Seated behind his 8-ft. desk, Stanley Russell
Schrotel looks like a corporation executive and talks like a university
professor. But Stan Schrotel is, in fact, a cop, a
man who makes his living as Cincinnati's chief of police. And at a time
when the rising wave of crime has become a major national problem,
Police Chief Schrotel, 47, has earned the reputation of being just
about the best cop in the U.S.Like most big U.S. cities, Cincinnati has crime-breeding slums and
shifting, often antagonistic population groups. Since Schrotel took
office in 1951, U.S. crime has increased nearly 100%, but Cincinnati's
has risen only 21.8%. On a per capita basis, Cincinnati last year had
46.2% less larceny and 61.4% less robbery than the average of major
U.S. cities; this year's figures, still being compiled, run much the
same. Juvenile delinquency last year climbed 9% in the asphalt jungles
across the U.S., but Cincinnati's rate actually decreased by 1.4%. With
impressive unanimity, the citizens of Cincinnati credit this record to
Chief Schrotel.Romance & Adventure. Schrotel came up the hard way. Son of a railroad
car inspector, he was on his way to get a job as a dishwasher in the
lean year of 1934 when his eye was caught by an announcement of exams
for new police recruits. Schrotel passed easily, soon was assigned to
night patrol duty in a scout car, and fell in love with his job. He
still talks unabashedly of his “genuine thrill at the romance and
adventure the position offered.”Fighting to get ahead, Schrotel read every police book in sight, won a
law degree at night from the Salmon P. Chase College at the local
Y.M.C.A. He was a captain in 1948 when the Cincinnati civil service
commission made a ruling which allowed him and 16 other young captains
to take the competitive exams that would pick the successor to retiring
Chief Eugene T. Weatherly, an old-style cop who used to sharpen his
shooting eye by blazing away at the rats in his dingy office. Schrotel
passed the exams with the record score of 99.33% and became
Cincinnati's top cop at 37.Tough Realism. Chief Schrotel set about remaking Cincinnati's
white-hatted police force with an approach that was—and still
is—tough and realistic. “The reins,” he says, “are real tight.”
Overweight cops are suspended by Schrotel, himself a trim handballer.
Men who show up in sloppy uniforms risk being sent home—and docked a
day's pay. Schrotel lost his fight in the city council against
moonlighting by his men, but did get approval of his strict code for
outside work, including the requirement that the pay be at least $3 an
hour.Schrotel has won the backing of solid Cincinnati for his force of 979
with a shrewd public relations campaign. Every person who makes a
complaint gets a visit from an officer and a letter from Schrotel.
Anyone who is arrested may be interviewed by the inspection bureau and
invited to sound off about the treatment he received from the police
and in court. Cincinnati cops are forbidden to argue with citizens.
Says Schrotel: “I don't care if a cop wins the argument. He's lost our
battle.”
