The police: from the elected marshal to the department at 100 Lincolnway West

1899–2026 · THE INSTITUTION

The marshal era: The 1899 charter that made Mishawaka a city gave it an elected marshal among its elected officers — mayor, clerk, treasurer and marshal chosen at the ballot box, the town's law kept by an elected man and his deputies. The charter whole is Government's and the Story of Mishawaka section's; the marshal is this section's starting point because the department descends from the office: policing by election first, by appointment after.

The regular department, 1904: The marshal's elected tenure lasted five years. The 1904 Public Utilities settlement, De Kever's account says plainly, "enabled the city to acquire regular police and fire departments" — the police department as a standing, salaried institution dates from the same instrument as the paid fire department and the city hall that housed both. The department's governing board was the Board of Public Safety, which met at City Hall — the board through which Indiana cities of Mishawaka's form ran their police and fire services, and whose minutes are this department's settling archive for everything the record reached leaves open.

The department of 1921, whole: The first Mishawaka police department the record describes whole is the 1921 Polk directory's: headquarters in City Hall at 204 East First Street, under Chief Valentine J. Pfender, with Benjamin Jarrett as assistant chief, John Jarrett as desk sergeant, and a roll of named patrolmen covering a five-ward factory town. One episode of the young department's life enters this build's record only as politics and stays where Government placed it: the shooting of two Belgian residents by a member of the force was a public charge against the Gaylor administration in the campaign of 1917 — an allegation of the campaign record, printed there as such; the offense side of any such episode belongs to Crime, and no adjudicated account is in the record reached.

The departments together, 1977–1985: The two departments surface together in the appellate record a lifetime later: in City of Mishawaka v. Squadroni, 486 N.E.2d 1088 (Ind. App. 1985), the city's policemen's and firemen's pension funds, their boards of trustees, and the 1977 negotiations between the city, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 91 and the Mishawaka Fire Fighters, Local 360, are all of record — the unions and the pension funds documented in litigation over the incentive-bonus ordinance the talks produced, Ordinance No. 2120, effective 1 January 1978. The case is the two departments' shared institutional fabric at its documented size: organized labor, pension boards, and a lawsuit the retirees won.

The headquarters' course: City Hall at 204 East First Street held the department from the paid era's beginning; the station at 200 North Church Street is the headquarters the modern record knows — the building before which the fallen-officers memorial stands, where patrol cars were parked for mourners in December 2003 — until the fall of 2022, when the department moved with the rest of the city government into the consolidated City Hall at 100 Lincolnway West. The Church Street building was afterward sold, as the Story of Mishawaka section carries. The exact years of the First Street-to-Church Street move are not in the record reached and stand named as a gap.

The modern settlement: In September 2023 the Common Council approved twelve-hour shifts for Mishawaka police officers, on the city's release of 21 September 2023 under Chief Witkowski — officers working 243 more hours a year than under the eight-hour schedule. In February 2024 the department's recruiting stood at a starting pay of $89,000 for recruits, in Chief Witkowski's own presentation to a neighborhood meeting as the press reported it. The department as it stands in November 2026 is carried in the closing entry.

Sources:

1. The Government and Spine fragments of this build — the 1899 charter's elected marshal; the 1904 settlement enabling a regular police department; the Board of Public Safety at City Hall; the 1917 campaign charge and its disposition; the 200 North Church Street station and its sale; the fall 2022 move to 100 Lincolnway West.
2. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory (1921), as carried in the Government fragment — headquarters at City Hall, 204 E. First; Chief V. J. Pfender; Assistant Chief Benjamin Jarrett; desk sergeant John Jarrett; the patrol roll.
3. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — the 1904 utilities agreement enabling regular police and fire departments.
4. City of Mishawaka v. Squadroni, 486 N.E.2d 1088 (Ind. App. 1985) — the Firemen's and Policemen's Pension Funds and their boards; the 1977 discussions between the city, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 91 and Mishawaka Fire Fighters, Local 360; Ordinance No. 2120, effective 1 January 1978.
5. City of Mishawaka news release, 21 September 2023 — the Common Council's approval of twelve-hour police shifts; WNDU, February 2024 — recruit starting pay of $89,000 in Chief Witkowski's presentation.