Police museum offers look at infamous villains, local heroes

Notorious characters hang about in a small space beneath the Tampa Police Department building.

Scores of wicked men and a handful of female sidekicks, famous for their short-lived criminal careers, receive visitors daily at the Franklin Street address.

Many have reputations - if not names and faces - known by those who lived during the American period referred to as The Lawless Decade. Their lives have been detailed in newspapers and books, portrayed in movies.

The Tampa Police Museum is easy to overlook, but shouldn't be missed. And admission is free.

Displays include wanted posters, fingerprint cards and other documents in a collection started in the 1950s by Andy Wade, then age 10. "That's not photocopies, that's all original stuff he was able to talk those wardens out of," said museum founder and curator Robert Pennington.

Wade wrote to police departments and penitentiaries requesting souvenirs of the Lawless Decade. The successes of his persistence are on display, pressed between glass:

* George "Machine Gun" Kelly, 37, and his wife are pictured after their Sept. 26, 1933, arrests in Memphis, Tenn. In addition to the routine mug shots and facial profiles, authorities took separate full-length photos of the couple, all displayed at the museum.

Kathryn Kelly is captured in heels, a dark calf-length dress and a fancy blouse adorned with feathers on the shoulders. A hat tops off her dignified ensemble.

Husband George is more casual, in slacks, a shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and a hat.
Each was charged with being a fugitive. On her booking sheet, Kathryn is additionally identified as "wife of Machine Gun Kelly."

* Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, romanticized by the 1967 Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway film "Bonnie and Clyde," are the subjects of a yellowed flier: "Wanted for rape and murder." The Arkansas sheriff who issued the flier offers a $250 reward for Clyde and each of the other Barrow gang members. "These boys' home is West Dallas, Texas," states the last line of the detailed descriptions.

What was likely Clyde's first escape is publicized on a flier stating the then-19-year-old "broke jail at Waco" awaiting transfer to a Texas penitentiary.

* Alvin Karpis, a Barker gang ally nicknamed "Creepy" because of his sinister smile, is pictured on an April 1936 flier offering a $5,000 reward. A document chronicling his 1931 arrest in Okmulgee, Okla., says he and three others, including Ma Barker's son, Fred, burglarized a local jewelry store. Perhaps what was his first wanted poster offers a comparatively small $50 reward for his return to the Hutchinson, Kan., State Reformatory, from which he escaped, March 9, 1929.

* George "Baby Face" Nelson - aka Lester M. Gillis - a Chicago native, is pictured on a file card marking his July 17, 1931, arrival at the Illinois State Prison in Joliet to serve a sentence of "one year to life for robbery, etc." The 25-year-old's stay would be shorter than scheduled. Another document bearing his Joliet mug shot notes his escape seven months later, Feb. 17, 1932.

* John Dillinger, the infamous bank robber often remembered as smiling for newspaper cameras in a famous photo of the era, is somber in the museum's gallery of original mug shots. A reward poster in the form a proclamation by the Illinois governor offers a $5,000 reward for Dillinger, then age 31.

* Evelyn "Billie" Frechette is pictured on a mug shot taken in Tampa five years after federal authorities shot and killed Dillinger in a Chicago alley. Handwritten in pencil, the arrest sheet states: "sweetheart of the one-time Public Enemy #1 John Dillinger." Frechette listed her occupation as lecturer, and apparently visited Tampa with the Dillinger family's "Crime Did Not Pay Show." Her March 15, 1939, Tampa arrest was for "violation of criminal registration."

* Charles Arthur Floyd, better known as "Pretty Boy" Floyd, is also prominent in the museum's rogues' gallery.

Among the larger displays is a 1924 Ford Model T coupe similar to the Tampa department's first motor vehicle. The antique patrol car provides a popular photo opportunity.

Nearby, more modern crime-fighting tools include a Hughes helicopter capable of 105 mph before it was retired in 1974, a Kawasaki Police 1000 motorcycle and the TPD-2 robot once demonstrated in crime prevention programs.

Displays feature police badges and patches from hundreds of law enforcement agencies, plus Tampa police uniforms of earlier years.

The museum has the original headstone of John McCormick, killed Sept. 26, 1895, the first Tampa police officer "assassinated in discharge of his duty." He is buried in Oaklawn Cemetery, but the headstone incorrectly listed his date of death as Oct. 26, corrected with a new marker a century later.

Pennington, who started the museum long before his 2003 retirement as a lieutenant, remains a reserve officer. "Basically, we started it when we started the memorial committee," but it really took off after the department moved to its current location and then-Chief Bennie Holder allocated street-level space for the museum.

A time capsule dating to 1961 when workers laid the cornerstone of the former police headquarters was recovered when that 1710 N. Tampa St. building was demolished. The copper capsule containing badges, photos and other department memorabilia was sliced open July 30, 1998, marking the museum's grand opening.

Pennington salvaged what he could from the old building. "I tried to save the old city seal on the terrazzo floor," he said. "But I was a little late," just behind the jackhammer.

Pennington was granted access to seized firearms, including a Thompson machine gun with a drum magazine, popular with many 1930s gangsters. He requisitioned other items "and a lot of old retirees' donated stuff. We've got thousands of items," allowing rotation of displays.

Pennington notes attendance increases after tragic events such as the recent slayings of Officers Jeffrey Kocab and David Curtis. "Yes, unfortunately," he said. "It makes people more aware," he said.

Many come to buy memorial T-shirts and Thin Blue Line merchandise, part of the museum's Cop Shop inventory.

The son of slain Tampa police Detective Ricky Childers is an occasional visitor, including after the department's annual memorial ceremony memorializing officers lost in the line of duty. "We stop in to see if anything has been added, or is different," Ricky Childers Jr. said of he and his family, now living in Sumter County.

He said he enjoys seeing "the history of the Tampa Police Department and everything the department has gone through. It's neat to see the old photos and the old technology" from huge early computers to now-silent office typewriters.

Ricky Childers Jr.'s wife, Lisa, said, "We teach our children every time they see an officer in uniform to go thank them. We understand the ultimate sacrifice and those who don't get time to know their grandfather."