Glen Whiteley, owner and curator of the Spokane Law Enforcement Museum (BA '55, BAE, '57), worked in law enforcement for 25 years, the first half with Spokane County and the second with the state of Washington. He specialized in photography and fingerprinting, tasks that often placed him in the courtroom presenting evidence he had collected. One of the most enjoyable parts of his job was having evidence so conclusive that the opposing counsel would simply say "no contest" and the case would be dismissed.

After retiring in 1990, Whiteley had collected a fair amount of memorabilia from his career over the years. That's when he got the idea of creating a law enforcement museum. He began with some patches given to him by a former colleague and the collection just seemed to take off after that. Before he realized it, his basement was packed to the hilt with keepsakes from law enforcement history.

Today, Whiteley's museum holds uniformed mannequins, patches, badges, antique guns, photographs, jail-cell locks, handcuffs, leg irons, newspaper stories, wanted posters, keys, history books and samples of work he did as a professional finger printer and photographer. In his garage you'll find old-time police cars fully equipped with lights and sirens. The museum focuses on the history of law enforcement within Spokane County, but also includes items from around the world, including hats from London and badges from Australia.

One of Whiteley's most prized possessions is a complete Royal Canadian Mounted Police dress uniform, which took five years of negotiations to acquire. Other treasured items include a photograph of the first uniformed officer in Spokane and letters and documents from the 1800s signed by that officer.

Because there is no other law enforcement museum in the area, Whiteley enjoys visiting the old prison in Deer Lodge, Montana to gather ideas on how to put his collection together. He also occasionally finds items for his collection in Montana, such as the 38 pistol he found in an antique shop.

Whiteley's retirement has turned into more than a full-time job of piecing together the past. His own research headquarters are in the room attached to the museum. The shelves on the walls hold hundreds of history books, and pictures of the past are randomly hung on the walls in antiquated frames.

A favorite research item is the book titled "The History of Spokane County." Published in 1900, Whiteley's copy is still in mint condition right down to the gold-leaf pages. "I like digging up lots of stories in this book," he says. "Look at the quality of the pictures in it, and there is a picture of a Spokane sheriff."

The museum is scheduled to move out of his basement and into a new building as soon as a good location is found. A board of directors for the museum has been established and have applied for non-profit status from the IRS so the museum will be eligible for grants and other types of funding.

Friends and family are supportive of his commitment to document the past. Many of the people who have toured the museum over the years are other law enforcement retirees or members of the Model-T Club.

"They just seem happy that someone is doing this because they know that important things are being lost," explains Whiteley.

In addition to the law enforcement museum, he also has an impressive collection of more than 1,000 antique cameras and he is in the process of writing a few books about law enforcement history in Spokane County.

Establishing a museum has been a difficult task but it hasn't been without its humorous moments. He laughingly recalls how once, after purchasing a mannequin for displaying a uniform, he was carrying it down the street to his car when he heard a little boy ask his mother, "mommy, why is that man carrying a naked lady?"

During his research, Whiteley spends plenty of time reminiscing about his career and noting how different things are today than when he first became interested in law enforcement.

"The technology has changed, but so have the criminals," he explains. "Today criminals have automatic weapons and can jump on an airplane and escape to another country after committing their crimes. As far as changes in technology, it used to take me an entire week to search through a dozen fingerprints, today the new machines can compare a thousand prints in three minutes."

To find out more about the museum or schedule a time to tour it, please contact Glen Whiteley at 509-624-0933. Joy Anderson (BA '97) is a freelance writer who has written for The Spokesman Review and Nike. She is a technical writer at LineSoft Corp. in Spokane.