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Important Dates in Police History:
April 1631: The City of Boston establishes the first system of law enforcement in America. Called the "night watch," officers served part-time, without pay.
1712: The City of Boston hires the first full-time, paid law enforcement officers in the colonies.
September 24, 1789: The United States Congress creates the first Federal law enforcement officer, the United States Marshal.
May 17, 1792: New York City Deputy Sheriff Isaac Smith becomes the first recorded law enforcement officers to be killed in the line of duty.
November 12, 1797: Greenville County, South Carolina Sheriff Robert Maxwell becomes the first Sheriff to die in the line of duty. Since then, more than 530 Sheriffs have made the ultimate sacrifice.
1835: Texas creates what was later to become the Texas Rangers, the oldest statewide law enforcement agency in America.
1858: Police Departments in Boston and Chicago are the first to issue uniforms to their officers.
1863: The City of Boston becomes the first police department to issue pistols to their officers.
April 14, 1865: On the day he was shot by the assassin John Wilkes Booth, President Abraham Lincoln approves the formation of what is now the United States Secret Service.
April 12, 1870: Jacksonville, Florida Police Officer William Johnson becomes the first African American police officer to die in the line of duty.
November 2, 1870: Thomas J. Smith, of Abilene, Kansas, becomes the first of roughly 500 police chiefs to die in the line of duty.
1878-1881: Notorious outlaw Billy the Kid kills six law enforcement officers in New Mexico..
October 26, 1881: Legendary Lawman Watt Earp, along with his brothers Virgil and Morgan, and John Henry "Doc" Holliday, win the Wild West era's most famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
December 15, 1890: Six officers with the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs are killed attempting to arrest the Sioux Indian leader, Sitting Bull.
1891: The first national police group is formed, the National Chiefs of Police Union, which would later become the International Association of Chiefs of Police. For the first time, police leaders met regularly to share ideas.
1895: Future President Theodore Roosevelt begins his three-year term as Police Commissioner in New York City. |