J. T. Alley

J. T. Alley, Jr. (June 26, 1923—April 27, 2009), was the police chief in Lubbock, from November 14, 1957, until his retirement on January 31, 1983, the third longest such tenure in the state of Texas. Alley directed police operations after devastating F-5 tornadoes struck Lubbock on May 11, 1970. He left Lubbock High School in 1942 to join the United States Marine Corps, where his work as an MP encouraged his later interest in law enforcement After Alley was honorably discharged from the Marines in 1946 he joined the Lubbock police department. In time, he traded the regulation police uniform for a suit with stringed tie and his cowboy boots. Near the end of his tenure, Alley was accused of having made a racial slur, a charge which aroused the ire of the African American and Hispanic communities in Lubbock. He told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that the media had misinterpreted his remarks after he disciplined an officer regarding an improper warrant. "I was trying to impress upon that he should treat everyone alike, regardless of what color they were, and I think that was taken and blown out of proportion. If anyone will take the whole statement, they'll see what I was trying to do", Alley said in 1983.<ref name=alley/>
Although he did not attend college, Alley encouraged his officers to do so. He and his family were proud of his graduations from the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia in 1953, and the Northwestern University Traffic Institute in Evanston, Illinois.<ref name=obit/>
Alley was a staunch opponent of police unions. In 1965, he deterred union representatives from an attempt to organize the department with a threat of jail and police dogs.<ref name=alley/>
Mayor Tom Martin, then the Lubbock municipal public information officer, recalls having waited with Alley in 1970 at the Emergency Operations Center as the F5 tornado struck the police station itself. Martin said that Alley, concerned for his officers, braved still fierce winds and large flying debris, as he ran from the basement toward the building. Because the tornado flattened the police radio, Alley made a commercial radio broadcast that police would shoot looters. Not a single instance of looting was thereafter reported.<ref name=alley/>
Family and death
On January 8, 1944, Alley married the former Dorris D'Arlene Reed (June 10, 1926—November 5, 1996), formerly of Washington State in Bremerton, Washington,<ref namessdi/> and the couple had five daughters. After their divorce in 1976, Alley married. Alley was an avid bowler, still bowling on 2 leagues a week and having bowled his last games two nights before his brief illness and died two months before what would have been his 86th birthday.<ref nameobit/>
Alley's obituary calls him "as true a citizen of Lubbock as ever there was."<ref name=obit/> Retired Asst. Police Chief Tom Mann added, "You always hate to see a legend pass away."<ref name=alley/>

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