Police Riots Of 1857

3 Pages 750 Words

Political corruption in the 1800’s destroyed the City of New York. The combination of feuding police forces and increasing gang activity in the mid 1800’s made New York a very unsafe place. In 1857, the feuds and rivalries of the police had culminated and turned New York City into a war zone.
New York State created its own police district in 1857, which compromised the city’s force. New York then had two police departments, of equal strength and each regarding the other as an outlaw force. One was Fernando Wood’s Municipal Police and the other was the state’s Metropolitan Police, headed by Frederick Talmadge. The decent people of the city began to worry, knowing that the day would soon come when they would be left alone on corrupted streets to fend for themselves. The feud raged just as the people had thought. Members of the two forces were no longer concerned with the public’s safety and became entirely tied up in their vendettas against each other. Criminals were thriving on the feud. Respectable people were now being held up at gunpoint in broad daylight. The officers would literally fight over a criminal and allow the assailant to escape while differences were settled. The city was mayhem, and was overflowing with corruption.
The police riot on the steps of city hall, on June 16, 1857, was the culmination of the forces’ corruption. The Republicans at Albany shortened Mayor Fernando Wood's second term of office from two years to one while creating the Metropolitan Police Force, with Frederick Talmadge as superintendent. Talmadge demanded that Wood disband the Municipal Police and Wood refused urging his men to stand by him. Municipal superintendent George W. Matsell, 15 captains and 800 patrolmen of the Municipal Police backed Mayor Wood. 300 others abandoned him. Captain George W. Walling was one of those who pledged his loyalty to the Metropolitan Police and was rewarded by being ordered to arrest...