The New York herald., 1921-02-03
POLICE HIGHERUPS
FACING INDICTMENT
Continued from First Page.


Il regard, the information as of great
value"
A surprise was sprung when Mr..
Whitman called into the Grand Jury
room a fireman who has not been men-
toned before. He was merely sum-
moned for Identification by Witness
Armstrong but is regarded as a man
who is in a position to supply severai
missing links OF information and to help
in exposing the alliance which Mr.. Whit
man believes to have existed between
men who steal motor cars and the police.
This member OF the city's uniformed
fire force is Stephen Lucas. formerly
stationed in the fire house at Twenty
ninth street and Seventh avenue. He
was indicted, 1t was made known yester-
day, early in January on. three charges
of grand larceny and receiving stolen
property in connection with three stolen
Buick cars. He was released in $4,000
bail. and the whole case was suppressed,
because Lucas, according to Assistant
District Attorney Harold Warren Has
tings. ''came through" and agreed to help
in the capture Of a gang of motor thieves.
Before the regular Grand Jury Lucas
appeared as q witness against Leo Metz
ger, a butcher of Long Island City. who
was indicted a few days ago as man
who had sold one of the Buick cars
which got Fireman Lucas into trouble.
The first of the three cars, it is charged,
was found in Lucas's possession on De-
cember 6 last by Sergeant George J. An
drews of the police automobile squad
The two others Lucas had sold to other
men. One OF these was recovered by De-
tective Sergeant Armstrong, fact which
explains the meeting of Armstrong and
/ N ha nd Tttr fev la
for the purpose of Identification. Later
Lucas will be Grand Jury witness. and
he is supposed to know some inside
stuff"
"He is charged with selling stolen
cars. ] want to show who used the
stolen cars was all Mr.. whitman had
to say about this matter.
Assistant District Attorney Hastings
says, by the way. that the members Of
the police automobile squad are "fine
COPS" that in the cases he has handled
he has seen no evidence that they were
in collusion with thieves. and that since
the Whitman investigation resulted in
the disbanding of the old squad auto
mobile thieves have been running wild.
But Mr.. Whitman made q significant
remark last night when under a fire of
questions from newspapermen, most of
which he declined to answer. He was
speaking Of how slowly such an investi-
cation progressed, how Jack Rose and
Bridgie Weber spent three weeks in jail
before they would say word in the.
Becker case. Some one used the word
crack" in the underworld sense, mean
ing to break open a case so that the in
vestigators may go on from lesser to
more important things.
Do you regard the testimony Of Arm
strong as constituting a 'crack?'" he
was asked. after he had declined to give
any hint of what that testimony
amounted to.
1T most certainly does" he said, and
pulled comfortably at his cigar
BY sending subpoena duces tecum to
William j. Lahey chief inspector, Mr.
Whitman got for the Grand Jury yes
terday additional police records. dealing
mostly with arrests for automobile steal
ing in the last two years For some rea-
son these were not produced with other
records two weeks ago. Mr.. Whitman
has already said that compared with
the number of cars recovered the num-
ber of arrests was insignificant and has
indicated what he believes to be the rea-
son for this disparity Lahey himself
did not have to respond to yesterdays
subpoena.
Detective Sergeant Edward Dillon.
formerly in charge of, detectives at the
West Tooth street station. was put in
command of the automobile squad at
headquarters yesterday. He succeeds
Former First Grade Detective John
Fitzpatrick, whom Commissioner En-
right transferred on Monday to patrol
duty.
On the plea that his arraugement with