March 13 – On February 15, 1922, a Wilkes-Barre police officer seized eight barrels of alcohol worth $50,000 from a van on North Washington and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Within hours of the van and barrels being stored at the city’s police station, they went missing.
What followed was regarded by the public as a ‘cover up’. Many believed that high-ranking city officials, including law enforcement officers, took their share of the alcohol home with them.
The seizure occurred during the early years of the Volstead Act, known as Prohibition, a federal law banning the use of intoxicating beverages with an alcohol content greater than 0.5 percent.
Prohibition officers were hired to search for and destroy alcohol.
In early 1922, several barrels marked “olive oil” were filled with alcohol in a warehouse in Pittston.
When the policeman seized eight barrels of alcohol from the van, they were taken to the city’s police station.
“The alcohol disappeared about 4 a.m. yesterday morning and, according to their statements, there was no mention of its seizure by Mayor Daniel L. Hart or Police Chief Michael Brown,” the Wilkes-Barre Record reported on Feb. 16, 1922.
Questions were asked. Nobody knew anything.
“From Mayor Hart through the ranks to the police officers, when questioned about the reported alcohol seizure, all the officers on duty said something along those lines last night: Alcohol? as I know,” the Record reported.
Police reports and an inventory list have been made of the seizure.
police sergeant. Walter Thomas filed a report showing that the van with its cargo of eight barrels of alcohol was parked near the police station. After Thomas left his shift, the barrels of alcohol disappeared. This also applied to Thomas’s report.
“When called early this morning, Mayor Hart stated that he knew absolutely nothing about the alcohol seizure and further stated that he had not ordered his release,” the record reported.
Police Chief Brown has launched an internal investigation. Brown submitted his findings to Mayor Hart on Feb. 19.
Hart kept Brown’s investigative findings a secret until he was pressured by newspaper reporters to release them.
While the police officer who seized the van and barrels of alcohol said it happened on North Washington Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Brown’s report stated that the seizure actually took place across the city limits. Well over the city limit.
“The report clearly states who seized the truck, where it was seized and how it was released and why. However, it is vague who ordered the release,” the Record reported on March 22, 1922 of Brown’s report. to Mayor Hart.
According to the story in Brown’s investigation, the police chief alleged that the officer seized the van on George Avenue in Parsons, “outside the city limits and thus outside the police officer’s jurisdiction.”
Chief Brown wrote that the van was filled with furniture and empty barrels, and because the truck was impounded outside the city limits, it was released along with its cargo, the record reported.
