by Jack Webb
The experiences of the undercover officers disproved the Neon signs: “attention! The Public Is Invited to Participate in All Relaxation (Bingo) Games free of charge!” Every time you took another card it cost you another dime.
But even this didn’t satisfy the painstaking Hamilton. He decided that he also would prove no skill was involved in the “skill” games. The police constructed a ball “bin” exactly like that used in the bingo parlors and from the same firm that supplied the gamblers obtained the same kind of balls.
Methodically a team of seven officers then tossed balls hundreds of times at specific holes. Of 756 balls thrown, there were exactly nineteen hits, four of them direct and fifteen just happened to go in. In a so-called game of skill, the odds thus were about two hundred to one. In one instance, a policewoman even found that she did better if she threw while blindfolded.
Breaking down the odds and take with their slide rules, police experts calculated that the overall bingo operation was giving the suckers a payoff of one dollar on every six dollars wagered. It was a bigger steal than slot machines.
With Hamilton’s evidence to go on, and Deputy Chief Parker’s hearty recommendation, General Worton, then Chief, padlocked every bingo parlor in Venice. The Police Commission followed up by lifting their permits. The gambling interests fought back with a temporary court order under which they reopened and also produced new supporters at another commission hearing.
Businessmen from Venice protested that $10,000 of the weekly bingo payroll was spent right in Venice, plus another $5,000 weekly for maintenance, various other services, and rent. All would be lost, they argued, if the games were closed. But the Commission remained adamant, court decisions elsewhere went against bingo, and the gamblers finally surrendered.
Venice is a nicer place today.
THE ANSWER
The Badge… how do you judge the men who wear it …?
IN CHAPTER ONE, the question was posed.
This book has been an attempt to depict a modern police force in its planning, execution; yes, and in its personalities because the police as human beings have a personal impact upon their communities.
Once you appreciate that the complicated machinery of modern law enforcement merits study more than headline-deep, a second problem arises. It is easy to get lost in the intricacies of LAPD, and you have to keep reminding yourself of the goals: honesty and efficiency; and the tools: honest, intelligent, well-trained policemen.
In any town, your town, those are the goals and the tools and everything else from pay raises to a new crime lab are important but subordinate parts of the picture. To the extent you want good tools and good goals, your town will have a good police department.
Will you work for them?
Will you pay for them?
Will you abide by the result—honest, efficient, impartial law enforcement?
Even Chief Parker admits that lawlessness, vice, corruption cannot be eliminated by the police “if the people do not honestly want such things eliminated.”
Thus the final chapter of LAPD—or of any other department—cannot be written by its commission, its chief, or its force.
It must be written by you.