{"id":12246,"date":"2018-05-21T09:33:15","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T13:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=12246"},"modified":"2018-05-21T17:17:48","modified_gmt":"2018-05-21T21:17:48","slug":"the-sawed-off-shotgun-from-trench-sweeper-to-police-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2018\/05\/the-sawed-off-shotgun-from-trench-sweeper-to-police-power\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sawed-Off Shotgun: From Trench Sweeper to Police Power"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shotgun Squad, September 1922 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sergeant Fred Lloyd became an instant American wartime legend in September 1918, when he singlehandedly cleared an entire German-occupied village by walking the streets \u201cpumping and firing\u201d an army-issue, 12-gauge, Winchester Model 97 shotgun.<\/p>\n

Stateside, the shotgun had been the firearm of choice for game hunting. On the battlefields of World War I, it earned the nickname \u201ctrench sweeper.\u201d Germans considered the weapon so lethal they filed a diplomatic protest, charging it caused \u201cunnecessary suffering,\u201d that its use violated the Hague Convention.<\/p>\n

After the war, American police put the shotgun to work on city streets, claiming it outperformed the submachine gun.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia police had already adopted the motorcycle as a crime fighting tool. In 1915, the department argued that a \u201cFlying Squadron\u201d of 200 officers on motorcycles \u201cwould be equivalent to 1,000 footmen \u2026more effective than men on horseback\u201d and less costly. When they added shotgun-wielding sharpshooters in sidecars to the mix, urban policing would take an aggressive turn.<\/p>\n

\u201cA new era in the development of the Philadelphia Police forces is scheduled to begin today,\u201d reported Richard J. Beamish in the Inquirer<\/em> of December 23, 1920. \u201cPhiladelphia\u2019s Christmas presents for motor bandits are ready: 150 armed motorcycles, most of them with sidecars, a stack of sawed-off shotguns, each pumping six shells of buck shot in rapid succession. A battalion of intensively trained motorcycle and automobile drivers whose daring and sharpshooting will make them deadly foes to bandits.\u201d A handpicked, photogenic \u201csquad of \u2018bandit hunters\u2019\u201d would overcome getaway cars going as fast as 80 miles per hour. With their \u201csawed-offs,\u201d police were \u201cguaranteed to blow the tire from a motor car or end the career of a fugitive robber.\u201d<\/p>\n

For sheer effectiveness, but also for the optics of power, shotguns became the go-to weapon. In 1954, Police Commissioner Gibbons\u2019 \u201cshotgun squad\u201d aimed \u201ca stepped-up war on violent crimes, especially those committed by \u2018hop-heads,\u2019\u201d referring to drug users. Every squad car in the detective division had at least two men with sawed-off shot guns, not stowed away, but on full display.<\/p>\n

\u201cShotgun Squads Patrol the Streets\u201d read the headline.<\/p>\n

It was only a matter of time before the shotgun became a symbol of police power in a racially divided city.<\/p>\n

According to the The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia<\/a><\/em>, the police department, then 95 percent white, \u201cfielded \u2018shotgun squads\u2019 of officers patrolling in cars with sawed-off shotguns leaning out the windows in a show of force\u201d in African-American neighborhoods. On repeated occasions, in the 1950s, Police Commissioner Thomas J. Gibbons \u201cordered mass arrests of hundreds of young black men.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf the thirty-two people shot and killed by police between 1950 and 1960, twenty-eight\u201487.5 percent\u2014were black, even though blacks made up 22 percent of the city population.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a symbol of power, the shotgun would be brought by police and brought up by protestors. During the 1964 campaign for the integration of Girard College marchers \u201cannounced their readiness to physically resist police violence,\u201d wrote Matthew J. Countryman in Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia. \u201c<\/em>To the tune of \u2018We Shall Overcome,\u2019 the protesters sang \u2018We Shall Overrun.\u2019 One favorite chant promised violent revenge on the police: \u2018Jingle Bells \/ shotgun shells \/ Freedom all the way \/ Oh, what fun it is \/ To blow a bluecoat man away.\u2019 Another began \u2018Cecil\u2019s got a shotgun,\u2019\u201d referring to leader of the protests, civil rights activist and later City Councilman, Cecil B. Moore.<\/p>\n

Two years later, police Commissioner Frank Rizzo \u201corganized four squads of shotgun-toting cops to raid offices and an apartment associated with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) heavily armed police backed by 1000 uniformed officers raided four buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rizzo\u2019s men would arrive in bulletproof vests carrying sawed-off shotguns.<\/p>\n

(Sources: Tom Laemlein, \u201cThe Trouble with Trench Guns<\/a>,\u201d The American Rifleman<\/em>, January 23, 2018; \u00a0Glenn H. Utter Guns and Contemporary Society: The Past, Present, and Future of Firearms and Firearm Policy<\/a><\/em> (ABC-CLIO, December 1, 2015); \u201c\u2019Flying Squadron\u2019\u201d is Potter\u2019s Plan,\u201d The Inquirer<\/em>, March 5, 1915; \u00a0\u201cNew Police Plan Before Council\u2019s Committee Today,\u201d by Richard J. Beamish, The Inquirer<\/em>, December 1, 1920; \u201cBureau of Police Ready for Bandits,\u201d The Inquirer<\/em>, December 23, 1920; \u201cPhiladelphia\u2019s \u2018Bandit Chasers\u2019 and their \u2018sawed-offs,\u2019\u201d The Inquirer<\/em>, August 8, 1922; \u201cCity\u2019s War on Crime Calls for Frontal Attack,\u201d The Inquirer<\/em>, September 20, 1954; \u201cGibbons Places Top Police on 24-Hour Crime Vigil \u2013 Shotgun Squads Patrol the Streets,\u201d The Inquirer<\/em>, November 21, 1954; Matthew J. Countryman, Up South:\u00a0 Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia <\/em>(University of Pennsylvania Press,\u00a02007); Jake Blumbgart, \u201cThe Brutal Legacy of Frank Rizzo, the Most Notorious Cop in Philadelphia History,\u201d<\/a> \u00a0Vice.com<\/em>, October 22, 2015.)<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sergeant Fred Lloyd became an instant American wartime legend in September 1918, when he singlehandedly cleared an entire German-occupied village by walking the streets \u201cpumping and firing\u201d an army-issue, 12-gauge, Winchester Model 97 shotgun. Stateside, the shotgun had been the firearm of choice for game hunting. On the battlefields of World War I, it earned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}