The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-03-13
BY THE OUT EASTER


 and toasted by friends and others
 at The Elton Thursday night, in
 honot of his elevation to the of-
 flee of Chief Inspector of the Wa
 terbury Police Dept. we stopped
 and pondered over the newspaper
 accounts, rehearsee IT, our mind
 the days of old ir. the police Dept.
 recalled. the establishment of the
 detective bureau and also looked
 up and found the history connect
 ed with the assignment of officers
 of the law to the position of de-
 tective before the actual forma- tion of the bureau itself.
 First Detective
 The first detective in the Wa
 terbury police Dept. was Charles E. Egan. He was patrolman, as- signed to the duty. His work be- came so troublesome account of
 various happenings of serious nature that he called for aid, and so 1t was the first Italian in the city was named to the Dept, Char les A. Fibre, appointed as Q super numerary, but who did little uni-
 form duty, all of his til.4e being
 taken up in an advisory capacity with Detective Egan. And later in
 the NinetieS when three sergeantS were named, John T, Pagan, Frank L. Blakely, and Bernar T. Cahey, Egan was sent back to patrol duty, and Cnhey assigned as detective. Egan demurred and quit the force rather than go back to the uni- formed ranks. The late Captain T'hos. Dodds, nd-father of the present patrolman, Thos. Dodds, was the favorite of the late Chief Geo. M. Egan, and he did most of the inside work for the chief, even though Detective Egan was on duty. Chief Egan seemed to want
 intricate cases handled by Mir. Dodds, and assigned him to the task much to the embarrassment of Detective Egan,
 But In 1903, there was a general shake-up in the Dept. with Q real Bureau of Detectives being organ i2ed. Dotlds as Lieut., was named as It's head, his assistants were John Kennaugh and Thos. O'Gor- man, patrolmen at the time, Ken naugh came from the nC:th end, and had his supporters in the pol- itical game; O'Gorman C. ie from tho East End, and he, too, was picked by old Out East, that is by the ones In control of the Democratic party at the time. The Elton board came Into power in 1904, and out went OCorman; Q Legislative act busted Chief Egan, and in came George M, Beach, us supt. In other words, the office of chief of police was abolished, Since then Waterbury has had a supt, # police, To us lt has always seemed that when ono referreS to a man as Supt. he Is speaking of the head of Q facto!y, rather than tie guiding spirit of police Dept. Some day, we expect the office will be swung back to that Of Chief, the natural designation for the head of any police Dept. On the first day of 1904 when O'Gor- man was deposed, he was succeed ed by the late Wm. P. Keegan; Keegan stayed with the Bureau until his advance to the office of Chief Inspector In 1918, under the Sandland administration, Lieut.. Dodds had been advanced to the office of Captain by the ThomS, administration arS'ad 1906, and held the position of head of the Bureau until 1917 when he was retired, being then succeeded by Captain John A. Kennaugh. But the Sandland powers quickly evicted him, for Captain Wm. P. Keegan, who eventually was forc- ed out by the Hays regime for Captain Jos. P. Stevens, Thomas
 Colasanto, recognized for years by all police authorities of the state for his great value and worth to the Dept. came in as a patrolman around l0C? or 1903, and was assigned to the detective bureau when the Democrats again took control in 1906.
 COlaSantO Highly Respected
 He resigned and was placed on the retired list ten or l2 years ago. Tom Colasanto and his cream colored overcoat solved various of the technical murG.r cases in this city. He was a great fell f' for the neWspapermen, who held him in high esteem, because Of his hon. esty with them in all dealing per talning to police affairs. Colasanto by the way, was Wante:,, by the State authorities to handle some of their cases years ago, but re- fused to leave Waterbury.
 All of these facts in relation to the history of the detective force of Waterbury are interesting In view of MT. Bendler's recent pro- One may guess, and 1t Is true, that politics played its part openly in the affairs of the police years ago. The City of Waterbury was Democratic, and the plums for the police and fire depts. were handled through mem rship on the Board Of public safety. That Is the reason there was such 6 mad scramble for a commission ership In those days. N Mayor, office again, would think of passing up old Out Ea; or the Abrigador. or Brooklyn, or the North End in appointment to the municipal boards, You may note the Board of Public Safety controlled the police and Tire depts. There were five com thr of the May prs party, and two Of the oppo- site. The Democrats were tte men behind in most instances. A safe- ty commissioner wore an i8-caret gold studded badge, pinne to his nifty waistcoat, which was always seen by the on-loo .ers at each and particularly as the threw back the coat of his well tailorSd su'. Commis- sioners Of old were sporty individ- iniR aR n rtila and far Raaif1g nol-