# Kefauver Part 4: testimony of Hampton Smith Chambers, Kansas City police commissioner, on meetings with Charles Binaggio (28 September 1950)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/kefauver-p4-chambers-testimony-1950-09-28/

A former police commissioner describes his dismissal by the governor in May 1950 'shortly after the slaying of Binaggio and Gargotta' and two meetings with Binaggio in 1949, at one of which Binaggio raised a gambling house on Southwest Boulevard and a representative for police matters. Pp. 39-62.

Hampton Smith Chambers testified on 28 September 1950 (pp. 39-62 of Part 4; pp. 40-48 were read). He described his service on the Kansas City police board and his dismissal by Governor Smith in May 1950 "shortly after the slaying of Binaggio and Gargotta." He described meeting Charles Binaggio in the lobby of the President Hotel (about February or March 1949, p. 41) and at the Phillips Hotel (p. 47), where Binaggio raised a gambling house called the State Line on Southwest Boulevard and said that Henry McKissick "would come back and represent him from then on" in police matters (pp. 47-48).

Chambers says his knowledge of who ran the State Line is hearsay ("I have no knowledge except hearsay"). The testimony is about what Binaggio said to him; it is not evidence of Binaggio's business. The contents lists in two volumes print his title and hotel differently, and the pages are derived from running heads.

## Sources

- U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/investigationofo04unit
- Full text of the volume (Internet Archive, OCR): https://archive.org/download/investigationofo04unit/investigationofo04unit_djvu.txt