Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1915-10-02
The Police Board Must Go

The Police Board Must Go
there has Eeen any question Of late as to
1 the abolition Of the Board Of Police Com
missioners, the board has settled it. When it
dropped Detective Sergeant Krengel and de-
noted Sergeant Shoemaker, obviously in re-
venge for testimony rejecting on certain of
It's own members that these officers had given
it scaled its own DOOM
Indeed, the thought will not spare those
who consider the matter closely that the
board understood its days are numbered, and
welded the AK in joyous realization that it
must strike quickly not at all. Save on
some such theory this, it is impossible to
conceive Of Commissioners We'll and Goode
lending themselves in their present uncom-
Portable position, to such conSummate folly.
We are frank to say that the testimony
given before the Council committee that in
vestigated the Police Department placed Kren-
gel in very unfavorable light On his own
admission, he had traffcked in weapons and
]ewelry with men and women Of the under
world, including some habitual and notorious
criminals. lie obtained high price for the
articles he sold.
No policeman engage in this practice
without exciting suspicion. 1t is the almost
immemorial custom Of the crooked officer of
the law, collecting by forced sales the graft
he is too cautious openly to accept. krenge
may have been guilty of nothing Involving
moral turpitude, but he committed grave i'm
prophecies. Of which he is too intelligent not
to have been conscious.
But his offense, in the light Of that COM
mltted by the majority of the Police Board
becomes almost inconsequential. The evil
dence given against him was not adduced by
the board for the good of the service and in
the line Of official duty, but to discredit
Krengel as a witness who had assaulted the
characters OF Commissioners We'll Mccarthy
and Goode. He was the backbone of the
case against the accused commissioners, and
to destroy that case it was necessary to de-
stroy him. 1t will not be forgotten that the
committee, which certainly could not be re-
garded as hostile to the defendants, found
krengels charges justified by the facts.
What the public sees in this mans dis
missal. under such circumstances is an act
of deliberate revenge. Nobody in Richmond
beieves--not even the friends of the members
OF the Police Board-that it had any other
animus. Krengel offended the powers that
be- and his head has fallen under the ak.
The case of Sergeant Shoemaker admits of
even less excuse. His sole offense, so far
as the records disclose. was In testifying be-
fore the Council committee that he considered
krengel an honest man. whom he would be-
lieve under oath. For that he is reduced
from sergeant to patrolman.
The people of Richmond will not tolerate
abuse of power at once SO obvious and so
gross. The Board OF Police Commissioners
must go, and go it will.
Nor should there be delay in changing the
system of electing officers and members of
the Police Department every three years. It.
requires no argument that a policeman
should serve during good behavior and be re-
duced or dismissed only on charges and after
fair hearing. When his job depends solely
on the caprice Of his superiors, it is not to he
expected that man i'll his position will render
the best service of which he is capable.
But the other reform is the more impera-
tive. The Police Board must go.