A Detective's Memory Lands a Fugitive
A Tacoma detective recognizes a wanted man while breaking up a saloon fight on Pacific Avenue.
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John Fitzgerald, chief of the Tacoma detectives, has a remarkable memory. Six months ago, the grizzled detective received a description of a man named C. W. Sickles, wanted in Ellensburg on a charge of embezzlement. The description told of a blemish on the fugitive's cheek. Last evening as 'Fitz' was walking along Pacific Avenue, he noticed a bartender forcibly ejecting a man from a saloon who had made himself obnoxious by trying to fight everyone. The man's face made an impression on the officer's mind, and he locked him up. Within ten minutes, Fitzgerald had dug up the description of Sickles, and the arrested man confessed that he was the guilty party. The Ellensburg sheriff arrived today and took Sickles home with him.
“The man's face made an impression on the officer's mind, and he locked him up.”
Pacific Avenue remains the heart of downtown Tacoma, though its saloons have given way to modern commerce. This story captures the era's reliance on 'grizzled' individual intuition over the digital surveillance methods that would define modern policing.
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