This is the story of how a Delaware Police officer, Charles Schultz, was killed 130 years ago in a line of duty. The patrolman gave his life while serving the citizens of Wilmington. The tragic death caused a sensation at the time, but once he was lowered into his grave, memory faded into the mist…
Category: Criminal Justice
Influenza Hit New Castle County Workhouse Hard in 1918
After influenza struck Wilmington in the autumn of 1918, concerned officials at the New Castle County Workhouse struggled to keep the county prison from becoming a hot spot. In the tight cells and confined, overcrowded spaces at Greenbank isolation or what we today call social distancing was impossible. Thus, Warden Richard F. Cross and the…
LaMonte Cooke Got His Start in the Old Days as a Rookie Kent County Deputy.
When 25-year-old LaMonte Cooke, a Philadelphian, joined the Kent County Sheriff’s Office in 1975, the entire seven-man force was white. “The day I interviewed for the deputy’s job with Sheriff Bartus Vickers, he had four questions for me. He wanted to know if I voted, what my party affiliation was, how well I got along…
When the Sheriff was the Hangman
A LECTURE — For the Hereditary Order of the Signers of the Bush Declaration, I was recently asked to examine the era in our criminal justice system when the sheriff was the county executioner or hangman. This gruesome responsibility was eventually centralized in the state prison systems, but the duty remained in the hands of…