Inspector Inspector, also police inspector or inspector of police, is a police rank. The rank or position varies in seniority depending on the organization that uses it. Australia In Australian police forces, the rank of inspector is generally the ne ...

John J. (Jack) Manion (1877–March 1959), San Francisco Police Department, was a veteran officer assigned by

Chief Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the bo ...

Dan O'Brien in 1921 to head up the notorious 16-member Chinatown Squad which had been established in 1875. In the 1920s, San Francisco's Chinatown covered eight city blocks between Bush and Broadway, and three blocks up

Nob Hill Nob Hill is a neighborhood of San Francisco, California, United States that is known for its numerous luxury hotels and historic mansions. Nob Hill has historically served as a center of San Francisco's upper class. Nob Hill is among the hig ...

from Kearny Street to Powell Street. Grant and Stockton streets were the main north-south thoroughfares. As early as the 1850s, Chinese immigrants began organizing into protective associations based on family, business, or their home districts. Shunned and fiercely discriminated against on race as well as economics by the wider community, the people in Chinatown, a segregated population, banded together in associations, companies or the label applied by the press, '' tongs.'' Five of the district associations formed the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in the late 1850s, known as the Five companies by non-Chinese in California. In 1862, a sixth association was added and the grouping became known to outsiders as the

Chinese Six Companies The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) ( in the Western United States, Midwest, and Western Canada; 中華公所 (中华公所) ''zhōnghuá gōngsuǒ'' (Jyutping: zung1wa4 gung1so2) in the East) is a historical Chinese association ...

. Manion was set to the task of controlling the ''tongs'' that controlled illicit gambling, lotteries, narcotics, prostitution and other criminal enterprises with hired gunmen and the so-called "hatchetmen."

References

*Jerry Flamm, ''Good Life in Hard Times''. Chronicle Books

External links

Manion at San Francisco Virtual Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manion, Jack American police detectives Chinese-American history 1877 births 1959 deaths San Francisco Police Department officers People from Chinatown, San Francisco