Historic Pinole: History of Law Enforcement

From the days of chasing cattle rustlers, through the Prohibition-era gangsters to present challenges, Pinole Police Cmdr. Matthew Messier sweeps through the history of law enforcement in Pinole. He follows leads, probes clues, digs relentlessly.

When he joined the department in 2001, Messier realized there existed next to nothing in an organized, documented history of the polie department. He began researching, collecting photos, old uniforms and stories of police exploits, reaching back to before Pinole cityhood to the present.

"I made it a mission for me personally to try to acquire as much information and as much history as I could about the police department and law enforcement in this city." Messier told the Pinole Historical Society on Thursday in a presentation that lasted about 45 minutes. He shared anecdotes, artifacts and legends.

He started in 1867, when Sheriff Harry Morse, "one of the most famous California lawmen in the Old West," chased down "bandito" Narato Ponce.

Motivated by a $500 bounty applied by the state governor, Morse found the
suspect at a ranch in present-day Pleasanton. During a gunfight, Morse wounded Ponce, but he escaped. Morse and other constables tracked him from the Black Hills of the county, then cornered him in a Pinole adobe near Pinole Creek. As the suspect raised his gun to fire at him, Morse shot him dead.

"Back then, when you were in law enforcement you were paid by the arrest," Messier said.

Between then and the time that Pinole incorporated as a city in 1903, incidents were not well-documented, he said. Researching city council minutes from the time, Messier found reference to a proposal to provide a marshal with have a uniform, a gun and a badge.

For years, the marshals, which the county referred to as constables, patrolled Pinole, Rodeo and Crockett. The first constable, John Collins, owned the Klondike Saloon at 612 Tennent Ave and lived in the upstairs of the builidng, Messier said.

Around that time, Pinole had 13 saloons to serve workers from the powder works plant in what is now Hercules, the Union Oil reinfery in Rodeo and the C&H refinery in Crockett, Messier said.

In 1918, Arthur "Jerry" McDonald, the ex-foreman of the Hercules powder plant, was appointed as constable. The next year, the sale of alcohol became illegal in the United States. Saloons turned into soda fountains. That era, along with the Great Depression, saw the rise of gangsters, bootleggers and bank robbers. One day it hit Pinole hard.

In 1929, McDonald was shot and killed during a robbery at the Bank of Pinole in Rodeo by the notorious Fleagle Gang. Jake and Ralph Feagle and their accomplices were widely known for bank robberies, including a 1928 Coloardo incident in which they killed several people.

"These guys were bad guys," Messier said. "A lot of people don't recall the Fleagle Gang but there's a lot of Americana that surrounds the Fleagle Gang. There's Disney characters, the Fleagle Beagles, that were modeled after the Fleagle Gang. There were songs written during this time about the Fleagle Gang. They were famous across the nation. They were the first really pro-active armed robbers. They were credited with 62 percent of armed robberies in the western half of the United States for the period of 1919 to 1932."

After McDonald's death, Gene Shea served as the last constable for Pinole until his retirement. He was succeeded by Hugh Young, whom Messier called the "father" of the modern Pinole Police Department. A former patrol officer for Contra Costa County, Young took over for Shea in 1943. He worked alone, on a motorcycle, and subsequently entered the Guinness Book of World Records for writing the most traffic citations, Messier said. Young became the city's first police chief.

With the political, social and racial upheaval in the country during the1960s and '70s, the city entered a time when police chiefs served short tenures.

In 1974, officer John Sellers became the second Pinole officer to die on duty. He was shot and killed inside the Antlers Tavern by a drunken 67-year-old man with a pistol. In 1975, gang fights and a riot erupted in Old Town during the Fiesta del Pinole. The event has not been held since.

Only six years after the death of Sellers, the third law enforcement officer in the city's history was murdered. Messier recounted the the tragic death of Floyd "Bernie" Swartz during the manhunt of a killer at Pinole Creek. His widow, Kim Swartz was pregnant with their daughter Amber at the time. In 1988, Amber was kidnapped from her front yard on Savage Avenue.

Messier noted that the longest tenure by a police chief is Ted Barnes, from 1980 to 1999. He has been succeeded by chiefs Jim Rose, Paul Clancy and John Hardester, the current chief.

For Messier, the present is still about reaching into the past. The Fleagle Gang comes to mind, as does the Tommy gun they likely used to down McDonald.

"I actually had it, in my hands, for almost a year but they had to do a federal audit for assault weapons and they took it from me," Messier said.  "So I'm still trying to get it back, but they want it because they used it after it was recovered for their SWAT team and there's a lot of history they have associated with it, too. So we're kind of fighting over this gun right now."

Three Fleagle Gang members, including Ralph Fleagle, were caught and hanged in Colorado. Later, Jake Fleagle was shot dead by deputies at a train station in Missouri. Legend claims that the gang buried some of their loot in locations that include spots in California.

"There's still people that actively hunt for this money that they think is buried in the hills," Messier said.

History marches on.

For more information and images, visit the Pinole Police Department's history page on the city website.