St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1963-07-04
Maturity And Hard
Headedness Needed
In This Crisis

Minneapolis Police Chief Pat Walling last week
stated that police officers reluctant to take
forcement action because they afraid they will
be accused of prejudice =" He referring to
difficulties encountered by police on the North Side
following incidents of name-calling by police and
the black lacking of Negro citizen.
This is good example of part of the problem
which we have said editorially calls for better
screening and better training of police They should
not be reluctant to make proper arrests because of
fear they will be accused of prejudice. Properly
trained and properly informed policemen know that
the law-abiding community will back them up. They
know also that the hoodlum and criminal elements
will take advantage of every angle offered to them
including the race prejudice" angle.
We all know that the neighborhood which is
giving the police great deal Of trouble is very,
very tough neighborhood, frequented by some very,
very tough underworld characters many of them
Negro The is also inhabited by honest, upright,
law-abiding citizens, whose rights have to be
spected whose safety has to be protected 1t is
not an easy police assignment BY the same token,
it is the kind of assignment for which we maintain
a police force.
Mr. Wallng said, IF laws are violated, it will
make difference whether the violators white
or Negroes" Why should he have to say that? Has
anybody argued that it should be otherwise? 1t
seems that this is the sort of hystercal state
that is likely to confuse and aggravate stu
alton that is already bad-a situation incidentally
that out of police action
Mr.. Walling referred to the dynamite blasts at
the homes of the two suspended officers in terms
that suggest he has knowledge that they
lated to Negro indignation at mistreatment by po-
lice Are they related? Chief Walling should, if he
has such knowledge, make it known. If he has not,
then he should be careful about casting such aspers
ions because they are certainly not likely to inn
prove the situation 1t might possibly turn out that
the dynamtngs perpetrated by Negroes but
this is written the best police brains and the best
minds in the human relations field think that they
not. We hope that the police have the talent,
know-how and persistence to get at the facts in
this case first, because it is very important that
such atrocious crime be solved and the offenders
punished second because we suspect that the facts
themselves may be very interesting indeed
Finally, Mr.. Walling has again taken out after
Raymond Wells, the victim in the beating. Why?
Mr.. Wells has been tried in proper court Of law
on the charges brought by police. He has accepted
the judgment of the court. And he has since cooper
ated with the police department and Chief Walng
in dealing with the dangerous tensions that have
followed the beating. What else does Chief Waltng
want? Another trial. on the radio, with the Chief
acting judge and jury? This is what the Chiefs
public remarks last week amounted to. He said
ii
insisted upon interfering himself into a situation
that of his" This version Of the mat
ter is not what the court evidence shows Nor is it
the judgment of the court. 1t is nothing more than
the baseess and unjustfed judgment of the Chief of
Police. What is the. purpose Of this. but to make
trouble and cast aspersions on Mr.. Wells?
What need in facing human relations
problems here today is calm judgment not Mysteries;
hard-headedness, not emotionalism; maturity and
understanding, not Ito borrow Chief Wallng's own
description of police attitudes) bitterness.
Pat Wallng has been good, competent police
chief aware of the many ramfications of policing a
metropolitan 1t is unfortunate that in reaction
to the heat" which has been put on him and his
officers, (many Of whom excellent officers and
gentlemen) that Pat should have made the public
statements of last week which while reassurng his
men, added fire to situation which already has
developed more heat than light