Perseverance — Page 15
Part I – Life Before Islam 15 “TWO GUN PETE” When the City of Chicago took a hard line against these young black men and their habits, it was through a no loitering law. One policeman in particular was named Sylvester Washington. He was notorious for carrying two guns, one on each side, and for using them to shoot indiscriminately at these young black men. I recall he had shot approximately 16 young men. Some lived, some died. Sylvester Washington used to be driven around by a chauffeur and he would pull up to any street where he saw a young black man loitering. The car would stop and then Sylvester would open his door, turn to face the street, use both his elbows to push back the sides of his coat to expose his guns, pull them out of their holsters and start shooting at the young men, regardless of whether they ran away or not. For this he was nicknamed Two Gun Pete and The Guns. 6 6 Sylvester “Two-Gun Pete” Washington of Chicago was one of the best- known police officers of the “crime fighter” generation. Washington was what the police department and the white public had in mind when they referred to a “good colored cop,” because he “kept the niggers in line. ” Washington served as a police officer on Chicago’s South Side…from 1934 to 1960. During that time he shot and killed more than a dozen black men. In a magazine article published in 1950, he also reported that he had made more than twenty thousand arrests in a sixteen-year period. Washington justified the number of black men that he had killed and the number of arrests by pointing out that he worked in one of Chicago’s worst districts, an area known as the “Bucket of Blood. ” According to Washington, seven police officers had been killed in this district, and he was determined not to be the eighth…A reporter for the Chicago Defender newspaper gave Washington the nickname of “Two Gun Pete” in 1936, and as a result of his reputation as a “shoot first and ask questions later” police officer… - “Black Police in America” by W. Marvin Dulaney, 1996; page 106. [Writer]