WAR AGAINST CRIME

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1934, Page 3

WAR AGAINST CRIME

UNITED STATES POLICE. WIPING OUT THE GANGSTER. “Crime in America, that is, serious crime, is being wiped out as surely as night follows day, and in a few years the gangster will be a figure of the past With the restoration of liquor licenses the bootlegger has practically been eliminated,” said Lieutenant Frank W. Speers, of the Los Angeles Police Department. Lieutenant Speers said that, while the police always waged war against the criminal, he thought the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby roused the Government to intense action against the gangster and kidnapper element. Gangster squads were formed by the police, the cars being fitted with radio; and from that,time there had been waged a war between the police and the gangsters with little or no quarter shown when they clashed. “America presents a vastly different problem to the police as compared with other countries,” said Lieutenant Speers. “There is the foreign element to be encountered, and particularly is this so in New York and Chicago, but the Police Department is so well organised to-day that, though the gangsters continue, their activities are decidedly cramped compared with a few years ago. The gangster-squad cars of the police are all fitted with radio and at the first sign of trouble messages are sent out from the central office to the cars.” It was not anybody who could join the police force in America. Every applicant had to be a high school graduate and, if accepted, had to study the penal code for three or four years. Many examinations had to be sat for and the severity of the examinations might be gathered from the fact that out of 2500 who would sit, only 400 would secure passes.