{"id":12595,"date":"2018-08-29T12:46:06","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T16:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=12595"},"modified":"2018-09-25T14:11:50","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T18:11:50","slug":"where-frank-rizzo-became-the-cisco-kid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2018\/08\/where-frank-rizzo-became-the-cisco-kid\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Frank Rizzo Became “The Cisco Kid”"},"content":{"rendered":"

When reformers took over City Hall in 1952, Thomas J. Gibbons, the newly appointed police commissioner named Frank Rizzo to his<\/em> first command. \u00a0The 30-year-old Rizzo had recently passed the civil service exam for sergeant and was considered a good match for a tough section of West Philadelphia. Rizzo\u2019s propensity for raids on numbers parlors, brothels and speakeasies were sure to get results.<\/p>\n

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16th District Police Station, 39th Street and Lancaster Avenue, July 21, 1933. D. Alonzo Biggard, photographer (PhillyHistory.org). Built in 1914, demolished in 1949.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rizzo’s aggressive style would also get criticism from the predominantly African-American community around the station house at 39th<\/sup> Street and Lancaster Avenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crime rate in West Philadelphia is the worst in the city and I am determined to clear up these conditions,\u201d Captain Frank Rizzo told a contingent of citizens complaining about warrantless raids on private homes. A nine-person committee, which also met with Commissioner Gibbons, raised issues of \u201cpolice brutality, illegal arrests, intimidation of prisoners under arrest, assignment of Negro police to \u201cRed\u201d cars, and the general relation of the police to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am interested in good government,\u201d responded Rizzo. \u201cI am not racially prejudiced. I do not run roughshod over the citizens in the district.\u201d He showed off \u201ca stack of warrants\u201d and confiscated liquor stored as evidence in the basement of the station house.<\/p>\n

Rizzo\u2019s tactics at 39th<\/sup> and Lancaster made headlines that kept coming: “Worst In The City;” \u201cCapt. Rizzo Refuses To Stop Arrests.\u201d <\/em>And more.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut in West Philadelphia, the district cops and the neighborhood kids have a nickname for Acting Capt. Frank Rizzo, who commands the 39th<\/sup> Street and Lancaster Avenue police station,\u201d wrote Frank Brookhouser. \u201cThey call him \u2018The Cisco Kid.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRizzo, who could become one of the legendary figures on the force, is a good officer, earnest, serious and efficient,\u201d continued Brookhouser. \u00a0But he is also something of a General Patton type\u2014flashy, aggressive, a strict disciplinarian.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cisco Kid\u201d nickname\u2014a readymade from popular culture\u2014would stick.<\/p>\n

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16th District Police Station, 39th Street and Lancaster Avenue (Google). Designed by Max W. Bieberback, Jr., architect. Dedicated in 1950.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(William Sydney Porter, a\/ka O. Henry, invented \u201cThe Cisco Kid\u201d in \u201cThe Caballero\u2019s Way,<\/a>” a short story published in 1907. The young, handsome, Mexican-American Robin Hood \u201ckilled for the love of it or any other reason that came to mind.\u201d With his speckled roan horse, \u201cThe Cisco Kid\u201d rode from the printed page into the American popular imagination via 27 films, 1914 to 1950; 600 radio episodes, 1947 to 1956; 156 television episodes starting in 1950; and 41 Dell comics, 1950-1958.)<\/p>\n

But Brookhouser, who noted that Rizzo\u2019s nickname garnered fan mail, soon stepped back from Rizzo’s rising legend. \u201cThe overly zealous actions of Acting Captain Frank Rizzo, who has become known as \u2018The Cisco Kid\u2019 since his promotion from sergeant, have been causing a furor in West Philadelphia. There have been complaints from civic leaders, and it has reached the point where the DA\u2019s office just doesn\u2019t know what to do about him.\u00a0 Rizzo \u2026has been making raids indiscriminately, according to the complaints. In one case he found two people sharing four bottles of beer in a home, charged them with operating a speakeasy. Raiding another house, he made arrests because there was dancing. After another arrest, he jammed a large group of people in two cells for hours. \u2026 There is such a thing as trying too hard, Captain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rizzo wouldn\u2019t last long much longer at 39th<\/sup> and Lancaster. Two months later, Commissioner Gibbons, looking to \u201cstrengthen control\u201d in Center City, transferred Rizzo to the 19th<\/sup> District Station at 12th<\/sup> and Pine Streets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You could sense a collective sigh of relief in West Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

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Plaque at the\u00a016th District Police Station, 39th Street and Lancaster Avenue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ed R. Harris at the Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>\u00a0sounded downright gleeful: \u201cThat wasn\u2019t an earthquake that hit Center City the other day. Just the reaction of the smart money boys when they learned that the \u2018Cisco Kid\u2019 was being transferred to 12th and Pine\u2026Now we\u2019ll really see what kind of raiding Capt. Rizzo can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Sources:\u00a0“Worst In The City,” Philadelphia Tribune,<\/em> March 29, 1952: \u201cGroup Protest Of Warrantless Raid In W. Phila.\u201d Philadelphia Tribune,<\/em> March 18,1952; \u201cCapt. Rizzo Refuses To Stop Arrests,\u201d Philadelphia Tribune,<\/em> March 25, 1952; Frank Brookhouser, \u201cIt\u2019s Happening Here,\u201d The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, March 5, 1952, March 26, 1952 and June 30, 1952; \u201cGibbons Makes Midcity Shakeup, The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, May 27, 1952; Ed Harris, On the Town, Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>, May 31, 1952: S. A. Paolantonio, Frank Rizzo: The Last Big Man in Big City America<\/em> (Camino Books, 1993, 2003).]<\/span><\/p>\n

More\u00a0PhillyHistory<\/em>\u00a0posts on Frank Rizzo\u00a0here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When reformers took over City Hall in 1952, Thomas J. Gibbons, the newly appointed police commissioner named Frank Rizzo to his first command. \u00a0The 30-year-old Rizzo had recently passed the civil service exam for sergeant and was considered a good match for a tough section of West Philadelphia. Rizzo\u2019s propensity for raids on numbers parlors, […]<\/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-12595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12595","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=12595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}