the gangster and the criminal, our program seeks co-operation of the film industry to convey to the public that crime does not pay.” He made the rounds of Hollywood producers and executives and even met with the mayor of Los Angeles. Well, even legends are occasionally unable to complete the mission successfully.
Even with all of his IACP duties and travels, Chief Siccardi still served as chairman of NJSACOP’ s most important and active committees and spent significant time in Trenton working on the Association’ s behalf. As his term as IACP President came to an end, he hosted the 1935 annual international conference in Atlantic City, NJ. Homer Cummings, U. S. Attorney General in the first F. D. Roosevelt administration, addressed the delegates, and began with these words:
Since I last had the honor of addressing a convention of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in the autumn of 1934, consistent progress has been made in the attempt, in which all of us are engaged, to deal with the problem of crime on a more rational, more efficient and better integrated basis than has hitherto been practicable. On account of its active participation and interest in what is being done, I need not recite for your membership the various steps that have been taken during the past several months to combat the criminal menace. Members of this Association were present as delegates at the Conference on Crime that met at Washington from December 10 to 13, 1934, and your distinguished President, Chief Peter Siccardi, was a member of an Advisory Committee that I appointed to submit recommendations respecting one of the most important actions taken at that Conference.
That action, I need not state, was the approval of the establishment at Washington, D. C. of a scientific and educational center, permanent in form and structure, to provide national leadership in the broad field of criminal law administration and the treatment of crime and criminals.
Thus was the establishment of the“ FBI Police Training School” – now more famously known as the FBI National Academy, announced to the assembled chiefs. Three weeks later the first session was held in Washington with a total attendance of 23 students. Chief Siccardi served as“ Chairman” of this first session, and can rightly be claimed as one of the institution’ s founding fathers. Later in the same year, a dinner was held at the Hotel Commodore in his honor, commemorating his recently ended tenure as international president. The New York Times reported on the event, stating that“ Six hundred guests, many of them persons prominent in New Jersey and New York civic and political life, attended a dinner last night … in honor of Peter J. Siccardi, Chief of Police of Bergen County, New Jersey. Chief Siccardi …. was praised as a police officer and a man by numerous speakers.”
The next project that Chief Siccardi threw himself into was training and education for police officers in New Jersey, becoming involved with police training schools held at Rutgers University in cooperation with the NJSACOP. At a State Chiefs meeting in 1937 he suggested that since the year marked the Association’ s 25th anniversary. A banquet should be organized to celebrate the milestone. Naturally, he was appointed to the organizing committee. Chief Siccardi’ s law enforcement career came to an end with his retirement on May 15, 1939. The minutes of the January 1940 State Chiefs meeting recorded what amounted to a sort of farewell address to his colleagues:
Chief Siccardi asked for the privilege of the floor, stating he felt at this time being retired he wanted the Chiefs to know that he appreciated everything they did in his interests while an Active member of this association, in elevating him to Presidency of the State Association and with their assistance the Presidency of the International and though he was retired he would serve the association or any member in any way he could and that the officers could call on him for anything they felt they wanted him to perform.
With these heartfelt words the curtain closed on Peter Siccardi’ s public life. He fell ill on a trip to the IACP conference in Canada in 1961 and passed away a month later. As quoted in the 2010 Bergen Record article, his grandson recalled“ when I knew him, he was very fun-loving, a very easygoing guy, but that’ s not how he ran his police department – very strict and ruled with an iron fist.” Besides his family and the Bergen County Police Department, few recalled the achievements of a man who played such an important role in shaping law enforcement in New Jersey and beyond. We are proud to say that disservice has now been rectified.
17