THE KAW-LIGA KAPER

When Hank Williams wrote about the troubles of poor ol' Kaw-liga, he overlooked one. So we'll make the record complete.

Our Kaw-liga was a life-size wooden Indian that stood outside a tobacco shop on Park Street. Each morning the shop's owner would take the wooden warrior out of his shed, attached to the outside of the shop, and wheel him around to the front of the store. On closing, it was back in the shed. He led a pretty uneventful life until he ran into Gunzan Rozes, a rookie NPD cop.

Gunzan, assigned to the midnight watch, was struggling through his initiation onto the force. All rookies were teased and aggravated and some took it better than others. When the veterans found out Gunzan was "goosey" his initiation took a whole new turn.

One early AM. when the town was locked down and cops were struggling to keep awake, Gunzan became the focus of fun and games.Working downtown, he was on foot, "rattling doors." This is cop jargon for checking the back doors of businesses to insure they are locked. As he crept down a darkened alley, one covert cop threw an empty garbage can behind him, the crash and roll evoking in Gunzan pure terror and gastric distress. When he finally was able to catch his breath, he was amped up, his hand on his revolver. He squinted and roved the alley with his flashlight beam, trying to penetrate the spooky nooks and crannies.

When he got near Park Street, another cop kicked the shed door of the tobacco shop, then jumped out of site. Gunzan crept up to the door and, gun drawn, yanked it open. There he faced poor 'ol Kaw-liga standing in the darkness, arm up, tomahawk in hand. Gunzan fired one shot into Kaw-liga's belly before he realized he was killing a statue. He quickly shut the door and beat it out of the area. All the prankster cops did, too.

There was no report of the incident and none was asked for by Gunzan's superiors. The story became a legend, circulating around the PD for years. But no one would ever own up to being the garbage can slinger/door kicker or Gunzan Rozes. And I'm damn sure not gonna break the tradition now.

CALE JONES

Cale Howard Jones was the first Naples Police Chief. He served for 31 years until his retirement in 1958. Before being appointed Chief, he was the Town Marshall. (Tom Weeks the first Town Marshall.)

Cale and his family moved down from Jasper, Georgia in about 1922. He and his father and brothers worked on constructing the Tamiami Trail. Cale was known as a formidable "law and order" man who did what was necessary to make Naples a safe and peaceful community.

His son, Ed was on the NPD for a number of years and his nephew, Jimmy Jones, was on the Naples Fire Department and later was Chief of the North Naples Fire Department.

NPD'S RIOT SQUAD 1965

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Taken in the parking lot behind the NPD, in front of the old water tower. How many do you recognize?

Thanks Chester for the photo

HEAVY'S FERTILE FEET

Cops get to see folks at their best and worst. And some characters that just make you scratch your melon and wonder under which category of human being they should be listed.

There was such a dude who was called Heavy, because of his size I imagine. He was just reasonably tall, but thick, his wrists and ankles like 4x4's. He was also a drunkard and brawler and thief, earning him frequent vacations in our jail.

For his health's sake, it was probably a good thing as he was filthy beyond belief, the stench intolerable. When he came to the hoosegow, we'd hose him down and clean him up as best we could so the other inmates wouldn't gag and heave up their weenies and beans.

Once, during this process, he removed his rotten work boon-dockers, and the sickening stink caused strong men to stagger and fall back. When told to remove his socks, he tugged at them but the foot part remained in place. On closer inspection we found he'd worn the socks so long, without removing them, they'd grown to his feet. Yep, grown to his feet. We had to take him to the hospital to have them removed. (The doctor soaked them and scraped them off a little at a time.)

Another time, during booking, he was removing the contents of his crusty wallet, and among the cards was a huge Palmetto bug. He gently took it out and put it on the counter as though it was a pet. Noting our stares he said, "What? I lives with 'em."

Thereby removing all doubt that what we suspected was certainly true.

NPD'S PRISON RELEASE PROGRAM

At the old Naples Police Building, at 8th and 8th South, the parking lot was in rear, by the gas pumps. There was no rear door from the PD to the lot, requiring you to exit the front and hoof around the building. Inconvenient, and cops don't like that. So it was decided a door needed to be cut in the back wall, next to the parking lot.

As always, there was no money for the project. But, there was free labor available from the inmates. More specifically, the trustees, who could be let out of their cell with a reasonable expectation they wouldn't catch the next Bloodhound Bus to Slick City. At the time we had only one who met the criteria.

Hershel Hump, we'll call him, was a good ol' boy who was a victim of love. The love of booze, hooch, liquid stupid. He wasn't a pure dunce, but he wasn't going to be designing any rockets either. When he got a full gut of the Anchor Lounge's finest swill, he'd do anything. His last misadventure was DUI. He'd left the Anchor and made it four blocks to Four Corners, where he dutifully stopped for a red light. And waited. And passed out behind the wheel, earning him three months in the Bastille, of which he had 6 weeks remaining.

Chief Ben Caruthers told Hershel that if he'd cut a doorway thru the back wall, he could go home as soon as he was finished. Hershel jumped at the proposition and, with a two-pound hammer and concrete chisel, commenced with vigor.

Trouble was, the City Jail had been built to Federal Prison standards. The exterior walls were one-foot thick crammed full of reinforcing bars. At the end of the first day he'd excavated a hole about as big as hamster's nest.

Hershel could've made a better deal if he'd waited a few years until the Sheriff's new jail was constructed. Some of the laborers on that project, figuring one day they'd probably be residents, mixed the mortar about ninety-percent sand and ten-percent cement. And they hid hacksaw blades in the mortar joints. The first night the jail was open, several convicts scraped out the mortar joints with spoons and escaped.

Not so the Naples Jail whose walls were poured concrete. So hard that Hershel was still pecking well into his fifth-week. And he'd only chipped out a hole big enough to allow the passage of a fat dog. With the prospects of him having to make life before the project was completed, some industrial saws were rented. And some welding torches to cut the steel. And Hershel finally made it back to the Anchor.

As irony would have it, when the new back door was completed, Hershel was one of the first customers to pass thru it. On his way back to jail.

NPD 1950'S

The Chevy in the background dates this photo as the Class of 1957. Or there a-bouts. It's one of those cars the City paid for twice. This is the station at 8th and 8th, still standing, but now part of the Fire Department. The landmark water tower in the rear stands where the present City building resides.

Can't remember the name of the lady in the photo. Maybe you can help.

Harold Young noticed that most of the officers were wearing cross-draw holsters. And the badges were worn on the right side of the chest.

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From left, Ben Caruthers, Sam MaCaa, Ed Helenek, Col. Durgin, Fred Scott, Cale Jones, Ed Jones, Sam Bass, George McCrea, Robert Dennis, Oren Coates, unknown lady, Ralph Cox

THE MAYOR OF McDONALD'S QUARTERS

Naples shameful ghetto, McDonald's Quarters, didn't have a city council member but they did have a "mayor." His name was Splitcoat. Though I, nor any of the oldtime cops I've asked remember his real name, everyone remembers Splitcoat.

He looked like the wonderful actor Tim Moore who played Kingfish on the TV version of Amos n' Andy. Once he told Dave Dampier how he got that name. As a young man, in the 40's, he was the proud owner of a zoot suit. One of those atrocities with baggy, pegged trousers and a swallow-tail coat. He wore it to a carnival one night.

Playing the game where you throw a baseball and try to knock over a pyramid of wooden milk bottles, he would vigorously wind up, causing the tails on his coat to flap in the breeze. The attendant crowd began to yell, "Go Splitcoat, Go." The name stuck.

Splitcoat, who lived across the street from Rabbit's juke, and two doors down from the Dew Drop Inn, supplemented his Social Security check by running a card game. Although illegal, we turned our heads unless it got rowdy and dangerous. One night I received a call from hiz zonner, asking for my presence at his house.

"They won't lets me cut the pot," he complained, tears in his eyes. Cutting the pot is when the proprietor of the game takes an amount from each pot to pay the overhead. Just like they do in Vegas.

"I'm not the one to tell about it," I explained, "it's against the law for you to even be running that game."

"But, I only wants a dime a hand." he persisted. "I pays the rent, buys the beer, and cuttin' the pot a dime a hand is fair."

I had to agree. So I left the law on the front porch, and went inside and told the players to give Splitcoat his damn dime.

Splitcoat loved fish head soup and when I could turn up a few snook heads at the pier I'd take them to him. A Porterhouse steak wouldn't have been met with a happier reception. He'd start to work, getting all the meat off the bones--eyes and all-- put it in a pot with his fixin's and pretty soon it was boiling. Never worked up the nerve to try any, but it did smell good.

His language was sprinkled with Splitcoatisms. "The hurrier I goes, the behinder I gets," he'd say. Or my favorite, "Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody want to die."

I can still see him on the front porch of his hovel, rocking in his chair and surveying his domain, the squalid curtilage of McDonald's Quarters.