Long-simmering opposition inside New York’s 27, 000-member police force to Chief Inspector Sanford Garelik was attributed by a non-Jewish police captain today to resentment because “his appointment was a threat to the Irish dynasty in the department. “
Mr. Garelik, holding the highest uniformed post in the police department, is a Bronx-born Jew, the son of immigrants from Russia, and was brought up in an Orthodox Jewish home. He was named to his position two months ago when the top echelons of the police department were reorganized after Mayor John V. Lindsay assumed his office. A college graduate who entered the police force in 1939, Mr. Garelik had advanced to other high police positions prior to the present post.
Police Captain Cyril R. Regan, who is of Irish descent, and is an aide to Chief Inspector Garelik, said today: “If his name had been Sullivan or McCarthy, there would not have been one-tenth the trouble. There has never been an Italian or a Jewish chief before. The resentment toward Garelik has been occasioned by the feeling that they, the Irish, had a vested right to these high positions.”
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