Crime in Omaha, Nebraska
Crime in Omaha, Nebraska has varied widely, ranging from Omaha's early years as a frontier town with typically widespread gambling and prostitution, to civic expectation of higher standards as the city grew, and contemporary concerns about violent crimes related to gangs and dysfunctions of persistent unemployment, poverty and lack of education among some residents.
[1] With the nationally famous kidnapping of Edward Cudahy, Jr. in 1900 and the subsequent acquittal of the accused kidnapper, Pat Crowe, The Washington Post wrote, "Omaha is evidently a happy hunting ground for savages and malefactors.
Later that year, the city council directed members of the force to provide themselves with "dark blue, single breasted coats, shirts and pants of the same material".
Lots in one of the early plots were subdivided to form Scriptown, where territorial legislators were awarded with land for keeping the controversial capital in Omaha.
[6] Because of the lack of police force, in early years groups sometimes resorted to lynchings, as elements of the community enforced their own rough justice.
During the Trans-Mississippi Exposition of 1898, Ada Everleigh and her sister ran a high-class bordello to make a profit from the many visitors to the city.
[11] Seven men were arrested for the crime, including the chief of police and a major businessman; however, after a mob gathered outside of the jail and threatened to destroy it in order to "liberate" the suspects, each of them were freed, and nobody was ever brought to trial for the lynching.
After he initially corroborated his wife's story confessing she killed Chappele when he attempted to abduct her, Ish later recanted and admitted his own guilt, confident a jury would not find him guilty.
The crime caused a sensation in Omaha, Chicago, where the King family was prominent at the time, and St. Louis, close to where the third wife was from.
[17] Early in the 1890s Tom Dennison, a gambler and saloon-owner from Colorado and Montana, arrived in Omaha and established a base of political power.
For more than 25 years, Dennison's power was so great that he controlled crime in the city, the police reported to him daily, and a mayor answered directly to him.
In Omaha, Tom Dennison fanned tensions through sensational news accounts to build his own political power.
The immediate cause of the riot was the arrest of 41-year-old Will Brown, an African-American Omaha civilian, on charges that he had raped a young white woman.
A mob of white men, led by volatile adolescents, gathered at the Douglas County Courthouse, their numbers growing by the hour.
Acting in collusion with the Omaha Bee, a tabloid newspaper, Dennison heightened tensions of the city's World War I veterans and others by sensationalizing apparent increases in attacks on women by African American men.
[20] In 1926 Frank Carter was sentenced to be executed after he was found guilty of murdering two Omahans and terrorizing the city as the "Phantom Sniper" for more than two weeks.
Also in 1923, the police department established the first safety patrol in the United States, chiefly to ensure children negotiated increased vehicle traffic safely as they walked to and from school.
On December 5, 2007, 19-year-old Robert A. Hawkins, who had a history of drug abuse and social problems, opened fire at random with a Century WASR-10 semiautomatic rifle in the Von Maur store of the Westroads Mall.
A South Omaha policeman named Edward Lowry apprehended a Greek man accused of having an illicit affair with a white woman on February 14, 1909.
"[26] They looted homes and businesses, beat Greek men, women and children, and eventually burnt down every building in the area.
[28] Omaha Police Officer Larry Minard was killed on August 17, 1970, by a bomb placed by members of the Black Panther Party.
Using evidence from COINTELPRO, and from the confession of Duane Peak, Panthers David Rice (now known as Mondo we Langa) and Ed Poindexter were convicted for Minard's death.
On August 21, 1995, 24-year-old Omaha Police Officer Jimmy Wilson Jr. was shot to death by Kevin Allen, a member of the South Family Bloods street gang.
On September 11, 2003, 30-year-old Omaha Police Officer Jason Tye Pratt pulled a vehicle over at 10:30 p.m. for speeding and erratic driving.
[citation needed] Detective Kerrie Orozco was shot and killed on May 20, 2015, while serving an arrest warrant on a suspect in North Omaha.
[29] Long the location of racial tension, Omaha re-emerged in headlines when a local grocery store was firebombed by racists.
On February 18, 2007, unknown assailants robbed, firebombed, and spray painted a racial slur on the side of Bob's Market in East Omaha.
"[32] This event was reinforced by the psychological effect of a second lynching of Willy Brown, a black man, in 1919, which, after the intervention of federal troops, ensured the normalcy of informal racial segregation throughout the city.
After beating, looting and rioting through the community the mob forced the entire population of hundreds of Greek immigrants to leave the city within one day.
[33] This racial tension parallels the 1960s race riots in North Omaha, activities leading to the Rice/Poindexter Case and ongoing gang violence affecting the entire city from the 1980s to present.
