Shiner gazette. [volume] (Shiner, Tex.) 1893-current, 1909-07-22
Youth Is Arrested Five
Times Without Warrant

Mayor Mcclellan is entitled to spe-
cial commentator for his rebuke to
the police department of New York
in connection with their despotic
practices (p 660). In administering
this rebuke he was obliged to con-
denim with severity the head of the
department whom he had himself APP
pointed as his own personal choice.
He might well have gone farther in
his rebuke than he did, but he filled
out sufficiently the requirements of
the case before him.
This case had been instituted by
Judge Gaynor of the Supreme Court
of the State, for the protection of a
youth whom the police had arrested
five times without warrant, against
whom they had made no formal ac-
cusation, and who was never even
tried in court for anyoffense. Yet
the police had not only arbitrarily
arrested him; they had taken his
measurements and filed his photo
graph in their "rogues' gallery as
II he had been a convicted felon.
When Judge Gaynor-- not as judge
nor as lawyer, but as a citizen
applied to the police in behalf of
this outraged boy, asking that his
picture be taken from the "rogues'
gallery the head of the department
sneered, and justified the outrages
upon the boy on the ground that he
had kept bad companya charge
that seems to have been false. Judge
Gaynor then appealed to Mayor Nc
Clellan, and the satisfactory result
Is now reported.
After q full investigation Mayor
Mcclellan stated his conclusions on
the 30th in lengthy written deci-
sion, in which he found the first four
arrests of the boy to have been with
out proper cause, and the fifth un-
reasonable. So far as certain charges
of depravity made against the boy
by policemen are concerned, the
mayor says
1.-TWO officers, named Clarke and
Tunney, both made affidavits to the
effect that the Duffy boy had admit
ted to them he had been guilty of a
certain form of depravity. This adj
mission although made. to both Off
GERS over a year ago, never resulted
in an arrest and only presented de-
Tense for these five arrests after the
investigation was started by me. The
charge now made, IL the admission
ID IIuct bHOulu nave ASo " bhC oiAOoe
then and there"
AS to the allegations that Duffy
was in the habit of associating with
other boys who had been arrested
or were known as bad boys, the may
or concludes that even II true they
cannot Justify the retention of the
boys picture in the rogues' gallery
II am not aware" Mayor Mcclellan
dryly observes, that even the police
authorities ever have contended that
mans photograph should be taker
and retained in the gallery merely
because of men he happens to asso
ciate with" While the mayor de
cided that he would not order the
police to stop taking photographs o.
people arrested and accused of crime
or who are indicted by grand juries
he ordered the head of the depart
ment to remove the photograph o
Duffy from the rogues' gallery, ant
to return all photographs, negatives
and Bertillon measurements of thu
boy to his father. In addition h
took such action with reference t,
the department as to make 1t diff
cult, If not impossible, for the pres
ent head to retain his place witt
self-respect.
Judge Gaynor's remarks upo
Mayor McClellan's decision are wort
remembering. In newspaper inter
view Immediately after the decisio
he said:
"The great thing is that 1t ha
been established in the person of thi
weak and uninfuential milk boy tina
there is no place under our syste1
OF government for the autocrat. Thl
is government of laws, not of mer
No official, however high, is aboy
the law. He has no right or lawfr
power to do anything except wha
the law permits him to do, and the
only in the manner and way the la
limits and prescribes to him. Tha
is free government"
Judge Gaynor was credited wit
saying at the same interview that
"can name at least five police ruler
who have gone out of their office
millionaires in the last fifteen O