On December 10, 1920, an eighth St. Louis Police Officer would lose his life, the most officers to die in the line of duty in the history of the St. Louis Police Department.  Four of the officers’ murders in 1920 would never be solved.  This last murder would be one of the four murders never to be solved.

     Charles M. Daly became the eighth St. Louis Police Officer to lose his life, when a robber attempted to hold him up in front of his home at 4021 Forest Park Boulevard.  The robber shot Daly in the course of the holdup.  His actions would lead to Officer Daly’s death.  Daly had recently been assigned as a Special Police Officer at the Magnolia Police Station due to his fine record as a patrol officer at Grand Boulevard and Easton Avenue.

Daly from the Saturday, December 11, 1920 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

     Special Officer Daly was returning to his home after his shift at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, December 7, 1920.  As he turned up his sidewalk, a man approached him and told him to “stick ‘em up”.  Officer Daly was carrying his service revolver in his right coat pocket.

     Daly pulled out his revolver but the robber shot him first.  The shots struck Daly in the abdomen twice.  Officer Daly told his wife Josephine later that he also observed another man across the street hiding in the bushes during the robbery.  Officer Daly fired three shots at both men before collapsing to the sidewalk.  His wife found him, when she heard the shooting in the front yard.

     According to the Wednesday, December 8, 1920 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his doctor’s said he had a “fighting chance”.  The paper also noted Officer Daly was the son of the late Dan Daly, a local prize-fighter of note.  The police arrested several suspects but Daly said he never got a good look at the robber in the dark and did not believe he could identify him if he was brought to him.

     Oddly, Officer Daly had been attacked by a gang of men a few weeks before the fatal attack.  The men followed him after he got off the Sarah Street street car. They jumped him in front of his home but his wife grabbed his service revolver and scared them away.

     She said many of the criminal element in the neighborhood he patrolled held a grudge against him because of his diligence in executing his duty.  However, authorities were never able to connect the two attacks nor did they believe this incident was anything more than a robbery.

     On Friday, December 10, 1920 at 06:20 p.m., Daly succumbed to his injuries.  Daly, who was born on January 15, 1890 in St. Louis, was 30 years old.  The St. Louis Police Department lost another brave officer.

4021 Forest Park Avenue, the site of the Daly House in 1920 – Courtesy of Google Earth

     The house at 4021 Forest Park Boulevard, which no longer exists, had a bloody history.  According to John Auble’s book A History of St. Louis Gangsters, May Traynor, a local madam was shot by two men there on September 20, 1961.  Before she died, Traynor blamed Joe Costello, a local gangster.    She died on September 22, 1961 at 71 years of age.

     1920 was an anomaly in the history of the St. Louis Police Department.  Never did so many officers lose their lives in the line of duty.  Fortunately, it has never been repeated.

       When I first read In The Line of Duty: St. Louis Officers Who Made the Ultimate Sacrifice by Barbara Miksicek, et. al., one of the case that jumped out at me between 1880 and 1930 was the case of Hugh J. McCartney.

802 Geyer Avenue, the Home of Hugh McCartney at the Time of His Death – Geo St. Louis

     Officer McCartney had joined the St. Louis Police Department two months before he was shot and killed in May 1903.  The write-up on Officer McCartney says he was attacked by a crowd near a cracker factory at Fourteenth and Clark for unknown reasons.  Officer McCartney killed one assailant and wounded two others.  He died two weeks after the assault.

     For years, I have been unable to find references to McCartney in the Post-Dispatch newspaper archive despite several attempts.  Recently, I was able to find some newspaper accounts of the case from the digital archives of the St. Louis Republic newspaper from the Library of Congress archive.

     The first mention of the case is about the surgery that was performed to save McCartney’s life.  It was performed on the morning of May 11.  The shooting was to have occurred around midnight on May 10, 1903.  The original write-up said the shooting occurred on May 16.  The May 31, 1903 edition of the same paper also said that the shooting occurred on May 16, which would have been impossible.  However, it illustrates why it was hard to find information in the newspaper archives.

     The May 11 article states that McCartney had responded to a report of shots fired by the Cracker Factory.  It also states that the location is Fifteenth and Clark, which would be across the street from the Scottrade Center.  He found a foreman, who fired a shot to wake up one of his men.  The man was supposed to be excavating for a new building.

A St. Louis Police Badge Like One McCartney Would Wear – Public Domain

     When McCartney failed to arrest the foreman, a crowd of African-Americans surround McCartney and began to heckle him.  The article did not say if the men and women were the workers or on-lookers.

     Regardless, a brawl broke out and several men and women attacked McCartney.  One of the men put a gun to McCartney’s stomach and shot him through the abdomen.  McCartney returned fire killing his assailant and wounding two others.  The crowd dispersed at this point.

     McCartney killed William Washington.  He wounded Hayes Crittenden and Charles Barber, who were charged with assault with the intent to kill.  The coroner ruled McCartney’s killing of Washington as justified.

     Doctors performed surgery on May 11, 1903 and believed that McCartney was going to pull through.  Unfortunately, he took a turn for the worse and passed away at 1:15 a.m. on May 31, 1903.  He left a widow, Mary McCarthy nee Dougherty, and three children, Mary, Anastacia and George.  McCartney was 34 years old.

     McCartney’s death still seems as unnecessary today as it did back then.  The newspaper accounts never revealed the motive for the attack on McCartney.

     Street cars became a serious menace for St. Louis Police Officers during 1902 and 1903.  Street cars killed six St. Louis Police Officers.  The street car killed four of the six officers between 1902 and 1903.  Street cars killed two officer each year.

St. Louis Streetcar from the Public Domain

     A street car traveling in the opposite direction struck Terence J. Donnelly, while he was stepping off the Broadway street car.  He died at the City Hospital on April 7, 1902 at 1 a.m.  Donnelly’s death notice was printed in the August 9, 1902 edition of the St. Louis Republic.  Donnelly was a 56 year old clerk at the Baden Police Station.

     A street car struck William J. Boka on Christmas night 1902.  Boka was attempting to board a street car at Olive Street and Channing Avenue, when the car pulled off at a rapid pace.  It drug Boka for several feet before he fell.  Street Car 325, which was following the other street car, ran over Officer Boka.  Despite serious injuries, Boka lived until December 28, 1902.  Boka was 44 years old and lived at 3315 Chippewa Street.

      St. Louis Police arrested Nelson K. Healy, the operator of Street Car 325,  The coroner’s jury charged Healy with negligence.  However, when Healy died on May 13, 1956 at 87 years of age, he was a retired public service worker.  It is unlikely that he was convicted of negligence.

Police Officer William Hoagland from the Public Domain

     The eastbound street car at Belt Avenue struck William Hoagland, while he was headed home for dinner on Sunday, August 23, 1903.  He died at the City Hospital on August 24, 1903 from a skull fracture without ever recovering consciousness.

     Hoagland, was assigned to the Mounted Patrol.  He joined the St. Louis Police Department with 99 other officers on June 28, 1876.  He was 23 years old and would spend the next twenty-seven years of his life serving the city.  Chief of Detective Desmond joined the St. Louis Police on the same day.

      In the July 3, 1901 edition of the St. Louis Republic, the 25th Anniversary of this recruiting class was celebrated.  Hoagland was one of 19 officers still active from this group of recruits.

     Officer Thomas J. Hadican had been working Midnight Shift in the Seventh District, when he became the fourth officer killed in a street car accident.  Hadican was on his way home on September 20, 1903, at 07:30 a.m., on the Fourth Street car.  The street car hit an S-curve at Fourth and Plum Streets.  Hadican was thrown from the rear platform of the street car onto his head.

     Fellow policemen rushed him to the City Hospital, where a tragic scene occurred.  His sister was a nurse, who recognized her brother being brought in.  She broke down into hysterics at first.  The September 21, 1903 edition of the St. Louis Republic noted her reaction caused many hardened policemen to tear up themselves.

     Miss Hadican recovered and helped take care of her brother until his passing at 1:30 p.m. on September 20, 1903.  Officer Hadican lived six hours after the accident.

     Street cars while a good method of transportation also posed a safety risk to the officers of the St. Louis Police Department at the turn of the Twentieth-Century.  Street cars and later automobiles killed almost as many officers as armed criminals.