MORNING “LINE-UP”

Evening Star, Issue 22086, 20 July 1935, Page 11

MORNING “LINE-UP”

PARADE FROM UNDERWORLD Douglas Williams, ‘Daily Telegraph ’ New York correspondent, writes: Every morning, punctually at 9, a ceremony is held at police headquarters in New York which has no counterpart anywhere in the world. Several hundred detectives assemble in the gymnasium on the fourth floor of the grim stone building in Spring street. - Sitting in silence and darkness, they face a lighted stage whereon are paraded for their inspection all the criminals or suspects arrested in the city during the past 24 hours. A senior officer, usually an inspector, sits in an elevated pulpit and questions the prisoners as they appear. The only sounds that break the dramatic hush are the dreary shuffling of feet as man after man climbs the few steps and takes his place bn the dais, and the cold, impersonal tones of the police questioner examining the prisoners. It is a grim procession of underworld figures that appears and disappears—murderers, thieves, drug addicts, pickpockets, confidence men. GANGSTERS’ FASHIONS. Often a gang appears together—three or four men, usually very young, and almost invariably of Latin descent, who have been' caught- red-handed in. attempting some prime. The,. similarity .or .‘their; clothing, is most noticeable. Following their leader’s example,, they all wear the same kind of light-coloured felt hat and double-breasted overcoats, and the police will tell you that this peculiarity is well recognised in the criminal classes. . Sometimes a well-known racketeer, whom the police know to he engaged in all sorts of criminal activities, but whom they are unable to' convict, appears in the line-up, having been picked up overnight in one of the periodical police “ round-ups ” of suspicious characters.

I once heard Captain John Stein, a veteran officer accustomed during years of experience to dealing with all manner of crooks, interrogate a Sicilian, known locally as the “ King of the Artichoke Racket.” His specialty was the cornering ,of the artichoke trade in New York by threats to murder any apd all potential rivals.. He suavely refused to answer any questions. “This man,” said Stein, in a loud, clear voice, “ is a notorious racketeer Ho hires men to commit murders for him. He has been charged with murder four times, but has beaten every charge. In 1917 he hired two men at 15dol a week to do his murdering. They finally went to prison, and when they were released they also were promptly murdered.”

The Artichoke King became livid, and muttered something under hia breath.

“What was that?” asked Sein, sternly. “ What was what?” answered the prisoner insolently, and with head in the air he stalked'off to court.

It should be emphasised that the line-up is in no sense a legal institution, and exercises no jurisdiction over the prisoners brought before it. It is intended solely to afford detectives an opportunity to “ remember faces” and to familiarise themselves with the general appearance, movements, voices, and special peculiarities of crooks and gang sters with whom they will probably come into contact again at some future date.