Customer Reviews

Chinatown Squad: Policing the Dragon From the Gold Rush to the 21st Century

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This is the story of San Francisco, it's police department and crime in it's Chinatown. It is a story of human foibles and changing morals. The author, Kevin J. Mullin, discusses corrupt politicians, policemen and gangsters. He also discusses individuals of high moral and physical courage who could not be dissuaded from doing their duty. While written has a popular history it reads like a fast paced crime thriller. This book does what good litature is suppose to do, it gives us insight to our nature and the himan condition

Truth continues to be stranger than fiction. This 150 year criminal history of activities in San Francisco's Chinatown could easily be a hit mini-series. A new twist on the godfather theme from a policeman's viewpoint.

"Chinatown Squad;" Policing the Dragon: From the Gold Rush to the 21st Century by Kevin J. Mullen is a good chronological layout of San Francisco's China-Town, it's initial immigrants, their social ills, and their... criminal activity.

It appears to me, that most of the historical crime was based upon the ideals of Tong rule, gang turf competition, prostitution, gambling, and naturally narcotic trafficking. In one word, Chinatown appears to have been (a still may be) the pentacle of... "Vise."

From the hard-core Irish beat cop to the special vise squads with their Chinese-American police officers, law enforcement within this unique social realm continues to be an intriguing task for the police officer in general.

Despite the somewhat "mysterious" aura of "China-town" and its development, much of the criminal activities portrayed in this book seem almost... "tame" by comparison to other areas of the country during the same time-periods.

There is some good historical information to be gleaned from this book, and the historical photographs are unique. Although well researched, and injected with a few high-profile cases within Chinatown, for some unknown reason... my own enthusiasm and interest in the actual reading began to wane as I got deeper into the book.

In all fairness to the author; perhaps any disappointment in this read is due more too personal preferences than the actual writing style, editing, or information portrayed in this book. I was simply left with the afterthought: "is that all there is?"