It was a different kind of police work local department members had to do in the 1930s. Their daily logs from the time, all handwritten, all with the times they did inspections or took their lunch or were on general patrol. It was usual for the police to have school traffic duty, generally from 8:25 to 9 a.m. on school mornings, so the officer who went on duty at 10:30 the night before generally had that as his last assignment of the work day.
Kyril Parker was a police officer in the 1930s and generally wrote detailed accounts of his daily routine. On Dec. 2, 1930, his day started out when he logged in at 10:30 p.m. and immediately starting patrolling, logging in every hour and a half or so to report “General Patrol” or “Door inspection,” noting the times he was checking the doors of the businesses on Bay Avenue. He took his lunch at 6:15 that day, for 45 minutes before more routine patrol and then handling school traffic until 9 a.m., logging off the for day at 9:10 a.m.
On another night, Officer Parker went into detail about an incident that occurred at 8:10 p.m. “I was notified that Bernard Mount was driving a car around the streets drunk. I found the car but could not find Bernard so I brought the car to headquarters and had it put in Neimark’s Garage. It belonged to Roxy at Water Witch. I notified Roxy about it. He said that Bernard stole it.”
That was the end of information on that matter and whether police ever found Bernard or whether he ever got charged with anything remains a mystery today.
But Officer Parker continued on his routine diligently. The next mention is in log is “Found Ned Colton’s store door locked and the key was in the lock. I brought it to headquarters..”
And because it was Prohibition, there were many calls like the following, also logged by Ptl. Parker. “While trying store doors, I discovered a man on the avenue sick with pain in stomach so I took him to Doctor Rowland. He examined the man and told me to take him to the hospital of which I did. The mans was a soldier so I took him to the hospital at Sandy Hook, The doctor claimed it was either bad liquor or appendicitis. “
For Officer Parker, it was just one more log in a day filled with everything from noticing a key in the lock of a closed store to driving a soldier whose name he never knew to the hospital in his patrol car.
