knocked out. Such was the “attendance” prisoners received in the police cell to teach them the heinousness of refusing to pay ransom to the banditti of New York. This case by no means stood alone.
The most remarkable case of police brutality to prisoners under arrest, and which is one the best attested in the collection, is that of the Irish revolutionist, Mr. Augustine E. Costello.