Houston Police Force Honored in New Book

April 24, 2012 - PRLog -- New to Arcadia Publishing’s popular Images of America series is Houston Police Department by local author Tom Kennedy. The foreword was written by Lee Brown, PhD. Kennedy compiled this photograph-laden book replete with colorful details about the characters, personalities and celebrated cases that have affected one of the nation’s leading policing agencies.

The Houston Police Force was established by the naming of a city marshal in January 1841. Houston Police Department historian Denny Hair wrote, “As befitted a frontier community, the meeting of justice in Houston was swift and uncompromising. Trials were conducted in an informal manner with little attention paid to formal rules of evidence and legal procedure.”

Eventually, conditions changed and law enforcement became more sophisticated. The “Bayou City” population went from 44,633 in 1900 to almost 1 million by 1960. “Houston” was the first word spoken from the moon, thus it became “Space City” and, ultimately, the nation’s fourth-largest city.

Its police department weathered decades of mayoral appointment for every officer before state civil service reform in the 1940s. It also met the civil rights years better than most cities and saw dramatic change with the 1982 appointment of Lee Brown as the first African American police chief of a large American city.

Highlights of Houston Police Department include:
•   The Early Years and Training
•   Wheels, Hooves, and Blades
•   Preserving and Protecting
•   Fallen Heroes of the Houston Police Department

Available at area bookstores, independent retailers, and online retailers, or through Arcadia Publishing at (888)-313-2665 or www.arcadiapublishing.com.  

Arcadia Publishing is the leading publisher of local and regional history in the United States.  Our mission is to make history accessible and meaningful through the publication of books on the heritage of America’s people and places.  Have we done a book on your town?  Visit www.arcadiapublishing.com.