SPECIAL OFFICER FRANK W. McCARTER

SDPD 07/1909 - 1911 & 1914 - 1915

1866 - 1934

In July 1909, the police department made a bold decision when it hired a black pastor named Frank McCarter as a special officer.  One of the first rules put to Officer

McCarter was that he was to have no interaction with anyone other than his own race.

Despite Richard Freeman having served as a lawman more than 58 years before, the racial attitudes of the era had actually become worse in some ways and the idea of a black police officer wasn’t very well received, even among the officers he was

assigned to work with.

With a black man working as a uniformed police officer and it didn’t take long for the local population to notice.  As many citizens saw it, having a black man with a badge was almost too much to take and within days McCarter found himself the center of a scathing racist cartoon in the San Diego Sun.

Despite the negative publicity, McCarter went about doing his job.  Months later attitudes about the new cop apparently began to change when the San Diego Union wrote an article praising his abilities and went so far as to call him an asset to the department.

McCarter worked as a police officer until 1911 when he left the department to work as

a pipe fitter and laborer.  In 1915 he was rehired for the Pan American Exposition placing him along side of Reginald Stewart Townsend, a black officer who was hired on January 1, 1915. In 1916 McCarter again left the department, this time for good.  There is no employment record of him after 1917.

THE THIN BLUE LINE

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