In early 1935, St. Paul detective James Crumley came upon a daunting revelation. A hidden dictograph microphone, concealed within his office, had been secretly documenting Crumley’s private discussions with colleagues and visitors. This was one of multiple covert devices discreetly stashed across police headquarters by a privately hired investigator, with the aim of unveiling prevalent corruption in the department. The dialogue captured from these devices brought to light the fact that several high-ranking officials in the department were pocketing bribes in exchange for extending their protection to illegal gambling and prostitution rings.
Lying at the heart of this extensive corruption framework was Detective James Crumley himself, who alongside over a dozen other officers, faced suspension or removal when this news burst into public view in the summer. Shockingly, the chief of police was part of this cohort. The scandalous episode sparked substantial ethical improvements within the department in the ensuing years, as city officials implemented greater scrutiny and stripped away political influences from the appointment process of the city’s police chief.
By the end of the decade, the federal enforcement agency, FBI, hailed the St. Paul police department as one of the ‘most accomplished and effective police organizations in the country’. The blatant corrupt activities which had once seeped into the very backbone of the St. Paul police force didn’t materialize suddenly in 1935. Criminals had a longstanding understanding that they could count on the city’s officers for a safe hideout, as long as their criminal activities were confined to spaces outside the city.
This intricate understanding was initiated during the term of Police Chief John J. O’Connor, who assumed leadership of the department at the turn of the 20th century. Chief O’Connor had a notorious reputation of welcoming offenders into his jurisdiction, as long as they maintained good behavior within the city. In his own words, ‘If they behaved themselves, I let them alone.’
The system of corruption and graft conceptualized by O’Connor allowed out-of-town criminals to register with an intermediary, who would collect their names, addresses, and payoff cash. This money, sourced both from the criminals on the run and from local sex work businesses and gambling houses, would ultimately land in the pockets of O’Connor and other officials in power.
However, O’Connor’s retirement in 1920 brought the cracks in this strategy into the spotlight. Coincidentally, the era of Prohibition brought with it new avenues for the city’s criminal elements to exploit for a profit. The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 forced the city’s criminals to pivot and explore alternative money-making methods such as kidnapping, bank heist, and illicit gambling activities.
In an attempt to shed this lawless reputation in 1934, the city took action in the aftermath of kidnappings of two affluent citizens, Edward Bremer and William Hamm Jr., by armed gang members. In response to these events, which sparked widespread outrage, the city’s mayor formed a grand jury to probe the city’s potential crime issues.
Yet, in a surprising turn of events, the grand jury, after a three-month extensive investigation, proclaimed that ‘no grounds exist to proclaim an excessive crime rate in the city’. This verdict was given on the exact day that infamous criminal, John Dillinger, made an audacious escape from a Lexington Parkway apartment complex, narrowly avoiding capture by federal agents.
In the same year, as public pressure mounted for police reform, the city elected a reformer named Ned Warren as public safety commissioner. His election ran on the promise of sanitation and rectification of the police department. Immediately after taking charge, Warren provided consent for a private investigator to collect evidence against corrupt police officials. This investigator, equipped with an education in criminology from esteemed institutions such as the University of Chicago and Northwestern, employed state-of-the-art electronic surveillance equipment in his investigatory endeavor.
In the early weeks of 1935, this investigator, backed by a small team, set up a base in Room 201. Posing as data analysts conducting research into police crime statistics on behalf of Warren, they remained covert for four months before detective Crumley stumbled upon one of their devices in his office. He immediately alerted his colleagues already implicated in the corruption. However, the secret team had already amassed a whopping 400 aluminum phonograph records filled with compromising dialogues.
Warren compiled the revelations uncovered by the investigator, including 3,000 pages of transcripts from the secret surveillance, and submitted it all to the Mayor of St. Paul on June 24, 1935. This document exposed the implication of 13 officers, including the chief, in the corruption scandal. Following these revelations, the police chief was suspended and later resigned.
As interim police chief, Warren elevated a strict enforcer of laws, Gus Barfuss, who continued Warren’s crusade against corruption post succeeding him as public safety commissioner. An FBI survey conducted in 1941 reaffirmed Barfuss’ successful endeavor in ridding the department of corrupt elements. The report lauded his operation as highly effective in cleansing the St. Paul Police Department.
This persistent vigilance against corruption remains paramount especially in contemporary times where the illegal drug trade presents just as much opportunity for corruption as the unlawful alcohol business did a century ago. The lessons learned from St. Paul police department’s history remind us that the fight against corruption is an ongoing process.