This is the second selection from “Some of Mayor Gaynor’s Letters and Speeches,” a volume in the Municipal Library’s rare book collection. Published in 1913, it is a compendium of the Mayor’s writings on “…a wide range of topics . . . from lively to severe,” as noted in the introduction by W. B. Northrop. This letter, entitled “A False Police Report on a Boy’s Arrest,” had been sent to Rhinelander Waldo, Esq., Commissioner of Police, on December 19, 1911. Look for more of Mayor Gaynor’s literary output in future blogs.
Mayor William J. Gaynor, frontispiece, “Mayor Gaynor’s Letters and Speeches,” New York, Greaves Publishing Company, 1913. Municipal Reference Library
Mayor William J. Gaynor, portrait, frontispiece, “Mayor Gaynor’s Letters and Speeches,” New York, Greaves Publishing Company, 1913. Municipal Reference Library
Sir: Some months ago I wrote to you of the case of the eighteen year old boy William Eagen, who called upon me in person and made his complaint. He had been well brought up, and has always lived at home with his parents at 53, 4th Avenue, Brooklyn. Detective Barry arrested him in the street near his home on August 24th last without a warrant. He had never before been arrested or accused of any offense. He was taken to the station house and locked up over night in a cell. The next morning the said officer arraigned him before a magistrate, and made a written complaint on oath that he was a vagrant, i.e., a person without a home, wandering about, and with no means of support. The officer knew that this was untrue. The boy lived at home and worked daily with his father who is a janitor of 17 buildings. When the case was called on August 28th for a hearing, the officer stated that he could l not prove the charge, and the boy was discharged. In my letter to you I asked for a full report of the matter. Later you sent to me the report of Inspector Hughes, chief of the detective bureau, concurred in by the Second Deputy Police Commissioner. That report disclosed that the real reason for the boy’s arrest was that a burglary of the apartments of C. W. Daniels, at 449, State Street, Brooklyn, had been committed, and that the boy was “suspected” of having committed the same. The things stolen were a watch, engraved with Mr. Daniels’ name, a locket, studded with diamonds, and engraved in the same way, and a double chain and fob. The reason for such suspicion given in the said report was that the father of the boy was janitor of the building in which Mr. Daniels had his apartments, that the bulldog did not arouse Mr. Daniels when the burglar entered, that therefor the burglary was committed by someone good terms with the bulldog, and that therefore the burglar was probably young Eagen. Such was the farfetched if not ridiculous theory. The report went on to state that after being arrested and on his way to the station house young Eagen told the officers who had him in charge that the locket lost by Mr. Daniels contained 17 diamonds, that it had been broken up, and that it was useful to look for it. The report also states that while young Eagen was locked up in the cell another officer heard him state to a prisoner in an adjoining cell, he had been arrested on suspicion of the same offense, “I think they have got it on us,” to which the other prisoner responded, “Shut up, some one might be listening.” The name of this other prisoner is Grant, hereinafter mentioned. To this report was attached a letter of the Second Deputy Commissioner to you stating that in his opinion the action of the officer who made the arrest and false charge of vagrancy was justifiable. I felt constrained to write to you that his conduct was unjustifiable.
10th Police Precinct at Bergen Street and Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn. 1940 Tax Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.
The boy was not a vagrant, and the charge against him was false. The alleged confessions were stated to have taken place after the arrest, and were not revealed to the magistrate at all. I also expressed the view that the so-called evidence given in the report that the boy had committed the burglary was no evidence, and that the alleged confessions stated in the report were trumped up after the boy’s discharge, and after I had called for a report, for the purpose of trying to justify the arrest Nothing further was done at that time, however, as the said chief of the detective bureau said that the investigation was still going on and that it was expected that sufficient evident would be obtained against the boy. But instead of any evidence being obtained against him, one Alexander Moore has since been arrested, indicted and convicted of the burglary and is now serving a term in State’s Prison therefore, as I have learned. Pawn tickets for the stolen articles were found in his pockets. The stolen articles were all obtained from the pawn shop. The diamonds had not been taken out of the locket.
The report also states that when the boy was discharged by the magistrate his mother who was present exclaimed: “I am going to write to Mayor Gaynor and give you fellows the same dose that Duffy gave the officers in his case”—alluding to young Duffy who was arrested time after time by the police and locked up, and his picture put in the Rogues’ Gallery, for no offense whatever. I have sufficiently ascertained that she had not up to that time ever heard of the Duffy case, and therefore could not have made such a remark. Also she is not a woman who would express herself in that manner.
The case calls for discipline of the officers engaged in it. It is also necessary that this matter be made public so this boy may be fully vindicated instead of being injured for life. It will never do for the police to treat boys in this way. I should also mention that another young fellow named Henry Grant was arrested on suspicion for the same crime. The chief reason for his arrest seems to have been that when a boy he had served a term in the Elmira Reformatory. He was discharged as reformed. The police should be very careful about arresting boys who have served a term in a reformatory. To follow them up and arrest them on sight, on the slightest suspicion, or on no suspicion, as is often the case, after they come out, and even follow them to the places where they are employed, and procure their discharge, is to leave no course open to them except to become habitual criminals. This boy Grant was employed as a chauffeur. I understand that he lost his place because of his arrest. I trust that this vindication of him will suffice to enable him to get other work to do. The police must be made to understand that they cannot arrest and lock people up as they like, but they must keep within the law. The only way to enforce the laws is the way prescribed by law. That which cannot be done lawfully must not be done at all by the police or any other public offices from the President of the United States down. This is a government of laws and not of men.