POLICE HOLDOVER IS A
DISGRACE TO THE CITY.
Pardon and Parole Board Takes Offi-
cial Cognizance of Conditions
at City Hall.
Unsanitary, filled with vermin and a disgrace to the city, are a few of the things said about the holdover at police headquarters in the report of the secretary of the board of pardons and paroles, which report was made on motion of Jacob Billikopf. Frank E. McCrary, the secretary, investigated the condition of the holdover.
The jail for men is situated in the cellar and is a breeding place for disease, the report says. The room in which prisoners are held while waiting for their cases to be called in the municipal court, the report continues, is too small and not well ventilated, the foul air making it very offensive in the court room.
Captain Whitsett is quoted as saying that all prisoners arrested by the uniformed police are only held until the following morning, while those arrested by the detectives, or secret branch, are held longer. One case brought to the attention of the board was that of witnesses against Dr. Harrison Webber, accused of selling cocaine and having $8,000 in fines against him. Dr. Webber is detained in the matron's room, while two witnesses who bought the drug from him are being held in the holdover. They have been there now over twenty days. The three are being held as witnesses against members of a medical company.
While the board admitted its inability to remedy the unsanitary condition of the holdover, they suggested that even public buildings came within the jurisdiction of the tenement commission. The Humane Society will be asked to investigate the sanitary conditions, and, if possible, have them improved.
