After six years of intense archival research and hundreds of interviews, "Houston Blue: The Story of the Houston Police Department" was published by the University of North Texas Press early this month.
Houston's early days proved difficult to research due to poor record keeping and limited archives. A notable amount of information regarding crime and punishment in the city prior to the 20th century came from travelogues and journals written by European visitors. Mosquitoes and Texas heat were common complaints. Scrapbooks donated by families were also used.
Today it's strip clubs. Back in the day there were saloons.
Now it's speeding sports cars. In years bygone, there were carriages and wagons.
The Houston Police Department, in its long history, has been policing all manners of life here in the Bayou City. The good, the bad and ground breaking are now detailed in a comprehensive new book about the nation's fourth- largest police force.
In 2004, the Houston Police Officers' Union hired professor Mitchel Roth of Sam Houston State University and former Houston Post columnist Tom Kennedy to document HPD's history, which dates to the 1830s.
Intense research
After six years of intense archival research and hundreds of interviews, "Houston Blue: The Story of the Houston Police Department" was published by the University of North Texas Press early this month.
"Houston is an interesting city, and HPD has a lot of amazing stories that people don't know about," Roth said. "HPD has come into contact with a lot of people in the 20th century, like Houdini and Teddy Roosevelt. It was time-consuming but, from my perspective, I got the excitement of looking for something that no one else has found."
Houston's early days proved difficult to research due to poor record keeping and limited archives. A notable amount of information regarding crime and punishment in the city prior to the 20th century came from travelogues and journals written by European visitors. Mosquitoes and Texas heat were common complaints. Scrapbooks donated by families were also used.
"You hear a lot about men's clubs in Houston today," Roth said. "Well when you go back to the 1830s it was well known for its saloons and the drunken debauchery. There was very little effect in law enforcement. This was a small backwards community out in the bayou. People wrote about the wildness of the town, the debauchery going on in the streets."
Much like cars today, wagons and horses sped through the streets of Houston in the 1860s, endangering the lives of pedestrians. During Reconstruction and the resulting rise in crime, the city began to see its first black police officers.
Post-civil war
"Throughout the South you saw African Americans on Southern police forces while the Union troops occupied the South, but once they left, most of them were kicked out," Roth said. "However, Houston ... kept African Americans on the force, though they were referred to as special officers."
The year 1900 marked the Great Storm, which obliterated Texas' financial hub, Galveston. As a result, Houston became the state's center of commerce and trade. HPD would adopt some of the most advanced identification systems at the time such as fingerprinting. In 1918, Houston became the first city in the South to have an official police woman, Eva Jane Bacher.
The police force struggled to keep up with the city's growing population throughout the first half of the 20th century.
"We call them the three U's. It's been under-funded, under-manned and under-equipped throughout its history," Roth said.
Several incidents of police brutality, particularly the case of Joe Campos Torres, inspired reform and led to the eventual establishment of an internal affairs division in 1977.
Torres, a Vietnam veteran, was wearing his Army fatigues and combat boots when Houston police arrested him after a disturbance at an East End bar in May 1977.
He drowned after being severely beaten by officers and thrown into Buffalo Bayou. His body was found floating in the water a few days later.
During the 1970s, HPD became one of five police departments to adopt an automated fingerprinting system commonly known now as AFIS.
1st black police chief
In 1982, Houston welcomed its first African American police chief who would later become one of the city's most notable mayors, Lee Brown. Brown developed what is called neighborhood-orienting policing.
"He's the one who really supported this community policing policy, and it's been borrowed all over the country," Roth said. "The idea of getting out of the car and walking the streets to get to know the people you are protecting and serve."
The 21st century introduced some technology that assisted HPD in lowering crime rates.
Despite such advancements, HPD has dealt with several controversies regarding the use of them, particularly the 2005 crime lab scandal.
Controversies
Today, HPD has a 24 hour real-time crime center and a crime reduction unit. In 2011, the city's murder rate was at the lowest since the 1960s.
"The authors did an outstanding job in chronicling the history of the Houston Police Department," said Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers' Union and author of the book's foreword. "We're very pleased with it and very glad that we have a book out there that people can get to see about the real story of the Houston Police Department."
