“You know d—— well what it means,” was the reply.
“I do not understand you,” said Stanley. “What is it for?”
“Open the door,” said the Captain to an orderly, “open the door.” The orderly opened the door. “Now,” said the Captain, “get the Hell out of here!” and the book-keeper was promptly forced right out, and left on the sidewalk to reflect upon the irony of events which had subjected the author of “Our Police Protectors” to such treatment.
It is a very pretty story, and one which naturally provokes the inquiry as to how such things could be practised with impunity. Mr. Costello himself said that if there had not been so much Celtic blood in his veins there would have been several funerals in New York, for he was not only a Celtic Irishman but a Catholic Irishman, and murder was repugnant both to his religion and to his nature. Other redress than that which could be gained by your own right hand it was impossible to obtain, for it was this witness who made the famous remark previously quoted. Senator O’Connor asked him, “Did you ever take any proceedings against these men?” and the witness replied, “I never did, sir. It is no use going to law with the devil and court and hell!”
He probably thought himself lucky that he had escaped without permanent disfigurement. One Thomas J. Standant was less fortunate. A policeman named Schillinberger, of the Eleventh Precinct, who was a very athletic man, struck Standant a tremendous blow with his fist, which was not, as in McLaughlin’s case, provided with brass knuckles. Standant’s nose was smashed, the blood poured from his eyes and ears, and he was carried to the hospital, where he had to submit to various operations before he recovered his eyesight and hearing. He was badly disfigured for life. When he brought an action against the policeman for assault, the officer was defended by the Corporation Counsel. Schillinberger, although indicted by the Grand Jury, was never suspended for a moment, but continued on duty during the whole of the sittings of the Commission.
In another case a witness was produced who could hardly speak intelligibly. On Thanksgiving morning he had bought a couple of crabs from an oyster stand, the owner of which had apparently paid blackmail, and was therefore under the protection of the police. When the policeman on the beat heard the altercation between the customer and the protected oyster stand keeper he walked up to the witness and, without a word, delivered a smashing blow upon his mouth. Two front teeth were splintered up into the gum, inflicting so severe an injury that it was two days before the swelling abated sufficiently for the dentist to be able to cut away the teeth, and four days before the roots could be touched. The dentist declared that the officer must have had something in his hand, either brass knuckles or some other weapon of that kind, to splinter the teeth so badly. But in all those cases the fist seems to have been the favourite weapon.
The only other case that I shall refer to is that in which the policeman used his club. There was a fight in the hallway of a house, and one Frank Angelo had stepped in to try to part the combatants. Up came a policeman of the name of Zimmerman, who rushed into the midst of the mêlée, and striking Angelo heavily with his club, knocked his eye out. The eye hung down on the man’s cheek, and had to be subsequently removed. Angelo, all bloody, with his eye in this ghastly position, was arrested by his assailant, and taken to the police-court. The poor fellow, not knowing what would befall him, sent for a lawyer, who first of all charged him £10 for his professional services, and then said that the only way for him to get out of the scrape was to pay the officer £5, which he accordingly did. The judge asked him no question, and discharged the case. It is needless to say that Angelo brought no action against the policeman. There was no justice, he said, in New York. Justice there was indeed—hideous, diabolical, devil’s justice. It is bad enough to have your eye knocked out with a policeman’s club in the street when you are endeavouring to prevent a fight, but it is worse to have to pay that policeman £5 for having performed that operation, and an additional £10 to a lawyer to induce the ruffian to accept the money.
After reading this, it is not surprising that Mr. Goff, now Recorder of the City of New York, publicly declared, after a careful examination of the records of the Police Department for three years, that it could be proved that the police force was to all intents and purposes and in practice exempted from and above the operation of the law of the land. Mr. Goff, after saying that in three years only one policeman had been convicted for an assault upon a citizen, and remarking that the air of the trial-room at police headquarters was blue with perjury, continued thus:—
The members of the police force of this city commit offences of the grade of felony and misdemeanour, and they have gone for years unpunished and unwhipped for those offences, which, if committed by citizens, would have resulted in fact in sentence to State’s prison, and to the penitentiary. In other words, the operation of the law of this State, so far as it applies to the citizens of New York, and to all persons as it should, stops short of the police force. Felonious assaults have been committed upon citizens by policemen, which if committed by a civilian would result possibly in four or five years’ sentence in Sing Sing, and all the policeman need apprehend is, a charge against him, with a possible conviction finding him guilty of assault, and a fine, for instance, of ten days’ pay. A police officer of this city can brain a citizen with a club, and he may reasonably expect that all the penalty he will have to pay for that is about the sum of thirty dollars, while an ordinary citizen, if he commits that offence, is almost certain to go to State’s prison.—Vol. iii., p. 2,826.
This is not a case of one law for the rich and another for the poor. It is one law for the citizen and none at all for the policeman.