Tag: elkton police

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Christmas Eve Stories from the Cecil County Police Blotter

As families gathered to celebrate Christmas in the 1970s, Cecil County Police Officers continued their never-ending job, patrolling the roads and answering calls while others shared gifts, good company, and delicious meals.  Although the demands placed on law enforcement can be high on holidays with the officers juggling calls, a glance at the police blotter reveals that sometimes there is a lighter side.

Santa Speeding Across Cecil County

In the early 1970s, one patrol sergeant, Steve Landbeck, orchestrated a little holiday tradition for several years.  As people settled in with their families on Christmas Eve, things generally quieted down for first responders. But an urgent flash would break the silence of the night on the police radio. A Maryland State Trooper out of the North East Barrack was in a high-speed chase.

As the drama unfolded, the pursuit continuing up Route 40, a description was put out for other units rushing into position to back up the North East car.  It went something like this. It was a shiny red vehicle moving fast. Moments later came the driver’s description: a heavy-set man with a white beard in a red suit. Soon, something would follow about hearing sleigh bells and ho-ho, ho. The radio broadcast played out over several minutes as additional details eked out.

In time, Sargeant Landbeck advised to 10-22 (disregard).  The fleeing vehicle was only the jolly old fella and his sleigh coming into Cecil for his annual visit on a busy night with lots to do. The reindeer were there, and the sleigh was loaded with gifts for boys and girls around the county, the state trooper reported reassuringly.

That became a Christmas Eve tradition for many years as Steve orchestrated his little radio play, and once the broadcast kicked off, parents had their children listen to the scanner.  After the 10-22 went out on the airwaves, children across the county knew Santa was on his way.  He was in the county, and they had better hurry off to bed so they could wake up early on Christmas morning for gifts from Santa.

St. Nick Makes Quick Escape in Dark Parking Lot

In the county seat, another case unfolded on a Christmas Eve watch decades ago.  Elkton Police Officer Marshall Purner prowled the streets on the holiday shift when dispatch radioed early on that quiet evening that someone had broken into a vehicle at Cecil Lanes.  The bowling alley was having a party for children, and while all the merriment distracted everyone, a perpetrator forced entry into a car, taking holiday gifts.

Marshall Purner, Elkton Police Department
Marshall Purner retired from the Elkton Police Department in June 1989. Photo Credit: Wilmington News Journal, July 27, 1989

Upon arrival at the scene, Officer Purner started the investigation.  A witness observed a suspicious person — a man in a Santa Claus outfit dashing through the dark parking lot.  He was carrying stuff in some sort of hurry when he jumped into a vehicle and sped from the scene.   Those details were dutifully recorded, and with that information pointing to a primary suspect, Marshall was on the trail as he put out a “be on the lookout” broadcast for the getaway car and this red-suited suspect.

With all Cecil County patrol cars on the road Christmas Eve now keeping an eye out for the fleeing vehicle occupied by old St. Nick, they soon executed a stop, pulling it and the driver over.  It was a fellow officer, Patrolman Joseph Zurolo, playing Santa for a group of kids at the Bowling Alley.  Having finished bringing joy to a group of Cecil County youngsters, the merriment and gift-giving taken care of, Santa dashed off to make his holiday rounds.  So, he made a hasty departure from the party, rushing through the parking lot.

Of course, he had nothing to do with the incident, but it made for a unique discussion back at the police station and several laughs on a Christmas Eve long ago, the calls documented for all time in the old Cecil County Police Blotter.

Elkton Police Officers Joe Zurolo & Jim Long

Elkton Police Officer Joe Zurolo (in uniform) greets old Saint Nick. Officer Jim Long is dressed as Santa in the mid 1970s.  Source:  Cecil Whig photo from the Jim Cheeseman collection at the Historical Society of Cecil County

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Marshall Purner Went From Big City Policing to Keeping the Peace in Cecil County

From Weather to Crimes, Police Blotter Gives Glimpse of Bygone Elkton

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Chief Thomas McIntire Guided Elkton Police into the Modern Era

Chief Thomas N. McIntire, Jr. working the towns new radar system.
Chief Thomas N. McIntire, Jr. working the town’s new radar system.

One dark night in the mid-1970s, Chief Thomas N. McIntire, Jr., cruised downtown Elkton.  As the midnight hour neared,  the police radio was silent, but suddenly it crackled to life with the most urgent dispatch, an officer was in trouble. A man was struggling with the lawman over by the railroad station. The other cop prowling the town that night signaled that he was rolling from out on Route 40 and would be there in three or four minutes.

Hitting the siren, the 50-something chief glanced at his partner, making sure he was ready for action as they would arrive ahead of the other unit. Screeching up to the depot, McIntire sprang into action helping cuff the man, while his partner maintained a calm, watchful eye over the ruckus.

Back at the station McIntire’s sidekick was full of energy, happy and eager to be on the job, while the patrolmen booked the perpetrator. Duke was just the type of partner the top cop in the county seat wanted at his side.  Although officially not a member of the nine-member force, the Black Labrador and the chief were inseparable.

Chief Mcintire soon after he assumed leadership of the department.
Chief Mcintire soon after he assumed leadership of the department.

It was all part of the job as lights went down in Elkton and the graveyard shift got underway.  About the time everyone else was falling asleep, two of the chief’s men started their workday.  The retiring watch briefed them, the paper work was shuffled, and plenty of coffee was available for the long, silent hours ahead.  The two beat officers,  prowled the alleys and back streets, keeping a watchful eye on the night and waiting for the dawn in the sleeping town.

But McIntire’s routine was different.  After finishing a full day’s work, he went home for the evening. But he jumped back into the cruiser sometime after dinner to make evening rounds, checking on the town and his men. Whenever Duke saw the chief climb into the car, he sprang into action, jumping into the vehicle.  The Chief and his 50-pound lab were a pair around Elkton in the 1970s. Duke, that friendly Labrador, accompanied the chief while he was checking dark, lonely alleys and backing up his men.   Eventually, often in the wee hours of the next day, things quieted down once barrooms closed and people settled in for the night so the chief returned home.  He got up and started all over again the next day, for administrative matters had to be taken care of during the workday.

When McIntire started on the crime beat in August 1951, he was paid $1.25 an hour. There were no radios to receive dispatches or to summon backup.  Typically, a shift involved many foot patrols downtown and periodic rounds of the outlying areas. The only prowl car was parked nearby at North and Main streets.

Besides the fact that most activity took place in the business district, there was another reason the officers remained downtown.  A red light on top of a telephone pole at the main intersection signaled that a citizen was calling for assistance. When the telephone operator received a complaint, she turned the light on and the policeman rushed over, to answer the police phone.

All too often, McIntire once remarked, you would be siting in the squad car at the corner of North and Main, keeping an eye on traffic and that phone.  In the middle of a downpour or thunderstorm, the light would flash, so you got out in the rain to answer it.  After saying “Elkton Police” someone respond by asking about how to get married in Elkton.

“In a few years, they put in a radio system so we could crisscross the town while our dispatcher, the water plant operator, took calls. With that communications system, we thought we were very modern,” McIntire recalled. “I was sworn in as chief of police in 1962 when the town was putting on a push to modernize the force. My salary jumped to $80 a week.

“I had four full-time and two part-time men and my goal was to have 24-hour patrols since the dark hours before dawn were often uncovered. For a holding cell, we handcuffed the prisoner to a pole in the police station while we investigated the matter or processed them before hauling the person to the county jail.”  It was supporting the second floor.  The work in those days was largely routine. “Traffic problems, simple assaults, drunkenness, loitering, minor thefts, and disorderly conduct made up the bulk of the few calls we’d get. We also had a little trouble with kids.”

Despite the easy going pace of county seat town with 5,000 people, there were some alarming incidents that jolted the routine. One Sunday night in 1963, as flashes of lighting fleetingly illuminated a cold, rainy December night, one of McIntire’s officers prowled the empty streets when, without warning, a dreadful explosion shook the entire town as a fireball, plunging into a rain-swept cornfield, chased away the darkness. Night turned to day and residents worried that a Soviet missile attack might be underway while the fire siren wailed out its urgent call.

“I rushed to the firehouse since I was also an assistant chief in the fire company. We weren’t sure what had happened, but on a cornfield just outside town, we located large craters, burning fuel, parts of the Boeing 707 fuselage, and a widely scattered debris field. We soon learned that a Pan-American plane had crashed and eventually found out that 81 people perished in that explosion. Once we determined there wasn’t much to do since rescue and ambulances weren’t needed, I went back into town to assist my officers. Traffic control was a major problem, the FBI was coming in, a morgue had to be set up, and a perimeter set-up, things like that.”

Another time in October 1965, a fireball loomed high up into the sky at the edge of the town, almost looking like a mushroom cloud.  “A freight train containing chemical and petroleum tankers jumped the tracks and there were enormous explosion. We had to evacuate a portion of the town because of the fear of explosions and the size of that fire,” McIntire said.

After 28 years in law enforcement, 18 as chief, McIntire decided it was time for a regular office job. So at 55 years of age, he became the supervising commissioner for the district court.

Reflecting on his 28 years in law enforcement, he said, “As a young boy growing up in Elkton, I still remember the old man who was our first chief of police, George Potts [1908-1935]. All he had to do was glance at one of us boys thinking of doing something wrong and we’d move right along. In addition to the little bit of crime that he handled, the town required the chief to oversee maintenance of the streets. By the time I retired we had a force of 14, computers connecting us to FBI and motor vehicle databases, and a criminal investigator.”

Chief Thomas McIntire had successfully guided the agency into the era of modern police work.  The times, the 1960s, were challenging for law enforcement across the nation as administrators struggled with social upheaval, growing violence, new laws and attitudes, emerging technologies, and the changing times, but in Elkton his steady hand moved the department forward through this maze.  He created a professional force with state-of-the-art methods that would have been most unfamiliar to earlier commanders.

For additional photos click here.

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In January 2013, some of the chief’s men and current officers stopped by the Historical Society of Cecil County on his birthday. Shift supervisor Sgt. Johnson, EPD (now retired) along with some of the officers on the day watch stopped by to greet the chief.

 

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Chief McIntire (center) and some of his officers.

 

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Sgt. Jeff McKenzie of the Cecil County Sheriff’s office, once worked for the Chief.

For additional historical photos related to Chief Thomas McIntire see this album on Facebook.

Elkton’s Early Police Chiefs, (Thomas McIntire, 1962-1980)

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Elkton Police Arrest of Ambassador From Iran Causes International Incident in 1935

Jake Biddle arrested ambassador of Iran
Elkton Police Chief Jake Biddle in 1935.

If there was anything remarkable about that Wednesday in November 1935 in Elkton, it was the new policeman directing traffic on the main thoroughfare from Washington to New York. Seventy-year-old Chief George Potts, having maintained tranquility in the town for twenty-eight years, had recently retired.  The rookie, Jake Biddle, was going to make a fine replacement as the top cop in Cecil County’s largest town and its two-man force, the locals remarked.

Eloping couples were streaming into the courthouse, while the marrying parlors were packed with nearly forty weddings, but that was routine.  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the White House struggling with the nation’s economic woes.  Far away in the Middle East, the ruler of Iran, Reza Shah Pahlavi was on the throne, but few people recognized his name.  As far as anyone knew, it was going to be another unremarkable day for the town of 3,000 people.

But once that shiny Packard blasted onto Main Street “at a terrible speed,” the town was caught in an incident involving international law, wounded Iranian dignity, and disrupted diplomatic relations.

Chief Biddle was downtown when he noticed the fast-moving vehicle.  In it was Iran’s ambassador hurrying from Washington to New York for a dinner date, along with his British-born wife, a pet dog, and the chauffeur.  When the policeman gave a blast on the whistle the driver pulled to the curb.  As Biddle walked up to the Packard, he wasn’t put off by the lettering on its side that read “Ghaffar Khan Djalal, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Imperial Majesty the Shah of Iran.”  The diplomatic license plate didn’t register either.

Stories about what happened next vary widely, but whatever the case, the run-in escalated with the Ambassador of Iran. One local paper said, “When Biddle approached the car, the minister, who it is said had been drinking pushed him away, and when Biddle refused to allow the envoy to proceed, he got out of the car and engaged in a scuffle. “  So unruly had the diplomat become that handcuffs were snapped on his wrists, the paper continued.  Constable Clayton Ellison, who lived nearby, was roused from a catnap by the disturbance, so he rushed over to help, as did old Chief Potts, as a growing crowd watched the tense, unfolding scene downtown.

Producing his State Department credentials and a business card identifying his lofty position, the Persian Prince asked to straighten things out by calling Secretary Cordell Hull, the Far East Desk, or someone in Washington, D.C.  But the officers weren’t letting a little noise distract them from their sworn duty to uphold Maryland Traffic Laws.

At some point, the bunch was carted off to the jail. When it was explained to the jailer that the minister of Iran was involved, he wasn’t impressed either, accustomed as he was to so many marrying reverends in the Gretna Green.  “Minister, eh?  Just another preacher.  Throw ‘em in the cell!” quoted the Associated Press.

Everyone had concluded the same thing.  From the crowd watching the police action to Biddle and the deputy at the jail, it was universally agreed that he was a “marrying minister” trying to grab some of Cupid’s lucrative Elkton business.

At the lockup, the ambassador again protesting that his diplomatic immunity was violated, asked to call Washington, but the request was denied. When the lawmen found that the trial magistrate wasn’t available they packed up the group for a trip to North East.  There the justice of the peace, George C. Rawson, thought the situation was a little ticklish so he allowed the Persian representative to call the State Department.  When the Far East duty officer got the judge on the line, the charges were quickly dropped as the magistrate told everyone in the hearing room that a “foreign minister can do no wrong.”

Once the judge determined that not all speeders could be treated equally, it wasn’t long before the Elkton police discovered that they had stumbled upon one of “Washington’s prize foreign squawkers,” as a local newspaper labeled the emissary. Djalal grumbled to New York Papers, saying that the “Elkton police were no diplomats,” or a least that’s what the headline screamed.  As soon as he returned from New York, where he “rushed for an urgent official engagement” he would make a formal complaint with the State Department, he assured newspapermen.

The Shah of Iran was outraged when he heard that police officer grappled with his dignitary . . . snapping the degrading shackles of a criminal on his wrist” as Time reported.  After a protest was lodged, federal investigators took affidavits, followed by closed-door meetings with officials at the highest level of government.  To pacify Iran, the officers, Biddle and Clayton, were convicted of assault and fired, while the president, governor, and mayor issued formal apologies.

It might have all faded into the mist of time, but for an enterprising photographer from the Baltimore Sun. He got three of the lawmen to pose for a picture a few weeks after with a caption reading:  “These gyves [shackles] were snapped on Iran’s Envoy.”  Local authorities thought they could quietly reinstate the officers, but the photograph and their action again grabbed headlines.  This touched off another international incident, for an apology was no longer sufficient for the now furious Shah.  He ordered the minister recalled, closed the embassy, and evicted U.S. representatives from Persia, breaking off all diplomatic relations with the United States for three years.

So how did the arrest of the Ambassador of Iran end? With the federal government carefully monitoring municipal actions, Biddle quickly hung up his holster and badge at the order of the town council.  The rookie chief returned to farming at a quiet spot far off the main New York to Washington, road traveled by dignitaries.  As for Elkton patrolmen, they steered clear of run-ins with foreign ambassadors or at least we have found any additional references to trouble with the agency in the Journal of International Law.  And diplomats, envoys, and marrying ministers, for that matter, were likely to use a little more caution when traveling through this corner of northeastern Maryland.

Elkton police arrested Ambassador of Iran
Following the arrest of the Ambassador of Iran, Cecil County lawmen displayed the handcuffs used to shackle the ambassador while he was transported to the jail. From L to R: Sheriff Eugene Racine, Constable Clayton Ellison, and Elkton Chief Jake Biddle.