Mystery Raid Secrecy Ends At Gloucester

Camden Courier-Post – June 15, 1933

Mayor Says Books Are Lost – But Prosecutor Has Names Revealed

A veil-of secrecy was thrown about the identity of five men arrested in a gambling house raid in Gloucester yesterday was lifted last night and the names released, purportedly on orders ‘from Prosecutor Clifford A. Baldwin.’

Prosecutor Baldwin, County Detective Chief Lawrence T. Doran and two county detectives were “riding through Gloucester” yesterday when they noticed a man in a doorway at 427 Hudson street, signal someone of their presence.

The county officials recalled several complaints about the establishment and decided the time ripe for a raid. About 20 inmates made the same decision at the same time and escaped through windows, etc. But five men were not so quick.

They were lodged in Gloucester city jail to await hearings on charges of disorderly conduct. The hearings were held and Mayor J. Emerson Jackson fined each of the defendants $5 and costs of $3.50. But the mayor refused to divulge the names of those convicted.

“They don’t want their names in the paper,” he told reporters.

Asked what had become of the police docket, where all prisoners are “booked,” the mayor replied: “Sergeant Warfield put the docket away and we can’t find it.”

He admitted this was a surprising thing to do and rarely, if ever, occurred. Several other requests to the mayor and to the police department all met with the same result—no names.

Then, something happened—the names were apparently “found.”

“They were, according to Mayor Jackson: Wllliam Shindle, 40; of 427 Hudson street, the address of the raided establishment; Harry Cramer, 38, of 415 North Ninth Street, Camden; Harry Small, 43, of Tenth and Pine Streets, Philadelphia; Ellsworth Simmons, 48, of 544 Bergen Street, Gloucester, and William Brown, 38, of Westville.

Mayor Jackson said he had been requested “by the prosecutor,” to reveal the names.

At the, time of the arrests, the raiders found horse racing form sheets, betting charts and other gambling paraphernalia. Three telephones were in the place.