History
Among its members were Sheriff Jack Helms of DeWitt County, Texas, who served as a captain. He was later killed by John Wesley Hardin during the Sutton-Taylor feud. Another notable member was Leander H. McNelly of the Texas Ranger Division. Outlaw William P. Longley claimed to have killed members of the Texas State Police in 1866–1869—even before it came into existence.
Despite the success of the State Police, the fact that the force employed African Americans and was controlled by Governor Davis made it unpopular. Some of the State Police members certainly deserved criticism. Captain Jack Helm, for instance, was accused of murdering prisoners; he was fired, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Others committed crimes for which the charges were dropped as soon as headquarters was advised. James Davidson, the Chief of the State Police, embezzled $37,000 and disappeared.
In September 1870 Hill County, Texas local citizens refused to cooperate with the TSP from moving against the Kinch West gang; in December 1870 Hill County citizens blocked the TSP from arresting the killers of an African-American couple.
Read more about this topic: Texas State Police
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)