Book lively account of cops, crooks

BANGOR’S FINEST AT THE MILLENNIUM, by Fred and Debbie Bryant, published by the authors, P.O. Box 4, Dixmont 04932, 138 pages, $12.50.

I just spent an evening with a gaggle of bootleggers, gangsters, murderers and streetwalkers without ever leaving my home or breaking the law.

Bad guys, as well as the good guys who made them toe the line, spring to life in Fred and Debbie Bryant’s sparkling new history of the Bangor Police Department. Many colorful characters are profiled, such as motorycle cop Warren Brown, policewoman Lillian Watson and Officer Jack Kennedy. In a riotous anecdote from old-time Bangor, when beat cops patrolled downtown gin mills and bawdy houses, Kennedy is asked by a Pickering Square pub keeper to mind the shop in his absence.

“Jack goes behind the bar, pours the beer, takes the customer’s money and rings it up,” write the Bryants. “He did this for about 15 or 20 minutes until Jim [McCluskey] got back.”

Shenanigans like that would end an officer’s career today, but in the formative years of the 111-year-old police department (it became a permanent force in 1889, but its roots stretch to 1792 when the first constable was hired), this was all in a day’s work for Bangor’s finest.

Part of the Bryants’ charm is that they don’t take themselves seriously. And as private investigators well-versed in Maine law enforcement (Fred was a Bangor police officer from 1963 to 1984; his wife, Debbie, graduated from the Maine Criminal Justice Academy), they know their stuff. Their penchant for memorabilia is also apparent; most of the badges, billy clubs, brass knuckles and other curios pictured are from their own collection and the Bangor Police Museum at 35 Court St., which they maintain.

Many of the book’s 179 photos and illustrations are culled from their collection, and that of the police department, the Bangor Daily News and the Bangor Historical Society. The 1937 Brady Gang shootout is shown, along with the first paddy wagon and local landmarks that underscore the book’s value as a city history as well as a police chronicle.

Pictured are many officers whose names were household words. The occasional scandal notwithstanding, the department has long hired solid men and women. A few notables are the four generations of officers named Calvin F. Knaide (I, II, III and IV), Eddie Connelly, Bernie Welch and John “Mittens” Burke. A pullout photo shows today’s force, complete with a pair of K-9 German shepherds; the final picture is of the current chief, Donald J. Winslow.

Lest readers conclude the tales of tippling beat cops and snoozing nighttime officers dominate the book, many sobering stories remind them that danger is only a call away for any officer. Included are the deaths of Patrick Henry Jordan and Francis Murray, the only two city policemen to die in the line of duty. A possible third name is that of Officer Edward A. Laffey, who died in 1914 after being struck by an unruly drunk. His death record lists the cause of death as an enlarged heart.

Part of the book’s publication cost was underwritten by the Bangor Fraternal Order of Police. It is for sale at the Bangor Police Museum and by the authors.