eapons. While Police Commissioner we punished any
brutality by the police with such immediate severity that all cases of
brutality practically came to an end. No decent citizen had anything
to fear from the police during the two years of my service. But we
consistently encouraged the police to prove that the violent criminal
who endeavored to molest them or to resist arrest, or to interfere with
them in the discharge of their duty, was himself in grave jeopardy; and
we had every "gang" broken up and the members punished with whatever
severity was necessary. Of course where possible the officer merely
crippled the criminal who was violent.

One of the things that we did while in office was to train the men in
the use of the pistol. A school of pistol practice was established,
and the marksmanship of the force was wonderfully improved. The man
in charge of the school was a roundsman, Petty, whom we promoted to
sergeant. He was one of the champion revolver shots of the country,
and could hit just about where he aimed. Twice he was forced to fire at
criminals who resisted arrest, and in each case he hit his man in the
arm or leg, simply stopping him without danger to his life.

In May, 1896, a number of burglaries occurred far uptown, in the
neighborhood of One Hundred and Fifty-sixth Street and Union Avenue.
Two officers were sent out each night to patrol the streets in plain
clothes. About two o'clock on the morning of May 8 they caught a glimpse
of two men loitering about a large corner house, and determined to
make them explain their actions. In order to cut off their escape, one
officer went down one street and one the other. The first officer, whose
name was Ryan, found the two men at the gateway of the side entrance of
the house, and hailed to know what they were doing. Without answering,
they turned and ran toward Prospect Avenue, with Ryan in close pursuit.
After running about one hundred feet, one of them turned and fired three
shots at Ryan, but failed to hit him. The two then separated, and the
man who had done the shooting escaped. The other man, whose name proved
to be O'Connor, again took to his heels, with Ryan still after him;
they turned the corner and met the other officer, whose name was Reid,
running as hard as he could toward the shooting. When O'Connor saw
himself cut off by Reid, he fired at his new foe, the bullet cutting
Reid's overcoat on the left shoulder. Reid promptly fired in return,
his bull