Richard H. Sylvester

Richard H. Sylvester, Jr. (August 14, 1859 – December 11, 1930) was the Chief of Police for Washington, District of Columbia, USA for 17 years from July in 1898 to April in 1915. He is one of the people credited with coining the term third degree for police interrogation. Sylvester an early president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), and "was widely regarded as the father of police professionalism. He advocated a citizen-soldier model, and was responsible for development of the many paramilitary aspects of policing." He divided police procedures into the arrest as the first degree, transportation to jail as the second degree and interrogation as the third degree.

Sylvester was born in Iowa City, Iowa on August 14, 1859 to Richard H. Sylvester, Sr..

He attended Washington University in St. Louis, where he majored in law, but he dropped out to become a journalist. He began working at papers in the Midwest. He was sent to Washington, D.C. as a newspaper correspondent.

He became Chief of Police for Washington, DC in 1898.

He retired as Chief of Police for Washington, DC on March 6, 1915 after charges were filed against him for his failure to protect suffragettes during their march in Washington on the day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. He was succeeded by Raymond W. Pullman.

He established the du Pont protection division in 1914 to ensure the safety of the company's plants manufacturing materiel during World War I. While the war was still going on, Sylvester was serving as head of the du Pont police force in July 1918, when his investigation of an unexplained fire at a manufacturing plant led to his uncovering a plot to destroy buildings using fire extinguishers whose contents had been replaced with gasoline.

Sylvester testified before the House Judiciary Committee in April 1928 in support of a "fence" bill drafted by Representative Fiorello H. La Guardia of New York that would make the transporting or concealing of stolen goods used in interstate commerce a crime punishable by a fine of $5,000 or up to two years in prison. He was an early advocate of great cooperation across international police forces, served on a committee established by the National Crime Commission on ways to improve rural policing and participated in the development of recommendations to have employees paid by check rather than cash as a way to reduce payroll robberies.

He died on December 11, 1930 in Wilmington, Delaware where he had retired from DuPont just three weeks earlier. He was buried in Rock Creek Cemetery.