August Vollmer - Later Years

Later Years

In 1921, Vollmer was elected president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Vollmer left the Berkeley Police Department for a brief stint as police chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1923 to 1924, but returned upon being disillusioned by the extent of corruption and hostility towards leadership coming from outside the department.

Vollmer married Millicent Gardner in 1924. They had no children. In 1926, Vollmer played himself in the silent serial Officer 444 which was filmed in Berkeley under the direction of John Ford's brother Francis Ford.

He retired from the Berkeley Police in 1932 as his eyesight began to fail. He was then appointed as a professor of police administration in the Political Science Department at the University of California, and went on to found its School of Criminology. He was also among the five people elected to be the first directors of the East Bay Regional Parks District in 1934. The same year Vollmer was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.

Vollmer became afflicted with Parkinson's Disease late in life, and also cancer. He refused to be bed-ridden, and chose to end his own life at age 79 in 1955.