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Thomas J. Cahill served with the San Francisco Police Department as a homicide inspector (1950-1956), Deputy Chief of Police (1956-1958), and Chief of Police (1958-1970).

Biography

Thomas J. Cahill started his working life humbly as an ice-delivery man in San Francisco in 1931. By 1958 he had become San Francisco's Chief of Police, responsible for the oldest police force west of the Mississippi River. Cahill focused his ambitions on making San Francisco a safer city, instituting novel and sometimes controversial approaches, working with the FBI and U.S. Congress, and addressing scores of audiences throughout his career and retirement to discuss crime control and prevention.

Cahill was born in Chicago in 1910, though he spent most of his early life in Ballylarkin, County Kilkenny, Ireland, where his grandfather had a 165-acre farm. Cahill's father left Ireland for Chicago as a young man but decided shortly after Cahill turned two to return to Ireland. Cahill was educated at Callan Christian Boys School and also at Ring College, in County Waterford, Ireland, where he trained as a teacher. Cahill also learned to speak, read, and write Gaelic fluently.

Even though he was raised in Ireland, Cahill grew up listening to his father enthrall neighbors and friends with stories about America. Cahill promised himself he would return one day.

On February 2, 1930, when he was nineteen, Cahill began his journey to the U.S., traveling with a cousin who was returning to his father's ranch in Alhambra, California. The Great Depression had only recently begun but was still causing record unemployment, and Cahill found few jobs on his own. He worked on his uncle's ranch before heading north to San Francisco, where he tried to join the police force. However, regulations required applicants to have lived in San Francisco for at least five years before applying.

Instead, Cahill found work delivering ice blocks. In this job, Cahill learned "every nook and cranny" of San Francisco (O'Riordan), knowledge that became handy when he served as a patrol officer. After Cahill realized electric refrigerators would soon replace iceboxes, and with the encouragement of his new wife, Margaret, he entered the police academy, starting the six-week course in July 1942.

At the police academy, Cahill's fellow cadets named him likeliest to become police chief (see Series 3, Public Relations and Research). After graduating from the academy, Cahill patrolled streets as an officer in the Potrero Division. By 1950 he had become an inspector in the SFPD's homicide detail, working on at least one important case with the man who would become the next police chief, Francis (Frank) Ahern.

Mafia-related crime, such as murders and bookmaking, were one of Cahill's concerns as a police officer and, later, as a homicide inspector. After a man's garroted body was found inside a car trunk in the Marina, Cahill and Ahern educated themselves thoroughly in Mafia connections, names, and activities in the U.S. The two believed that the murder had been a Mafia killing.

Their investigative work earned them nationwide attention. In 1950, Cahill and Ahern testified in the San Francisco visit by the Senate Crime Investigating Committee, an inquiry instigated by Senator Estes Kefauver (Tenn.). Both inspectors won high praise from Kefauver's committee, having compiled the most extensive collection of information about the Mafia that the committee had seen.

Frank Ahern became Chief of Police in 1956, naming Cahill his Deputy Chief of Police shortly after. Ahern's tenure as chief was brief, ending on September 1, 1958, when he died at a baseball game at the now-demolished Seal Stadium. Mayor George Christopher named Cahill Chief of Police shortly after Ahern's death, on September 5, 1958.

One of the innovative approaches Cahill took as police chief was to introduce police community relations programs, which allowed citizens an official, public forum in which to discuss their opinions - negative or positive - about the police force. The first such programs in San Francisco were in the Potrero, Northern, and Haight Ashbury-Golden Gate Park Divisions, the latter being introduced in January 1963. Cahill also introduced Tactical Crime Prevention Squads and a Canine Unit, explaining that dogs were much easier to stop than bullets.

Cahill was active in safety and crime-related concerns outside the SFPD. He served on President Lyndon B. Johnson's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice from July 1965 to June 1967, appearing on Meet the Press to discuss the Commission's findings. He also served as president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police from October 1968 to the following October.

Urban rioting, increasingly violent protests, armed militias, rising crime, and the lowering level of respect held for police officers challenged Cahill in his final years as police chief. Reacting to rising crime rates, Cahill encouraged the public to "rise up and support law enforcement" and urged the press to publicize police accomplishments rather than failures ("Chief Cahill in Strong Talk"). However, Cahill's exhortations no longer resonated so strongly with audiences. In the 1950s, Cahill told high school students they could choose one of two paths - one path leading to an upstanding life and the other to the electric chair. By the mid-1960s, such speeches were no longer successful.

Yet Cahill did not rely on pleas to the public to reduce crime and violence. He also researched possible sources and ramifications of civil unrest, preparing a remarkable report, The Outlook for Civil Disobedience, in 1967. In addition, the SFPD prepared 128 Hours: A Report of the Civil Disturbance in the City & County of San Francisco. This report presents the SFPD's examination of police, government, and individual action that occurred after a police officer fatally shot an African-American youth in Hunter's Point on September 27, 1966.

Cahill retired as police chief on February 4, 1970. Then-mayor Joseph Alioto had requested Cahill's retirement, as the mayor sought to infuse the police department with "new blood" (Raudebaugh). San Francisco, like almost every major U.S. city, had been experiencing a relentless increase in crime; its police force had also not changed enough under Cahill to attract and retain qualified police officers. Under the existing seniority system, new recruits faced seven or eight years of night duty. This system also required new recruits to wait twelve to fifteen years before being promoted to sergeant.

After leaving the SFPD, Cahill continued to work in the law-enforcement field and serve the public. He joined the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company as Chief Special Agent, a position he held until July 1, 1975, shortly after he reached his mandatory retirement age. He also ran successfully for a position on the San Francisco Charter Revision Committee. Cahill lived a highly public life, accepting frequent offers to address various civic, community, and professional groups.

Cahill died of heart failure on October 12, 2002, at age 92. Despite his advancing years, he continued to be actively involved in public concerns until his death, making speeches and writing letters. He was survived by his third wife, Elizabeth (Wright), and four children: Thomas, Jr.; John; Edward; and Elizabeth.

Sources:

"Chief Thomas J. Cahill: A Life in Review," The Watch Report, Fall/Winter 1998.

O'Riordan, Mikel. "Pillars of the Community," The Irish Herald, October 1996.

Ostrow, Al. "Detective Team on Trail of the Mafia," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 20, 1951.

"'People's Commission' Sets Berkeley Probe", San Francisco Examiner, February 5, 1970.

Raudebaugh, Charles. "Why It Happened", San Francisco Chronicle, February 5, 1970.

Rubenstein. Steve. "Mourners Remember Cahill," San Francisco Chronicle, October 18, 2002.

"Stage Is Set for the Kefauver Committee's Big Show", New York World-Telegram and Sun, March 10, 1951.