The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-05-09
NAMES WILL
SOON Be KNOWN
First Police Dept Indict-
ments Due to Be Report
ed Tomorrow.
One of Them duplicates an
Official High in
Rank.

foreman of the grand jury, will turn in in
dictments charging four police officials
with bribery and extortion. These will be
the first fruits of the jury's energetic
work of the week.
The names Of the suspects are gener-
ally known to the police and men about
town. One of the acucsed officials Is high
in rank, but the other three come under
the general head of plain clothes men,"
One in particular is old officer and has
borne a good reputation as being
square" man. His Indictment will be
surprise.
Two civilians are also named in con-
nection with this police quartet. One of
them mar not be indicted just yet, how
ever, as he has been before the grand
Jury to testify. 1t was believed that the
evidence against him was sufficient to
warrant conviction, but at the same
time his testimony was necessary in or
der to reach the bigger game.
Another civilian may be included in the
batch tomorrow which will swell the to-
tai to five. 49,. $50
Well developed trails leading to other
police offictrs-plain clothes men to be
more scecif1c-have been disclosed and
will be followed at subsequent sessions.
One in particular is a former deputy
sheriff.
Fruitful Investigation.
There is one great difference between
the present Investigation and any other
inquiry ever instituted by a Hennepin
grand jury into city affairs. Other inves
legations have generally begun with
suspicion and ended with a guess. In this
case the starting point was a specific
charge made by two convicted 'big mitt'
t1yhn 1ofo nd Y1,in, a
details regarding payments for police pro-
lection. While testimony from such men
Is not considered the best evidence, it
at least gave a definite direction to the
grand jury's investigation and obviated
the discouraging necessity of proftless
fishing excursions
Another handicap which the present
grand jury seems to have avoided is the
shock OF surprise at finding that any cor
ruption existed. AS a rule the ordinary
citizen is not intimat ely familiar with the
run of the town" En- route home from
his office he may see "a policeman or two
but aside from a casual observance he is
apt to know nothing Of police department
efficiency and morale. There, have been
cases where such men drawn as grand
Jurors were so shocked at discovering cor
ruption that they lost sight of the fact
that in addition to the moral certainty
of an offense, it was necessary for them
Of evidence some Of which was not par
ticularly sensational nor seemingly sig
nificant: The present grand jury has the
good fortune to be made up of hard
headed business men who appreciate the
gravity of the situation, but who are not
80 carried away by surprise that they
overlook the minor details. Neither are
they satisfied with establishing the guilt
of only one of the officials who have been
conspiring with criminals to rob the inno-
cent.
= 1t is we'll understood that the, grand
jury already has evidence sufficient to in
dict several of the police officials whose
offenses have been most fragrant The
fact that this does not appear to have
ended the work of the investigators indi-
Gates that they may be after more or
higher game. No police official dares to
graft to any extent unless he has the
tacit approval of his superiors. Plain
clothes men are too familiar with each
others methods and. as Mayor Ames him
self says too prone to "knocking' each
other, to see one Of their number enjoying
special revenue without exposing him
that is, unless they themselves have a
similar graft" or they know it will do
no good to complain to the superior Of
ficers. This does not mean that all the
plain clothes men have been crooked by
any means. but there is no getting around
the fact that the dominant spirit of the
police department has been one of
graft a..
A Too-Credulous Chief.
This might appear to,>touch the chief
very nearly and in truth it does do so.
Fred Ames best friends in the department
charge his most serious defects as gu
perintendent of police 20 the fact that he
is too tender-hearted and too credulous of
stories told by crooks. Here is an ex-
perience the like Of which has happened
to more than one Minneapolis detective
Ihe offlcer in this case arrested man
known to be confidence worker and
thief. This was directly following one of
the administration numerous orders to
'obliterate" the crooks The prisoner
protested angrily at the unusual assump-
ton of the detective in arresting him
and insist ed that he be taken to the chief
After conference with Colonel Ames,
that official advised his release on the
ground that the prisoner had a sick wife
In the city and that he was doing no
work here, anyway. The prisoner &C
coreingly was in a position to give the
detective the horse laugh
This apparent willingness of the chief
to believe such gauzy stories has encour-
aged the "shakedown'' policy among the
men under him. They have known that 1t
was no use to bring in known criminals
who could be "vagged' and driven out of
town, even if not caught in fagrante. The
next best thing has been to take the prof
fered bit and let the crook operate
All this, it will be understood. is predi-
Gated upon the supposition that various
tete-a-tete conferences in Superintendent
Ames' office and elsewhere have been in
nocent, so far as the chief was concerned,
and that the results have been due solely
TO his super sensitive sympathies
Whether or not more sinister construc-
ton will be placed upon his actions will
be revealed when the grand jury reports.
1t Is of interest in this connection to
know that there has been perfect organi-
cation among the ''big mitt" operators
and that hush money for the authorities
has been counted in as a regular fixed
charge. s-
An Uneasy Go-Between
The appearance of Irwin A. Gardner be-
fore the grand jury indicates investiga-
ton along another line. Gardner, accord
Ing to his own admission before the pres
ent grand jury was drawn, was the go
between or collector" who gathered in
monthly tribute from the abandoned WON
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