The Sordid History of the SFPD
In San Francisco, it has always been hard to tell the cops from the robbers
The San Francisco Police Department was organized in 1849, during the Gold Rush. Police Chief Malachi Fallon, a former saloon keeper, started out with one deputy, three sergeants, and 30 officers. His force was largely made up of former bandits and outlaws, so naturally, the new law enforcement officers had an interest in protecting their old friends and crime partners from punishment.
It soon became clear that San Francisco cops were to be feared just as much as the criminals. If they knew you had something of value on your person, there was a good chance they'd be first to hit you over the head for it. And if you paid them to keep an eye on your home or business, they were still likely to burn it to the ground.
Beginning in the 1860s, author Mark Twain waged a prolonged and scathing media campaign against the Chief of Police and the SFPD in his letters to popular newspaper columnists. Twain famously wrote; "San Francisco cops might as well be made of wax, for all the crime-stopping they are doing. Blackmail, corruption, and bribery is the rule, and not the exception, among the municipal body, all of whom are like so many shoplifters or highwaymen. The correspondent suggests the necessity of hanging half the policemen of the city."
The city’s four police captains controlled vice in their own districts, deciding what illegal activities would be allowed and which criminals could operate without fear of arrest.
San Franciscans have long had a lax attitude toward vice of all kinds, especially in the early days, when nearly all of the women in town happened to be prostitutes. It was only after “decent” family-minded women began arriving, that public prostitution was driven from the main streets to back alleys. Any efforts made by City officials to crack down on vice, though, were half-hearted publicity stunts at best.
The San Francisco Examiner reported, to the surprise of few, that whenever a steamship arrived from mainland China, Police Chief Crowley would send Capt. Douglas down to make sure that its human cargo of young women and underage girls (some as young as 8) were delivered safely to the brothel owners who had paid for their voyage. More than a dozen officers would take part in the operations; loading as many as two to three hundred sex slaves into police wagons and escorting them from the Brannon Street docks, up Second Street, and into Chinatown.
The 1870s, like the 1850s, was one of the most disorderly and lawless periods in the city's history. There weren't enough officers to combat crime, even if they had wanted to. Hoodlum street gangs formed and took to fighting police for territory. The population exploded, and an economic depression followed the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Then, anti-Chinese sentiment culminated in the three-day-long Great Riot of 1877, which exposed a severely understaffed SFPD that was not prepared to deal with civil unrest. Over the next several years, the number of officers was increased significantly.
City fathers and industry leaders conspired in their use of San Francisco police officers, along with hired thugs, to brutalize striking workers and crush labor movements over the next few decades. They also utilized cops for other unsavory missions: On November 9, 1895, twenty officers marched down sixth street late at night, then forcibly evicted and burned the homes of poverty-stricken families along the shores of Mission Bay. The land was quickly filled in and used as part of the expansive Southern Pacific Railroad yards on Channel Street.
The SFPD started the 20th century ceremoniously with a brand new Hall of Justice built at the southeast corner of Kearny and Washington streets. Opened in 1900, the elaborate brick and terra-cotta building stood proudly for six years. On April 18, 1906, the structure became, as one observer put it, "One of the city's damn finest ruins" courtesy of the Great Earthquake and Fire.
At that time, defacto city boss Abraham Ruef brought a certain sophistication to the manipulation of San Francisco politics that generally avoided the rougher and more violent techniques used by his predecessors. Ruef controlled the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, the Chief of Police, and several judges with a velvet glove approach.
Shortly after the 1905 election, the new District Attorney began enforcing the city’s rarely observed vice laws, much to Abe Ruef’s surprise. The city had the reputation of being an “anything goes” town, with its notorious dance halls, brothels, and gambling dens. Mayor Schmitz’s administration, like all those that came before, closed an eye to that seamier side of the city, or accepted bribes for keeping that eye closed, but more and more citizens grew tired of the corruption.
Multi-Millionaire sugar-mogul Rudolph Spreckels bankrolled a Federal investigation of corruption at City Hall. The 1906 Earthquake briefly interrupted that investigation, but by the following year, indictments were handed down against Ruef, Schmitz, a number of city officials and several prominent business executives. After a long, sensational trial, Abe Ruef was finally convicted and was sent to San Quentin prison to serve a term of 14 years, the maximum sentence for bribery. He was the only person convicted in the corruption scandal who spent more than a brief spell in jail.
To protect their position of dominance over the underworld, and to ensure a steady flow of cash, the SFPD prevented out-of-town criminal elements from gaining a foothold in the city.
By the end of World War I, in 1918, the SFPD had around a thousand officers. The lawlessness that characterized the city during the Gold Rush era and the years that followed began to take a different bent, as the end of the bloody Chinatown Tong wars marked the beginning of the equally bloody bootleg wars of the 1920s and early 1930s.
Competing Italian organized crime gangs "played a deadly version of what could be called 'Whack a Boss,'" wrote Paul Drexler of the Examiner. "It began when Frank Boca whacked Alfredo Scarisi, and was followed by Genaro Broccolo whacking Boca, Luigi Malvese whacking Broccolo, and Frank Lanza whacking Malvese."
By the end of the 1930s, The San Francisco Crime Family, also known as The Lanza Crime Family, emerged as an Italian-American La Cosa Nostra organized crime syndicate with deep ties to the five New York Mafia Families. They took control of racketeering, loan-sharking, extortion, prostitution, bookmaking, gambling, and narcotics in the city of San Francisco, in addition to owning and operating legitimate businesses (often used for money laundering) such as nightclubs, burlesque clubs, restaurants, and bars.
Frank Lanza took the reins just as Irish-American brothers Pete and Tom McDonough, two of the most powerful and influential mobsters in San Francisco history, were run out of town in the wake of a massive scandal involving widespread graft and systemic corruption inside the SFPD and city government.
A lengthy grand jury report published in March 1937, detailed a vast network of payoffs, bribery, and extortion, linking officers of all ranks directly to the city’s underworld of prostitution, gambling, and all other forms of criminal enterprise. Prosecutors conservatively estimated that the SFPD took in over one million dollars per year (which would be 20 million dollars in today’s dollars) from organized crime operations. The money was divided among members of the police department, with the great bulk of it going to ranking officers.
The city’s four police captains controlled vice in their own districts, deciding what illegal activities would be allowed and which criminals could operate without fear of arrest. To protect their position of dominance over the underworld, and to ensure a steady flow of cash, the SFPD prevented out-of-town criminal elements from gaining a foothold in the city.
Officers, emboldened by their success in shaking down illegal businesses, began to tackle legitimate ones. It became customary for restaurants, bars, retail shops, and other businesses to contribute monthly when visited by a special police detail, typically giving ten percent of their revenue. In return, all necessary permits, which might otherwise be denied by the police commission, could be easily obtained. When a business refused to donate funds as suggested, cops would harass patrons and threaten business owners until the money was paid or the establishment was forced to close.
It was common for San Francisco police officers to not pay for goods and services in the city. They became accustomed to receiving free meals and drinks, tickets to sporting events, theater, and other forms of entertainment. It was said that a smart officer only paid for something when it was unavoidable. One officer’s wife told investigators that her husband received free groceries, liquor, household goods, and supplies, clothes, and even free medical and dental services for himself and his family.
The entire police commission was forced to resign, dozens of cops lost their jobs, some went underground, and one killed himself and his family. Yet, no major institutional changes were brought about as a result of the investigation. In fact, none were suggested in the grand jury report. Former FBI agent Edwin Atherton, the lead investigator, concluded that graft and corruption inside the SFPD could be lessened, but would never be completely eradicated, adding that the only way to ensure lasting change would be to legalize gambling, prostitution, and other major vices in the city of San Francisco.
Pauline Kael (1919-2001), former editor of San Francisco’s City Lights magazine and a famous film critic, had this to say about the City's finest: "I grew up in San Francisco, and one of the soundest pieces of folk wisdom my mother gave me was 'If you’re ever in trouble, don’t go to the cops.' I remember a high-school teacher telling me that it never ceased to amaze him that his worst students—the sadists and the bullies—landed not in jail but on the police force, though sometimes on the police force and then in jail. Even as children, San Franciscans were deeply aware of the corruption of the police."
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