Posts about police history with special emphasis on St. Louis police history.
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. […]
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On Friday, October 21, 1904, five St. Louis Police Officers went to a rooming house at 1324 Pine Street, site of today’s Soldier Memorial, to arrest three men suspected of an Illinois train robbery in August of the same year. What occurred next would be one of the most storied shootouts in St. Louis Police history. During the World’s Fair, […]
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On October 16, 1920, Special Officers Preston Anslyn and William A. Moller were following two burglars in the 3800 block of Juanita Avenue during a heavy fog. One or both burglars shot the officers from a gangway as they walked onto the lawn of a house, where they thought the burglars entered. The officers both suffered fatal wounds, which killed […]
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After averaging 9 fights a year over the past 7 years, World Middleweight Boxing Champion Stanley “The Michigan Assassin” Ketchel was exhausted. Ketchel took a vacation on the Missouri ranch of his friend Colonel R. P. Dickerson in an attempt to regain his strength and enthusiasm for fighting. Ketchel never returned from vacation as he was shot and killed at […]
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On April 5, 1920, Frederick Charles Smith, also known as “The Red-Headed Bandit”, walked into the Easton-Taylor Trust Company at 4474 Easton Avenue. Smith had a revolver in each hand and demanded money from the cashier. Fearing for his life, the clerk promptly dropped $15,309 in a sack. John Lanigan, the bank’s president, sat in his office off the lobby […]
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On a cold January night in 1920, the deadliest year for St. Louis Police, kicked off violently. Two not so-bright robbers attempted to rob one of the largest and bravest officers on the St. Louis Police Department. St. Louis Police Detective Sergeant James Martin King was walking to his home at 4973 Lotus Avenue via N. Kingshighway Boulevard, when two […]
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On Thursday, June 12, 1919, Earl Hunter and Charles Bergman, a parolee and ex-convict, held up the Meramec Trust Company shortly after it opened at 07:00 a.m. The robbery was not well planned and even more poorly executed. The corner of Virginia Avenue and Meramec Street was one of the busiest street car blocks in the city. The robbers had […]
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William Dillon was responding to reports about the murder of Officer McKenna by the Lewis Brothers. Dillon believed that the Lewis Brothers, who were auto and wire thieves, were responsible for McKenna’s death. Dillon proceeded to the DeMorris home at 4232 Athlone Avenue. He observed two of the Lewis brothers enter the garage in the Ford. Dillon entered the garage […]
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Before Friday, April 7, 1916, was over, the Lewis brothers would kill two St. Louis Police Officers, John McKenna and William Dillon. McKenna was the first to fall, when he interrupted the brothers attempts to steal wire, a valuable commodity during World War I. The brothers would kill Dillon, while he investigated McKenna’s murder. The St. Louis Police Department assigned […]
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Thomas E. “Snake” Kinney was a newsboy, head of a criminal gang, saloon owner and respected Democratic Missouri State Senator. Kinney, a tough street fighter rose to the top of the criminal world before becoming a respectable legislator. Kinney sponsored key child labor laws in Missouri and legislation limiting work hours for Missouri women to 8-hour days. Kinney never forgot […]
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