Excerpts from an oral hisory of

Deputy Chief
James Stanford Griffin

Part III - First Night Back From The Navy

First night I returned from my duty in the Navy I was assigned to Seventh and Wabasha. Downtown. Saint Paul was always handled by the traffic men, except Seventh and Wabasha on the night shift. And whatever crew was on they had to furnish a guy for Seventh and Wabasha, so they sent me down to Seventh and Wabasha. Years ago, Seventh and Wabasha was the crossroads of Saint Paul. And right around Seventh and Wabasha there were five theaters and I’d say a dozen bars.

So I was standing in front of the Saint Francis Hotel and a guy ran down to me and said, “Boy, you better get around to the Drum Bar. [4]“ I said, “What’s the matter? He said, “Boy, they got a real donnybrook going over there.” I walked on down to the corner. I got over towards [the Drum Bar, and] I looked over there and there must have been 150 people out in front of the Drum Bar and it was, oh, I’d say about 12:30/24:30. All the shows were turning out and the bars were empty, so they had a big crowd.

I said, “Well, geez, what am I gonna do by myself with all these guys.” I kinda pushed my way through the crowd and the bartender and another guy was having a big fight. I kinda pushed my way through the crowd.

I said, “Come on, let’s break this up.” These guys were still wailing away, so I grabbed the bartender from the back, pinned his arms to him and kind of raised him off his feet and he was kicking and carrying on. I said, “Come on, let’s kind of get yourselves together. We don’t want to have any trouble. We don’t wanna have anybody go to jail here or nothing. Let’s kinda calm down.”

And, of course, the other guy was wailing away. And he turned around and said, “Jim.” I looked at him and he was a guy, Dick Kool, I used to play football with here in Saint Paul. He used to play independent football. We had a team over on the east side called Swanson’s Tavern. I played a halfback on it, and he played tackle on that team. So then he didn’t quit, so I had to break the thing up. So we broke the thing up. I told everybody to get going and so forth. I was urging everybody to go on. Finally, one guy said, “Boy, is that guy tough. Did you see him break up that fight?” The only reason I was able to break it up was ‘cause I knew one of the guys. Of course they didn’t know that. So that was my first night back on the job.

I think I probably had it a lot easier than most of the Black officers, especially in later years. I lived here all my life, and I’d gone to different schools. I went to Cathedral School. I went to Central High School—there were only a handful of us Blacks in the schools. Most of the schools that I went to growing up, there was only a handful of Black kids there. So when there’s one kid in the class they remember him. I ran for the school board, I heard from people I went to grade school with who came out to support me cause they knew me. I knew a lot of people, which made it easier for me.

Retired Deputy Chief James Griffin and Chief Bill “Corky” Finney
Deputy Chief James Griffin is being awarded the Medal of Valor
December 1999

Officers Griffin, John Mercado, and Vernon P. Michel (posthumously)
were awarded the Medal of Valor for their September 10, 1949 apprehension of
the robbery suspect involved in Detective Allan G. Lee’s fatal gunshot injury.

[4] Drum Bar was located in downtown Saint Paul and served White patrons.

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