Charles Becker (July 26, 1870 – July 30, 1915) was a New York City police officer in the 1890s and 1910's and who was tried, convicted and executed for ordering the murder of a Manhattan gambler, Herman Rosenthal. Becker was the first American police officer to receive the death penalty for murder. The scandal that surrounded his arrest, conviction, and execution was one of the most important in Progressive Era New York in the 1890s and 1910s.
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Charles Becker (July 26, 1870 – July 30, 1915) was a New York City police officer in the 1890s and 1910's and who was tried, convicted and executed for ordering the murder of a Manhattan gambler, Herman Rosenthal. Becker was the first American police officer to receive the death penalty for murder. The scandal that surrounded his arrest, conviction, and execution was one of the most important in Progressive Era New York in the 1890s and 1910s.
Charles Becker was born to a German-American family in the village of Calicoon Center, Sullivan County, New York. He arrived in New York City in 1890 and went to work as a bouncer in a German beer hall just off the Bowery before joining the New York City Police Department in November 1893. Becker first came to public notice in the fall of 1896 when he arrested a prostitute named Ruby Young (alias Dora Clark) on Broadway. Young was in the company of two chorus girls and the writer Stephen Crane, who appeared in court the next day to refute Becker...
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