VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Visit the relocated Houston Police Museum, which honors those who serve and protect. Badges from different years fill display cases at the new Houston Police Department Museum at 1200 Travis. Visitors can see exhibits and buy HPD caps and T-shirts in a gift shop.

When visitors enter the lobby of Houston police headquarters, the full-size helicopter hovering above a 1950s black-and-white patrol car is hard to miss. These real-life artifacts are a dramatic part of the display in the new Houston Police Museum, an eclectic collection of memorabilia and documents spanning more than a century.

An equal portion of the museum space contains an interactive memorial that eventually will provide details on the lives of each of the 111 police officers killed in the line of duty since the force was started in 1841.

The museum's location in the lobby of downtown police headquarters, along with free admission, makes it easy for citizens getting a copy of an accident report to learn about the people and lore of Houston police. That was the department's intent when the display was moved to 1200 Travis from the police academy near Bush Intercontinental Airport earlier this year.

"It just gives us an opportunity to do outreach that we never would have had the opportunity out there,“ said senior officer James Chapman, who has done extensive work helping assemble the exhibits.

The glass exhibit cases display original HPD uniforms from the late 1800s through today, including a skirt and blouse worn by Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos when she was an officer. One case holds the 5-shot, .32-caliber revolver carried by officer William A. Weiss on the day he was gunned down in July 1901 by an enraged money lender who claimed another officer had robbed him. Another contains one of a pair of Thompson submachine guns acquired by Chief Percy Heard in 1931 to combat Prohibition-era gangsters.

A diorama in one case depicts the city's second, Victorian-style police station built on Caroline Street to replace the first police station on Market Square. One eye-catching exhibit is the solid gold badge of Chief Maurice Ray, who ran the department from 1910 to 1911, presented to him by night shift officers who decorated it with a large diamond and two emeralds.

The museum steers clear of past controversies, including a race riot in 1917 that took the lives of five officers or the death of Joe Campos Torres, a seminal 1977 brutality case that led to the creation of HPD's internal affairs unit.

A wing of the museum contains a display of the badges of each of the slain officers, the name of each engraved in the surrounding marble.

"We've incorporated this as sort of a memorial-museum, where it tells the history of the police department and the history of the officers who have gone before,“ Chapman said. "Because you can't tell the story of our fallen heros without telling the history of the police department.“

In one corner is the same police motorcycle ridden by slain officer James Bruce Irby, who was shot five times on June 27, 1990, by a passenger in a car he had stopped for a minor traffic violation.

The idea to move the HPD museum to the lobby, and the nearly $265,000 to do it, was approved by former Chief Harold Hurtt, who said he hopes it will serve as a powerful reminder of HPD's effort to honor its slain officers and families.

"We wanted to really exhibit to people every time they had business in the police department, remind them of the services we provide,“ said Hurtt, who retired in December. "As well as remind the families and friends of those killed in the line of duty that we still remember them and we care about their families, and we care about our employees. And if, unfortunately, any of them meet the same fate, they know HPD will remember their service and their commitment to Houstonians."

By JAMES PINKERTON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Aug. 6, 2010, 9:51PM

All proceeds from the sale of the merchandise benefits the Houston Police Foundation which to date has purchased over one-million dollars worth of much needed equipment for the department.

Stop in and take in some of HPD’s rich history!

For further information please contact the HPD museum at ... HPDMuseum@cityofhouston.net.