Benjamin Atwood was the Chief of the San Francisco Police Department in 1878, succeeding Russell Flannagan and preceding Bill O'Hara.
Biography[]
Benjamin Atwood was born in New York City, New York, and he rose to the rank of Colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war, he used his military experience to become an effective New York Police Department officer, cracking down on Chinese organized crime in Manhattan's Chinatown. In 1878, San Francisco Mayor Walter Buckley decided to import Atwood as Chief of the San Francisco Police Department on Chief Russell Flannagan's death from a heart attack; Sergeant Bill O'Hara, who had hoped to become the new chief, was passed over because of his failure to protect Mayor Samuel Blake's murderer Jacob Fok from an Irish mob on the eve of the 1878 San Francisco riots. Atwood proceeded to wage all-out war against the Chinese community, raiding civilian businesses and abusing innocent people; these tactics led O'Hara to quit the force. Later, Workingmen leader Dylan Leary attempted to get Atwood to free the imprisoned Garrett and Conor Donahue, but Atwood refused to do so. When Leary came back with O'Hara, Atwood agreed to free the men if O'Hara beat him in a fight. O'Hara knocked Atwood out in the ensuing fight, but O'Hara's colleagues reported that an inebriated Atwood had fallen down the stairs. As a result of Atwood's incapacitation, O'Hara was offered the role of police chief by Mayor Buckley.
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