Word: hoses
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Says he: 70% of all convictions are obtained by forced confessions. Mildest method: protracted questioning, sometimes going on continuously for over 24 hours, keeping the prisoner awake, thirsty, hungry. Usual method: beating the prisoner about the head and neck with lengths of rubber hose (which leave no bruises). If that fails to work, fists, boots, bats, lighted cigars may jog the suspect's memory. Scars or bruises are explained by saying the prisoner "fell downstairs." But Lavine tells of other refinements: "I have seen a man beaten on the Adam's apple so that blood spurted from...
Here is what one station house looked like after detectives had been "shellacking" some suspected Italian kidnappers: "An inch of blood covered the floors, walls and desks in the different rooms. Broken blackjacks, rubber hose and the parts of four broken chairs were scattered in the mess. The men ruined their clothes and looked more like workmen employed in an abattoir than detectives." Third-degree methods, says Lavine, are sometimes applied to women. "He [the detective] merely shows what a big, strong guy he is by starting to lift her from the ground by her hair. That usually makes...
...gigantic Italian fisticuffer, heard a fire alarm ring near the Park Plaza, his Manhattan headquarters. All agog, he rushed to the street, discovered firemen putting out a small blaze in the Plaza annex, would not calm himself until he had used his great paws to help screw a fire-hose to a hydrant...
...with chlorine gas, which lends a greenish color. The results are tested twice daily by comparing a test-tube full of water with a graded color chart. In addition the floor of the tank will be periodically subjected to the suction of a large curry comb, connected by a hose to the vacuum end of the pumps...
With ten miles of hose 300 London firemen fought a towering blaze in the dreary slum of Wapping last week while cordons of polite police kept 100,000 spectators...