The Great Gambling Raid That Never Was
A power struggle between Seattle's Mayor and his Police Chief leads to a failed raid, secret deals, and a very public scandal.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Trouble that has been smoldering for some time between Mayor Moran and the City Council on one side and Chief of Police Mitchell on the other, erupted into open rupture yesterday after a statement from the Mayor that Mitchell had utterly and willfully failed to perform his duties as Chief of Police and that his resignation, promised several weeks ago, would be entirely acceptable to the Council. This statement was precipitated by the disclosure of a plan by the City Council to exercise the necessary authority to swear in a number of deputies of their own choosing and make a raid upon the gambling dens of the city. This plan was frustrated in the morning by the action of the Chief of Police in calling on the City Attorney to prepare complaints for the arrest of the gamblers, whom he claimed to intend to arrest that evening. The gamblers of Seattle were evidently among the very first to learn that they were being made a bone of contention, for by five o'clock all the games in the city shut down, and the haunts of the profession were deserted. All the gambling paraphernalia had been relegated to back rooms or removed from the city limits. Mayor Moran claimed the Chief was in collusion with the gamblers, while Chief Mitchell maintained he intended to vindicate himself before the public.
“Mitchell is a fool or a knave when he asserts that gambling has not been carried on, and either proves him incompetent or the officer he has failed to fulfill.”
This 1891 report of a fractured relationship between City Hall and the police department, fueled by mutual distrust and the failure to enforce city regulations, bears a striking resemblance to the persistent struggles for police accountability and administrative friction that continue to define Seattle's political landscape over 130 years later.
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