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When Constable Howard T. France was patrolling the Village of Monona as a full-time police officer in the winter of 1945, he was the Monona Police Department, working out of his home on Harker Court, [later Pirate Island], with one squad car-his own. Later he was given part-time help and, in 1953, a station wagon/ambulance, equipped with two stretchers and a resuscitator.
In 1954, Officer Rollin Boden reported that the police department handled 679 cases. In 1956, two full-time officers were added to the force, but the now Chief Boden was still operating out of his home. In those days, the police officers had to be their own dispatchers. There were no EMT’s, teletypes and highs speed police boats. Computers? What?
When Rollin Boden started with Monona he worked for both the Monona Police Department and the Dane County Sheriff’s Department, but he later resigned the Dane County position to work solely for the Village.
In 1955, the Monona Police Department acquired a 1955 Dodge 4 door station wagon squad car/ambulance. It was equipped with a stretcher and an MSA (Mine Safety Appliance) Pneolator. The new squad car was reputed to be “ready for almost any emergency”. A 3-way transmitter radio kept the squad in constant 2-way communication with the Dane County Police and Madison Police. A new “electrical speed timing device” known as a “speed watch” was used effectively in capturing excessive violators of village speed ordinances.
(Thanks to Chris Kelley of Dushore, PA for correcting an error we had concerning the our reference to the Pneolator)
The Village had its first traffic fatality in 1955 and that year reported the following arrests: 5 Disorderly Conduct, 7 Drunken Drivers, 6 Drunkenness, 197 Speeding violations, 50 Parking tickets, 45 Motor vehicle violations and 76 dog bail forfeitures from recovered dogs. In addition they handled 67 family trouble cases, 7 juvenile problems and 1 Burglary. They reported that dogs were their biggest and most constant problem.
In August of 1956, the Monona Village Police Headquarters and Justice Court were shifted to the corner of West Dean and Monona Drive in a former DX service station. This placed the Monona Village Fire Department and Police Headquarters immediately adjacent to each other and across the street from the Blooming Grove Police Department and Town Hall. The front portion of the building was used to house the police files, records and headquarters, which up until then were kept in the home of Chief Boden and in the Village Hall. Immediately behind the police headquarters, Justice of the Peace Russell Mitchell kept his records and held court. The grease rack behind the filling station was used to house the Village’s auxiliary fire truck, which released enough space for a fire department meeting room.
The police department moved in 1958 to temporary quarters in the north end of the nearby Monona Grove State Bank Building, on the went side of the 4700 block of Monona Drive. Later that same year they moved to the municipal complex on Schluter Road.
Personnel additions brought the police force to 13 by 1963, when a newly created position of investigator-juvenile officer was filled by Robert Engelberger.
In a 1998 interview, retired Sergeant Jack Geiwitz recalled being summoned sometimes by the Justice of the Peace to witness a marriage. He also remembered that after the department moved to the Schluter Road site the JP held court in the well house, where the noise was so great when the pump engine started that the court session would be forced to wait until the noise subsided.
Sergeant Geiwitz started with the police department in 1955. He remembered frequent breakdowns of the 1955 station wagon ambulance/squad as it grew older. He also recalled escorting the equipment moving the corrugated metal hangar buildings from the Royal Airport on Highway 12 & 18 (Now the South Towne Mall) to their new location on Highway 51 at Truax Field. He remembers many escorts as homes on Monona Drive were relocated to allow for commercial development. He also remembers being run over by a drunken driver while he was directing traffic and the resulting several month hospital stay. His part in the fatal shooting of the bank robber was another incident he would rather forget.
In 1958 the Village Charter Ordinance created the position of Chief of Police, abolishing positions of constable and marshal.
The first full time dispatcher was hired in 1960, the year the police department went on to a 24 hour per day operation. In 1964, the department hired its first full time secretary.
In 1964 the police department acquired a fast runabout boat to be used for patrolling Lake Monona and the Yahara River. Equipped with police radio, the patrol watched over the boaters on the weekends from Memorial Day to Labor Day. In June of 1969 the Police Department showed off its brand new 21 foot, 160 horsepower patrol boat. The Monona Police Department patrolled the local waterways until the 1970’s when it became more cost effective and efficient to turn over those duties to the Dane County Sheriff’s Department.
When it was a simple country road, Monona Drive needed little traffic control, but after Monona Grove High School opened, pedestrian and auto traffic grew so that in 1965 the police department was able to report, “With the hiring of a new officer on February 1st of this year, the Police Chief has now scheduled an officer to work traffic control at the intersection of Dean Avenue and Monona Drive from 7:20am to 8:00am daily.”
After years of being a one-car operation, by 1957 the Monona Police Department had one plain squad car and one ambulance—a station wagon which could be used for both a squad car and for accidents or emergencies. By 1972 the police department had two ambulances, a marked sedan, an unmarked sedan and a police boat. The ambulances were Pontiac station wagons with emergency stretchers, resuscitation and first aid equipment and a special riot gun which was locked onto the real floor when the key was pulled out of the ignition. The Monona gull and waves insignia on both doors along with department identification proclaimed their identity.
Figures showed a police call growth from 1954 to 1971:
- Traffic Accidents: 59 to 581
- Ambulance Calls: 61 to 314
- Juvenile Cases: 17 to 249
- Vandalism: 16 to 255
Monona’s 32 miles of streets and 2,223 acres of land and almost 10,500 people were responsible for putting 179,208 miles on the department’s vehicles in 1971.
In 1972 the Monona Police Department became one of the first in the State of Wisconsin to get the latest in computerized communications and crime data equipment. The Transaction Information for Management of Enforcement or TIME system was originally set up with communication among only 46 law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin. The system interconnects the Department of Justice, The Department of Transportation and Federal Bureau of Investigation via local police departments, such as the Monona Police Department. Information was to be transmitted and an unheard of 100 words per minute!
The Monona Police Department moves into the new Millennium with:
- 19 sworn personnel, highly trained, with each trained specifically in one or more specialty areas of Law Enforcement.
- 4 full time Telecommunicators (All transmitting 100 words per nanosecond!)
- 1 full time court clerk
- 6 part time dispatchers
- Several marked an unmarked vehicles, most equipped with the latest high tech computer systems.
- The latest 911 emergency system for police, fire and ambulance dispatch.
- The latest NT computer networking system throughout the police department.
- A recently created web site to allow you to view the items you are currently seeing.
- An extensive Community Policing program has been put into place to allow interaction between the community and the police department in a coordinated effort to reduce crime and other law enforcement/ community problems.
- In 1963 the Monona Police Department had 13 sworn personnel and they handled somewhere in the vicinity of 1000 complaints during the year or about 77 calls per year, per officer. In the year 2000 the Monona Police Department has 19 sworn personnel who are handling about 10,000 complaints each year or about 526 calls per year, per officer.