Crime -- Illinois -- Chicago; Police corruption -- Illinois -- Chicago; Political corruption -- Illinois -- Chicago
The women now demanded that the detectives show their badges of authority.
They were shown. Demand was then made that a patrol wagon should be
called. This was denied, but accidentally one came along the street
returning to its station. When the accused woman caught sight of it she
fainted. The boarding house keeper raised such commotion that one of the
detectives said, "For God's sake, shut that woman's mouth up or she will
make us trouble!" They then ran away.
The next day the boarding house woman called on the Chief of Police and
told the whole story. He referred her to the Lieutenant at the station of
the precinct in which the indignity occurred. To him the entire facts were
given, and written down by the desk sergeant. The men were there
identified.
On the following day one of the detectives went to the women's house,
accompanied by a brother-in-law, whose wife was a personal friend of the
boarding house woman. The detective had a copy of the woman's statement as
she had made it at the police station. He begged for mercy, crying, "he
had nothing to say for himself." He piteously pleaded he had a mother in
the hospital, a mother-in-law who was dying, and three small children to
support. Suggestions were made, and the woman's feelings worked upon so
that she was induced to leave the city.
Meanwhile the boarding house keeper made a statement at another police
station, in which she suppressed the facts as to the diamonds and the
money. She was asked to appear before the police trial board, and
refused. Thereupon the charges against the detectives were dismissed.
It developed before the Baxter Committee that the Chief of Police had been
told all the facts. The papers got hold of an account of the affair, and
the Chief called upon the boarding house keeper. In the course of his
conversation, this woman trying to protect the officers through her
aroused sympathy, was asked by the Chief, "What about those diamond
earrings and sealskin sack?" The woman answered, "If you don't know, I
don't." He then asked, "Didn't you tell that to me?" She answered, "If you
can't remember, I can't." She was then questioned by the Chief whether
these officers were begging her to quash the matter, whether they were
offering her money for that purpose, etc.
The Chief stated the reporters were hounding him to death, when the woman
asked him "why he did not show her statement?" He replied it was locked
up, "if they want any information they can get it from you."
One of the men is still a member of the detective force. The other
resigned and went into the saloon business, and appeared before the
committee entering a partial denial of the woman's story. The knowledge of
the Chief of all the facts was fully shown before the committee.
Notwithstanding this, he does not appear to have taken any steps to keep
the matter before the trial board, or to institute any other proceedings
to bring these detectives to punishment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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