to later eyewitness testimony, the Rangers tied all the men and boys together and began shooting them (Harris & Sadler, 2004; Martinez, 2018). Soldiers heard the shots and the screaming women and rushed to the massacre scene. The soldiers found fifteen bodies, each with multiple wounds and a coup de grace headshot. One of the soldiers said the massacre scene reminded him of a slaughterhouse (Martinez, 2018: 123). He added, “A hospital corpsman who was with us went over to the bodies, but not a breath was left in a single one. The professionals had done their work well.” The resulting investigation concluded that the fifteen Mexicans killed by the Rangers and the ranchers had been disarmed and were helpless prisoners when they were executed (Harris & Sadler, 2004: 354).
The Texas Governor was told that the men and boys killed were innocent farmers and not bandits. No one was ever prosecuted for the massacre, but Texas Governor Hobby disbanded Texas Ranger Company B, fired all the Rangers involved, and forced Captain Fox to resign. Within the last two years, Texas has finally acknowledged that the Porvenir Massacre and the other atrocities of the Texas Rangers occurred (Casares, February 3, 2018; Martinez, 2018).
Police Violence against Individuals and Groups in Early American History
Police violence and homicides against individuals and groups have a long history in the United States in addition to the multiple homicides committed against the dangerous classes during protests, demonstrations, and dissent outlined previously. In their history, New York police have used their official position to commit and cover up crimes from burglary to election fraud and murder (Sherman, 1978). The same could be said for most U.S. urban police departments. The best narrative of the early 1900s police violence in New York City is contained in the 1931 autobiography of NYPD Captain Cornelius W. Williams (Williams, 1931, see also Reppetto, 1978). His descriptions of police violence events are too numerous to present here. Police-perpetrated homicide was a common outcome of police-citizen interactions, regardless of race or ethnicity. The first-known U.S. LEO to be convicted and executed for a murder committed on duty was NYPD Lt. Charles Becker in 1912. Then, and now, police officers worked hand and glove with local criminal gangs, including acting as “muscle” for criminal gangs (see Haller (1976) for the working relationship between the Chicago police and criminals 1890–1925). Seven years earlier—1905—an NYPD Patrolman had been convicted of murdering a black night watchman (Johnson, 2003: 81). The NYPD officer claimed he shot in self-defense. That did not convince the jury because the black man was shot in the back and several witnesses testified that the officer had fired several additional shots as the man lay helpless on his back. In 1926 another NYPD officer was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death after murdering a shopkeeper who identified him in a line-up in a police station house as an attempted extortionist (Johnson, 2003: 117 & 118). The officer shouted, “You won’t squeal against anyone again.” These killer cops who commit intentional murder are not a new phenomenon in American policing and will be discussed more fully later. The 1929 Wickersham Commission—the first National Commission on Police Violence—in a volume entitled Our Lawless Police—documented the use of the third-degree and other forms of police violence throughout the United States. The same report found that the American police of the 1920s and 1930s engaged in “institutionalized malpractice”—violations of constitutional rights or the human dignity of civilians (Richardson, 1974).
Police violence was an accepted part of early urban policing in Chicago. For example, in Chicago, there were three justifications for police violence: First, to mete out punishment to wrongdoers, “That’s my motto, scare ‘em to death and knock the hell out of them, and let them go” (Haller, 1976: 318). Second, the third degree was an accepted part of investigative work. This was still in use in Chicago during the 1970s and 1980s. A Chicago police commander, Jon Burge, and his team of white detectives known as the “midnight crew” used electric shocks, waterboarding, and mock executions, accompanied by racial epithets, and attacks to the genitals to coerce false confessions from 200 predominately African American criminal suspects (Taylor, 2016). This was a part of the third reason for police violence, which was to uphold the dignity of the policeman. This is what is known as arrests for COP (Contempt of Cop) or POP(Pissing off the Police) in today’s police culture. During the 1960s many police supervisors would not accept a “resisting arrest” charge unless the suspect was sent to the hospital or the morgue. The rationale was that if he was a “cop fighter,” he might kill the next cop (personal experience). The “get tough on criminals” philosophy still exist in many police agencies as they conduct the War on Crime.
War on Crime and Resulting Violence
Theodore Roosevelt in 1894 was the first NYPD Police Commissioner to recognize the police as a military organization when he declared “war” against crime and corruption. He increased the officer’s weaponry and gave them the license to use it against criminals (Johnson, 2003: 88). Other police CEO’s have urged the police on in their “no quarter” for suspected criminals. The American police have always had hostility toward criminals, the courts, politicians, and civilians who do not share the police view of the genesis of crime, disorder, and its control (Richardson, 1974; Walker, 1977). This ideology was the standard for the NYPD since Clubber Williams declared, “There is more law in the end of nightstick than un a decision of the Supreme Court” (Johnson, 2003: 41). Frank Rizzo, when he was the Philadelphia Police Commissioner in the 1970s, reportedly told a newsperson, “The way to treat criminals is spacco il capa—to bust their heads” (Skolnick & Fyfe, 1993: 139). I hear the same philosophy from working police today.
Previous Information on Police-Perpetrated Homicides
Popular Sources for Police-Perpetrated Homicides
The majority of information on homicides by LEOs, before the mid to late 1960s, is not the result of scholarly research; however, there is anecdotal evidence, some from popular sources. The 1977 publication Killer Cops: An Encyclopedia of Lawless Lawmen by Michael Newton is an excellent source to begin an examination of LEOs who murder in U.S. history. The fascinating book on sixty-seven American killer cops includes early nineteen-century cops and Western lawmen killer cops such as Bass Outlaw, Wild Bill Hickok, and Wyatt Earp. The popular market book was used as a reference source for research purposes, although I disagreed with many of his selections.
Stark (1972) in a footnote describes a 1968 “friendly fire” incident between three trigger happy off-duty NYPD officers on a crowded expressway unaware that they were officers that left one dead and one seriously injured. A second 1968 “friendly fire” incident by an NYPD plainclothes officer and another Housing Authority plainclothes officer left NYPD officer dead. Friendly fire police homicides still occur in the NYPD and other police departments. Although multiple police-caused deaths are rare in modern police work, the Philadelphia police did drop an incendiary bomb on a row house occupied by a militant black cult (Skolnick, May 21, 1985). The fires spread to sixty more homes and lead to eleven deaths including five children ranging from age seven to thirteen. It could happen again in the present rise of police militarization with surplus military equipment.
Early Scholarly Research on LEO-Perpetrated Homicides
Professor Gerald Robin (1963) published one of the first empirical studies of justified police homicides—intentional killings commanded or authorized by law. He reported that from 1952 to 1955, the reported rate of justifiable police homicides (JPH) was 3.2 percent of the total number of homicides in the United States. Furthermore, Robin opined that the victim-offender relationship in police justified homicides is an example of victim-precipitated homicide because the victim was killed as a consequence of his criminal actions—an interesting but biased conclusion.
Robin examined the thirty-two known police killing of criminals in Philadelphia from 1950 to 1960 according to official police records. Thirty of the cases were disposed by the medical examiner’s inquest, and two officers were indicted and cleared by a jury at trial. All the deaths were the result of gunshot wounds. Twenty-five victims of the police-caused homicide victims resisted during the attempted arrest. Seven of the thirty-two victims were fleeing when shot and killed. Robin
