Second Term
After being succeeded by and succeeding Police Chief Roy E. Steckel, Davis served as chief from 1933 to 1939. In his second-go-round as chief, Davis developed a reputation as a reformer. Under Chief Steckel, departmental regulations forbidding the solicitation of rewards or the acceptance of gratuities by policemen had lapsed; Davis reimplemented the restrictions. He also fired 245 police officers for misconduct in the first four years of his second term.
However, in reality, Two-Gun Davis was to serve one of the most corrupt mayors in Los Angeles history, Frank L. Shaw. A pro F.D.R./pro-New Deal Republican, Shaw had been elected despite the opposition of the Chandler Family, conservatives who owned the powerful Los Angeles Times newspaper. (The 1910 L.A. Times building bombing had been carried out by a union member, upset with the anti-union stance of publisher Harrison Gray Otis, whose son-in-law Harry Chandler would take over as publisher of the Times in 1917. The bombing killed 21 newspaper employees and injured 100.)
To curry favor with the Chandlers, Shaw appointed Davis chief. Chandler was fiercely anti-labor, and Davis, as chief, could provide police muscle to discourage unionization.
Davis formed a "Red Squad" in order to "investigate and control radical activities, strikes, and riots." According to the Official L.A.P.D. Web Site, one Police Commissioner declared his support for Davis' Red Squad, saying, "The more the police beat them up and wreck their headquarters, the better. Communists have no Constitutional rights and I won't listen to anyone who defends them."
Mayor Shaw appointed his campaign manager, James "Sunny Jimmy" Bolger, to serve as Davis' secretary, in order to keep a tight rein on the Chief.
Under Chief Davis, the L.A.P.D. would become mired in corruption, becoming active agents in the promotion of vice.
Read more about this topic: James E. Davis (police)
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