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A Tampa police veteran digs into the department's past to compile stories of historic proportion.
By TAMARA LUSH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 23, 2002
TAMPA -- The front-page headline in the March 9, 1927, edition of the Tampa Morning Tribune reads like this: "All Uniform Police Answer Sunday's Call."
Then, in smaller type: "140 of 200 Members of Force Hit the Sawdust Trail."
The "sawdust trail" was the sawdust-strewn aisle at popular evangelical tent revivals. Figuratively, it was a metaphor for finding one's way to God.
Either way, Tampa's finest, (including then-Chief D.B. York and his top brass), renounced Satan as they walked down the sawdust path on that spring day in 1927.
"I have spent 30 years preaching in every state in this country," popular evangelist Billy Sunday told the newspaper. "But this is the first time every bluecoat has pledged his life to both God and city. It is a world's record, I am sure."
Cops?
Sawdust?
Tampa?
This quirky story -- and dozens of others like it -- might have been lost to aging archives and shelved microfilm rolls if it wasn't for Tampa Police Lt. Robert Pennington.
The 31-year police veteran has been unearthing such historical gems since he started writing the history of the police force two years ago.
"People are calling it my legacy to the department," said Pennington, who is set to retire in a few months.
Pennington, who also oversees the Tampa Police Museum and the department's fallen officers memorial, will publish the history as part of the department's first-ever yearbook, which will be available later this year.
After his retirement, Pennington hopes to expand on his research -- "I'd like to do it a bit more thoroughly," he says -- and is considering making a cable documentary on the department.
"It's detective work," he said.
So far, the history is 30 pages long and begins in the late 1800s, when the city had a marshal, not a chief, and two officers under his command.
In those days, criminals were hanged at the county jail, bail bonds were rarely over $5 and the mayor also was the city's judge.
"Police were paid $30 a month and they worked seven days a week," Pennington said. "You pretty much worked all the time."
In 1887, Tampa's crime patterns looked much like they do now: murders, burglaries and break-ins were frequent. The growing police force was often called to respond to public drunkenness.
In 1895, officer John McCormick was shot when he responded to a domestic call at Salter's Bar on Lafayette (now Kennedy Boulevard) and Franklin streets. McCormick was the first officer in Tampa killed in the line of duty.
Pennington has gathered details by reviewing microfilm and old, yellowing city archive books. He also has done dozens of interviews with retired officers.
He has discovered funny stories, such as the fact that in the 1890s, the mayor released all the nonviolent criminals out of the city jail on Christmas Eve.
He has discovered heroic stories, like the one of Chief F.M. Williams, a decorated World War I veteran who killed nearly a half-dozen Germans in battle, all after being shot in the neck.
Williams, who was hired after the war, made $3,000 a year as chief.
Pennington also has discovered the sad history of the force: the decades of violent, organized crime, the tales of its 25 fallen officers and the south's racist past.
Until the early 1960s, Tampa's black police officers weren't allowed to arrest white people. Nor were they allowed to ride in police cruisers with white officers, so they walked to their beat. They also couldn't attend white roll call.
"I think the department has come a long way," said Pennington, noting that Tampa Chief Bennie Holder -- a black man -- has been chief longer than anyone in the department's history.
Pennington, who was once a detective, likes to point out the department's firsts.
The first police boat was a 16-foot Carter Craft, donated to the department in 1956.
The first police helicopter was a 1962 Piper Colt. The officers nicknamed the plane "Tilly."
There is some dispute over the first female officer. As early as the 1920s, the department had women who acted as juvenile officers, but Pennington thinks the first woman patrol officer hired was Ann Williams, in the late 1970s. Or it could have been Barbara Williams, who later became the department's first female captain, he said.
Someone donated a program for a policeman's ball in the 1930s to Pennington.
It features a lengthy essay by Mrs. N.K. Christian, one of the first female juvenile officers who handled the unruly youth of the day.
Her views are at once quaint and familiar.
"This may be shocking," Mrs. Christian said, "But I have seen 14 year old girls drinking and smoking and thinking nothing of it."
Oh, Mrs. Christian. If only you could see Ybor City now.