50 Years Later: Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit Photos Come Home

For those who lived through it, November 22, 1963 is a date that most people will never forget. Often you’ll hear people say that they remember exactly where they were and how they felt when they heard the news: President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Though that day represents a moment that touched people across the nation, it hit close to home for the Dallas Police Department and Police Officer J.D. Tippit’s family. Officer Tippit was patrolling the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas when he received an urgent message from dispatch. What had started as an average day on the job, quickly shifted to one that required him to search for the president’s assassin.

Collection of the National Law Enforcement Museum 2013.26

Noticing a man who matched the suspect’s description, Officer Tippit pulled over on the 400 block of East 10th Street to question him. The man pulled out a .38 revolver and shot Officer Tippit four times. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, leaving behind his wife, Marie, and three young children.

Less than 30 minutes later, Detective Paul Bentley followed a tip—about a suspicious man sneaking into the movie theater—that led him to the Texas Theater, where he arrested Lee Harvey Oswald. Detective Bentley thought he had arrested Officer Tippit’s killer; it was only after receiving a radio call that he learned the man in his cruiser was also suspected of killing President Kennedy.

Collection of the National Law Enforcement Museum 2013.26

This October, the National Law Enforcement Museum acquired an important piece of history—the crime scene photos (including the three shown here) of Officer J.D. Tippit’s cruiser parked on 10th Street shortly after his death.

Part of a major auction featuring items related to the Kennedy family, these simple stills manage to capture both a national tragedy and the personal loss of the Tippit family and the Dallas Police Department. They remind us of the potential for calamity that officers face as they head out on a routine patrol, as well as reinforce the importance of that effort.

Collection of the National Law Enforcement Museum 2013.26

The Museum is proud to bring these photographs to our collection. Additionally, many thanks to RR Auctions for kindly donating a portion of the auction proceeds to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Officer Tippit’s name is engraved on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. A few years ago, fellow Dallas officer, Detective James Leavelle, visited the Memorial for the first time to see his friend Officer Tippit’s name. Detective Leavelle was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald, escorting him through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, when Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby. Mr. Leavelle spoke at the Museum’s first Witness to History event.

Happy Halloween from the National Law Enforcement Museum & the Sprinkle Brothers!

Who doesn't like a good ghost story on Halloween? Thanks to the blog, Ghosts of DC (GoDC), we've discovered one that involves a couple of former Metropolitan (DC) Police officers—including J.L. Sprinkle, pictured below, with his brother, J.F.

Brothers J.L. and J.F. Sprinkle wearing their DC
Metropolitan Police Department uniforms, 1904.
Collection of the National Law Enforcement Museum, 2006.166.1

According to GoDC, it started on a dark and stormy night a few years ago with an officer on desk duty at the 1D-1 Substation in Washington, DC's historic Capitol Hill neighborhood. While monitoring the closed-circuit TV camera, he noticed another officer on his screen. But he was sure he was alone in the building…

Well, local legend goes on to explain who the officer on the screen might have been. On March 5, 1909, Officer John W. Collier called in sick to work. He was known for laziness and tardiness, so his commanding officer, precinct commander Captain William H. Mathews, ordered that Collier show up to prove just how sick he was.

Collier walked into the Fifth Precinct station house (today’s 1D-1 Substation) and shot Captain Mathews (whose name is engraved on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial wall). Mathews’s Deputy, J.L. Sprinkle, and two other officers, fought with Collier, but it was too late. Captain Mathews had been killed.

Did the deceased Captain Mathews somehow reappear at his old station? I guess we’ll never know for sure. Read GoDC’s whole account of these events.

Artifact Spotlight: The Bicycle Craze in America

Museum staff has had bicycles on the brain, as we gear up for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund’s annual Ride & Run to Remember, on October 12-13, in Washington, DC. Sifting through the collection, the question of when cycling gained popularity got our wheels turning.

In the early 1890s, people were caught up in a new trend—bicycle riding. Although the bicycle had been around for a while, innovative designs, better roads, and the discovery of new materials produced a machine that was lighter, smoother, and faster to ride. Growing public acceptance of this social and health-boosting activity encouraged people to try it. Even fashion was influenced, as new skirts were designed for women to ride modestly in public.

Print from an 1893 edition of Judge Magazine.
Collection of the National Law Enforcement Museum,
2006.484.24

As with any new trend, this two-wheeled contraption faced its share of critics. An 1893 edition of Judge Magazine spoofed the craze, creating cartoon vignettes of all the silly developments that could come from it. One such scene (see left) pictures two portly policemen trying to balance on the spindly wheels of turn-of-the-century bicycles, with a caption that reads, “it would not do.”

Ignoring the ridicule, the NYPD forged ahead with a Bicycle Squad, and with great success. After its 29 officers made over 1300 arrests in their first year, the Squad was soon expanded to 100 officers. Before long, these squads became the norm within urban law enforcement agencies, which surely left the critics backpedaling on their anti-bicycle stance.

This month, 120 years after this cartoon was published, riders will cycle up to 50 miles to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, to honor the sacrifice and celebrate the service of our law enforcement officers. Fundraising events like this one help keep the long tradition of cycling in America alive—and support a worthy cause, too.

Event Recap | Witness to History: The Investigation of Robert Hanssen

Hosted by the International Spy Museum and sponsored by Target, the National Law Enforcement Museum's event, Witness to History: The Investigation of Robert Hanssen, took place last evening. About 170 guests attended—the largest crowd at a Witness to History event to date—and Peter Earnest, the Founding Executive Director of the International Spy Museum, welcomed the nearly full auditorium, saying, "the government is closed, but the Spy Museum is not." He then introduced the moderator, National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund Chairman & CEO Craig W. Floyd, to begin the discussion with panelists, Section Chief Mike Rochford, FBI, Russian Overseas Espionage, Ret.; and David Wise, Author of Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America.


The panelists—with help from audience members such as Dr. David L. Charney, who was Hanssen's psychiatrist—shed light on what motivated ex-FBI agent and Russian spy, Robert Hanssen, to sell high-level U.S. secrets to the former Soviet Union and Russia for over 20 years.

Hanssen was the son of a Chicago law enforcement officer (who specialized in catching suspected communists), and went on to become a Russian spy, just three years after joining the FBI. He was a family man and devout Catholic, who also became involved with a stripper. Mr. Wise summed it up, "Robert Hanssen is a very complex man, and a bundle of contradictions." Dr. Charney, who was given permission by Hanssen to convey his medical findings to the intelligence community as a teaching opportunity, agreed with this assertion. He said "compartmentalization" was a factor in Hanssen's ability to function in starkly contradictory roles.

Mr. Rochford described the process of finally pinning Hanssen as the culprit who had leaked hundreds of highly sensitive documents to the Russians for a long period of time. He referred to some clues that, in hindsight, may have led the FBI's investigation to Hanssen, as "puffs of smoke" that, at the time, did not amount to any significant proof of his guilt. He also confirmed that Hanssen was never polygraphed until he was caught, and that the FBI now polygraphs upon employment—one of the improvements that resulted from this case.

Thanks to the collective efforts of the FBI, CIA, Department of State, and the Justice Department, Hanssen was arrested in 2001 and convicted of espionage. He is currently at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, where he is held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day (with one hour of exercise permitted).

Learn more about the National Law Enforcement Museum's Witness to History panel discussion series, and check out recaps and photos from past events.

Our Law Enforcement Family

Did you know that our nation’s law enforcement family comprises more than 16 million people?

There are currently 18,000 agencies that represent over 900,000 active officers patrolling our streets and keeping us safe. To put that in perspective, when you look at the current U.S. population of 319 million people, there is only one law enforcement officer for every 350 civilians!

Fortunately, to support those officers, there are 1.6 million civilians whose efforts are vital to assisting officers. These include dispatchers, equipment managers, information technology specialists, and many more. In addition to our active officers, there are over three million retired officers in the U.S.

If you factor in the families of our current and retired law enforcement officers, as well as the families of the civilians who provide officer support, that number reaches more than 16 million people.

 

We hope that each and every member of the law enforcement family will have the opportunity to visit the National Law Enforcement Museum when it opens in 2015.

Lloyd George Sealy

50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech

Fifty years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the March on Washington, drawing a quarter-million people to the nation’s capital. The March would become one of the largest political rallies for human rights in our nation’s history, and Dr. King’s inspirational words that day—promoting racial peace and equality—became known as the I Have a Dream speech.

  

Photograph: Captain Lloyd George Sealy.
First black Captain of 28th Precinct, Harlem, August 1965.
Lt. Marvin Sartorius looks on. 2006.280.1.11

Reflecting on this historic day, Museum staff wanted to share the story of an African-American man working in law enforcement during this tumultuous time in U.S. history. Lloyd George Sealy was born in Manhattan in 1917, and was raised in Brooklyn, New York. Officer Sealy began his career with the NYPD in November 1942. At that time, there were few African-Americans in the department, and most served in precincts in neighborhoods with large black populations. 

Over the next 10 years, with ambition and grit, Sealy earned both his Bachelor’s degree and Law degree, all while working full time as a police officer—even being promoted to Sergeant in 1951 and later to Captain. 

Sealy carries a list of firsts for African-American officers in New York: first to command a precinct in Harlem (2nd to command a precinct in all of New York); first Assistant Chief Inspector in 1966; first Commander of the Brooklyn North Patrol Service Area, also in 1966; and, after retiring, first to become an Associate Professor of Law and Police Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a department of the City University of New York.  Sealy is also a founding member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE). The Lloyd George Sealy library at John Jay College is named in his honor.

Artifact Spotlight | Wanted: A Piece of History Conserved

In 1923, Mr. Samuel Hasten was a wanted man. The 38-year-old Austria native was arrested for felony and embezzlement in San Francisco, and was wanted for jumping bail. This obscure episode in San Francisco Police Department history would be lost, if not for a fragile wanted poster in our collection. Over the summer, the Museum has begun to preserve that piece of history—the wanted poster issued for Samuel Hasten, in October 1923, by D.J. O’Brien, Chief of Police—along with several other wanted posters in the collection.

Before and after conservation.  2006.177.3

The Hasten wanted poster was treated to remove old adhesive residue and had a deacidification “bath” to remove acids in the paper that contributed to aging and yellowing. Once it dried, it was carefully lined with very thin archival tissue to support the delicate paper. Now that it has been conserved, this document is well equipped to be displayed on exhibit—and will allow the Museum to maintain it in stable condition, indefinitely.