The Coral Gables Times

12 THE CORAL GABLES TIMES Thursday, July 13, 19[?]

'Good Horse Sense' Has Seen 'Dixie' Through

By BECKY DOYLE-QUINN Times Reporter "Dixie" is leaving ... after 35 years. "Dixie" is what most people call Capt. A. M. Bishop, Chief of the Detective Bureau of the Coral Gables Police Department, who will retire July 28. Dixie can tell you about the night he was involved in a gunfight on the golf course, back in the thirties, with three men who were attempting to hijack from a resident's garage. The men were caught and one of them, Wiley, after serving his term and being paroled, was later electrocuted for kidnaping a banker. Captain Bishop, a tall, greying man of 64, can tell you quite a bit about the Gables. On the surface, this seems to be a pretty quiet community. But Coral Gables has the same problems other cities have—and in some cases, more of them. RAPIST-MURDERER Another criminal Captain Bishop captured was a rapist and murderer who had terrorized Gables homes several times. When he was sent up to Raiford for life in '33, he swore he'd get even with Dixie. He was paroled in '43 and, before he had a chance to get Dixie, he killed another man in Georgia with an axe. He was electrocuted in 1945. "No tellin' how many people that fellow killed. I guess I'm proudest of his arrest," says Dixie. "Here I am running off at the mouth! If you print all these stories, people will think I'm just bragging." There are some people who think Dixie would even have the right to brag. JUDGE WILLARD Judge Ben Willard, Judge of Dade County Criminal Court, says: "I have had Captain Bishop in my court many times and I consider him to be one of the finest law enforcement officers we have. I'm sorry to see him leave. That's the highest praise I can give a man." Captain Bishop was born in Ashburn, Ga. He served in the Army during the First World War and worked in Lansing, Mich., where he met and married his wife Blanche and came to Miami in 1925. For a few weeks he worked as a plasterer's apprentice, and then did some work on his own. "If anyone had told me then that in six months I'd be a policeman, I'd have given them an argument." Then, a friend, Fred High, recommended Dixie to Chief "Pop" Lehman. He was hired. RODE HORSES In those days, policemen rode horses. Dixie rode on a midnight beat in a residential section, the Granada area. Not too much happened, except the gunfight in the golf course, and a few housebreaks. In 1942, Dixie was made Chief of the Detective Bureau. He served in the Navy, specializing in police work, during World War II. After three years he came back and has been at work ever since. Dixie has a remarkable memory. He will not only give you dates by the day, month, and year, but also first middle, and last names, and of course, aliases. COMMON SENSE Dixie has great faith in what he calls "good horse sense." "That's all police work is." And his outlook on life is not tarnished by all the bad he sees — "Got to take the bitter with the sweet." That policy even follows when it comes to criminals. "If some of those fellows who work so hard and diligently at beating the law and becoming professional thieves and crooks applied their talents in the right direction, there'd be no limit to their station in life." How about the crooks and thieves in Coral Gables? Do we have many of them? YANKEE YEGGS "Just because Coral Gables is a small town, we still have some pretty good cases. There are some professional thieves who come down here from the north, just to make one big strike, then they go home. But they are professional and as a result we do have many housebreaks." There are all sorts of tricks to the trade. One fellow Dixie arrested admitted that a leash was part of his standard equipment. He'd come into a strange neighborhood, find a friendly dog, put the leash on it, and then, pretending to be an average citizen walking his dog, would "case" his next job. But housebreaks are not our only problem. Shoplifting and juvenile delinquency are high on the list too. SHOPLIFTERS BUSY There aren't any figures to be compiled since many shoplifters aren't caught or prosecuted, but Dixie believes we have more than our share. As far as juvenile delinquency goes, we have more than our share there too. To illustrate, Dixie points out that our police department has one officer assigned to juvenile offenders. The Miami Beach department has 13 men working in this field. Since the department here is shorthanded, all men must assist in juvenile cases, the chief pointed out. "Kids are no different now then they ever were. There are just more of them, and with nothing to do. Not all the kids who get into trouble come from 'the other side of the tracks! BETTER HOMES "Many, many of them come from the better homes. The trouble is that they lack supervision and aren't kept busy." Salvadore Park and the Youth Center do help though. Captain Bishop says, "Show me a group of boys who are interested in athletics, and you'll rarely find an offender among them." His children have turned out well. One of them, Jack, 36, is a member of the local fire department. He is married and has four children. The younger son, Gerald, 29, is a Metro police officer. He, too, is married, and the father of an 18 month old son. What will Dixie do now that he is retiring? He doesn't know. "It all depends on what comes along. I have no definite plans. Maybe some investigative work, I don't know." Some of his spare time will be spent working in his yard at home, 7265 S.W. 19th Ter., as he does now. He doesn't read detective stories or watch those "private eye" television shows. He thinks they're "phoney."

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