At around 8:40 pm, the fleeing car attempted to make a sharp left turn off Blaisdell Avenue heading east onto 39th Street. However, the driver misjudged the turn and hit the rear of a parked car on the right side of the street. Seconds later, the Fossum-Canfield squad car came around the corner, struck the curb and spun around stopping in the middle of the street just behind the Chrysler.

The two men in the front seat of the Chrysler jumped out, revolvers in hand. Fossum and Canfield exited the squad car at virtually the same time and came toward to two. As they did, the man who had been driving the stolen car fired at Fossum. The shot hit the 31-year-old officer in the head and he fell dead to
the pavement. Canfield, who had come around in front of the Chrysler,
raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger, but the gun did not fire. A
second later the passenger from the Chrysler shot at Canfield and hit
him in the stomach. A second officer was down.

The killer of Fossum walked over to his victim and shot at him, but missed.
He did not bother to fire another shot, but instead ran back and got
behind the wheel of the car he had struck moments before, also a
Chrysler, but a 1949 model. His accomplice got in beside him. The
driver attempted to put the car in reverse, but its rear bumper was
locked with the front bumper of the Chrysler they had been driving
earlier.

In the meantime, the third man had run down 39th Street in the direction of Nicollet Avenue. Unable to
dislodge the cars, the driver now pulled both cars forward, running
over Canfield in the process. What followed was a grisly scene as the
wounded Canfield, trapped underneath the 1955 Chrysler, was dragged 20
to 30 feet before his body came out from under the vehicle.

Just past Van Ness Avenue, a one block residential street running parallel
between Blaisdell and Nicollet, the two cars suddenly separated. The
older Chrysler with the two killers in it veered sharply to the left
and leapt the curb, traversing the sidewalk. The 1955 car veered to its
right, jumped the curb and hit the side of the house at 3901 Van Ness.
The two gunmen got out of their car and ran toward 39th and Nicollet
following their companion.

At a DX station, they forced Marilyn Langford, 3920 Pleasant Avenue South, out of her
1951 Chevrolet. She and her mother, Francis, had stopped to get gas and
her mother was outside the car talking to the station attendant when
the three men suddenly appeared and stole her daughter’s car. They now
took off and headed north on Nicollet Avenue. They went east on 39th
Street, then headed north on First Avenue South, a one-way street.

In the middle of the 3800 block, they forced over a 1950 Buick driven by
Alvin Anderson, 9448 Clinton Avenue South, Bloomington, who was with
his wife, Velma. They were on their way to a wedding dance on Lake
Street when the three men forced them out of their car. At gunpoint,
Anderson was ordered to run down the street and his wife was shoved
into the front seat between two of the men. The third man climbed into
the back seat and slumped down on the floor. Anderson, meanwhile, ran
to a house at the end of the block and got the owner to let him in and
call the police. By now, his car and his wife had disappeared into the
night.

Within a few minutes of Anderson’s call, the area was swarming with police and emergency vehicles.
Canfield, in grave condition, was rushed to the emergency room at
General Hospital. Fossum’s body was removed by the coroner, and soon
one of the most intense manhunts in Minnesota history was underway.

The three killers abandoned the Anderson car a little over an hour later at
42nd and 2nd Avenues. They transferred Velma Anderson into another car.
Blindfolded practically from the time she was first kidnapped, she was
forced to lie down in the back seat of the second car, two men in the
front seat and the third in the back with her. Fifteen to 30 minutes
later, they released her in an alley behind the 3300 block of Columbus
Avenue. After they left, she scaled a fence and went to the side door
of the house at 3325 Columbus where the women who lived there let her
in and called the police.

For the next four weeks, a nation-wide alert was out for the three killer/kidnappers.
Each was described as short and slight in stature, well dressed and
ranging in age from late teens to mid-twenties. They were known to be
well-armed and obviously very dangerous. There were some clues from the
series of cars they had stolen and from the scene of Fossum’s death.
But, in truth, the police had little to work on.

Four weeks to the day of Fossum’s death, the critical wounding of Canfield
and the kidnapping of Mrs. Anderson, a series of lucky and bizarre
events unfolded which brought the killers to justice, but sadly,
resulted in the death of another innocent victim.

At about mid-afternoon on Saturday, September 14th, two Anoka County
Sheriff’s deputies, James Sampson and Vern Gottewold, on patrol along
Constance Boulevard in rural eastern Anoka County, saw a short man with
dark, wavy hair in his mid-twenties, walking east with a gasoline can
in his hand. They pulled over and asked if he needed help. He said he
was headed back to his car, which had run out of gas. They offered to
give him a lift. He hesitated, then accepted and got into the back
seat. A few blocks further, he told them that his car was the one just
ahead on the right side. They stopped, he got out and walked over to
the car and appeared to be getting ready to put in the gas. Then, a man
came out of the house next to where the car was parked. He started
yelling at the man with the gas can, asking what he was doing to his
car. The two deputies stopped and got out. Suspicious when the man
appeared to be lying about whether the car was his, they then
handcuffed him and put him I the back seat of their squad car.

About that time, two other men came down the road from the east with
handguns. The deputies yelled for them to halt and pulled their
revolvers. One of the two men fired shots striking Sampson in the side
and leg. The handcuffed man in the backseat of the squad car managed to
get out during the shooting and sprinted in the direction of the other
two. Gottewold returned fire and came to Sampson’s assistance as the
three fugitives ran back up the road and into the yard of a house on
the other side of the street belonging to the Eugene Lindgren family.
Lindgren, his wife and three young children had hear the shooting,
looked out on the scene down the street and had taken refuge in their
home.

In what turned out to be a fatal decision, Lindgren, a 30-year old painting contractor, slipped out the
back door and headed to the garage where he had a rifle. He intended to
bring it back into the house for protection. Just after he stepped
outside the three young gunmen confronted him. They immediately took
him hostage and forced him into the garage and into his late model
Cadillac. Lindgren was put behind the wheel with one of the gunmen next
to him, a revolver at his head. The other two fugitives got in the back
seat. Lindgren was told to drive.

At the same time the shooting and kidnapping was taking place on Constance
Boulevard, State Highway Patrolmen Jim Crawford and Ken Cziok were
conducting routine license checks in Wyoming, MN, about 15 minutes to
the north. Over their squad card radios they received the broadcast of
the shooting and kidnapping. Crawford hopped into his vehicle, headed
south into Forest Lake, then west out of town. Cziok drove parallel to
him further to the north, also in a westerly direction.

A few miles outside of Forest Lake, Crawford intercepted the Lindgren car
coming at him full speed. It forced him to swerve on to the right
shoulder. He spun around and continued after the Cadillac.

For roughly the next half hour, a dramatic high-speed chase unfolded on the
dirt back roads, which, in 1957, covered the countryside. Soon,
hundreds of law enforcement officers from Minneapolis and St. Paul,
surrounding counties, the State Highway Patrol and even from across the
St. Croix River in western Wisconsin, were involved in the pursuit of
the three men and their kidnap victim. A State Highway Patrol plane was
in the air and tracking the car, relaying information to the pursuing
Crawford.

Meanwhile, about seven to eight miles northwest of Forest Lake, Cziok got ahead of where the chase was
expected to soon pass and pulled over. A few minutes later, the stolen
Cadillac came roaring by and Cziok attempted to shoot out the tires,
but missed. Crawford came along right behind. Cziok got back into his
patrol car and took off after the two vehicles.

Then as Crawford entered into a tight, left hand turn, his brakes failed and
he was forced to go off the road straight into a field. Cziok pulled up
and Crawford jumped into Cziok’s cruiser and the chase continued.

The drama was now being played out in the Carlos Avery Game Refuge
northeast of Anoka. The Cadillac was perhaps a city block ahead of
Cziok and Crawford when Lindgren, still at the wheel, was ordered to
take a sharp right turn onto an earthen dike road that bisected a
swamp. As he did so, the car slid to the left and the front end went
down off the crude roadway and into the water. The four occupants
scrambled out and headed east down the dike road. They had gone just a
few yards when the two highway patrol officers pulled up.

The man holding a gun to Lindgren turned and used him as a shield. Walking
backwards with his hostage, the gun to his head. The two other
fugitives were further up the road by about 50 yards. Crawford exited
the cruiser from the passenger side, a shotgun in hand. Cziok opened
his door, pulled out his revolver and crouched behind the open door. He
immediately go on the radio to the airplane now circling overhead.
Crawford went behind the car and crossed over into the left side ditch,
creeping along. He approached the gunman holding Lindgren.

The gunman called out, “Get back, or I’ll kill him.”

Crawford kept moving ahead slowly, hunkered down with his shotgun raised. Then
the gunman pointed his revolver at Crawford. Crawford immediately
pointed his shotgun and commanded, “Drop that gun now and let him go.”

The standoff continued for several seconds. The two other gunmen were
crouched down on the other side of the road, still about 50 yards
further east. The first gunman holding Lindgren then stepped down into
the swamp on the other side of the road. Within a few seconds they were
in the tall grass, the tops of their heads barely visible.

A few more seconds passed, then one shot rang out from where the two had
disappeared. Crawford slowly climbed out of the ditch. From the road,
he could see the first gunman running away from him and into the swamp.
He raised his shotgun, took aim and fired. The man dropped.

Crawford moved toward the other side of the dike road. To his left he saw the
other two gunmen duck into the swamp and began running the same
southerly direction as their downed companion. Crawford zeroed in on
the nearest, a short wavy dark haired man in perhaps his early to mid
twenties. The fugitive was about 75 yards away. He squeezed the trigger
and the man fell forward into the swampy grass. The third man ducked
down and was now out of sight.

Cziok was on the radio and calling for backup. Crawford moved to the other side of
the road and then to his left a few feet. He was uncertain what the
situation was on the other side of the road. The plane radioed that it
could see one person, lying face down in the shallow water where the
first gunman had gone off the dike road with Lindgren. Speculation was
the kidnapped victim was the dead person spotted from the air.

It
was well over an hour before the other law enforcement officials
started arriving at the scene. Because a Washington County Sheriff’s
plane was also up that day, it had gone into a circular holding pattern
to stay out of the area occupied by the Highway Patrol plane. Many of
the law enforcement people became confused and thought the chase had
culminated over where the sheriff’s plane was circling, a small
residential area called Coon Lake Beach.

Finally,
dozens of local police, highway patrol and Minneapolis police
detectives were now at the right place. It was decided that a row of
armed men would work their way into the swamp. Slowly, several dozen
moved ahead. As expected, the body of Eugene Lindgren was found within
just a few feet off the edge of the road. A bullet hole was discovered
on the right side of his neck near the base of his skull. He was laying
face down in about a foot of water.

The
line continued forward. They soon came upon the first of the two men
felled by Crawford’s shotgun. He was also lying dead in the water,
several shotgun pellet holes visible in his chest and back when he was
turned over. Then, within a minute or two someone down toward the left
end of the line yelled out, “Here’s another one. He’s dead.”

A
couple seconds passed, then a shot rang out from a grove of willow
trees up ahead and to the left. Everyone ducked, and then with guns at
the ready, they slowly crept forward to the grove. As they got closer,
they heard moaning. Several men cautiously went into the grove where
they discovered the third man, lying wounded on the ground. He had
botched a suicide attempt. At least he was still alive.

By
now, speculation was starting among the law enforcement scene that the
three might be the ones wanted in the death of Bob Fossum and the
wounding of Ward Canfield 28 days before. A stretcher was brought in
and the wounded fugitive put on it. An ambulance arrived.

The
bodies of the first two killers were dragged out and laid on the road.
They wore leather jackets and had belts of ammunition around their
waists. The news media arrived and photos and TV footage of the two
were taken. The citizens of the Upper Midwest and even in other parts
of the country would see those images within a few short hours.

The
third man, still alive, was loaded into the ambulance. That night at
General Hospital, the surviving killer confessed to the murder of
Fossum, the wounding of Canfield and the kidnapping of Velma Anderson
and kidnap and murder of Eugene Lindgren. His name was James O’Kasick,
19, and his two dead brothers, Roger, 26 and Ronald, 24 were now
household and historical names.

That
November, James O’Kasick was tried in both Hennepin county and Anoka
County Courts for murder and kidnapping and sentenced to a combination
of life and long-term sentences as St. Cloud Reformatory.

By
now, the public was told the story of the three who had come from a
highly dysfunctional family of eight children who grew up in complete
poverty in the Phillips neighborhood of South Minneapolis. A lazy,
drunken father, himself possessing a criminal record, headed, in name
only, a family doomed from the start.

Robert
Fossum was laid to rest four days after his death. He was survived by
his wife, Dorothy, who was pregnant at the time with their fourth
child, and three other children.

Ward
Canfield miraculously survived the multitude of injuries suffered that
night in August 1957. But he paid a terrible price. He underwent more
than 40 operations, including the amputation of his right leg. The
father of three returned to very light, limited police office work a
few years later, but finally had to resign from the Department. He
later served on the Civil Service Commission for the City. At the time
of this writing, he still lives with his wife, Evelyn, in the same
south Minneapolis home where he lived on that fateful night.

James
O’Kasick committed suicide one year and one day from the date of his
capture. On the morning of September 15, 1958 in his cell at St. Cloud,
he cut a main artery in his abdomen with a butter knife he smuggled out
of the commissary and sharpened over several days. When guards
discovered him an hour later, he was bleeding to death and died within
minutes of their arrival. He was buried next to his two infamous
brothers in Crystal Lake Cemetery in North Minneapolis.

Death was due to a massive heart attack.

Officer RISBERG, who lived at 4537 Park Avenue South, collapsed at the intersection of Lyndale, Washington and Forty-Second Avenues North.

Officer RISBERG was survived by his wife and two sons. He was a veteran of World War II.

Officer RISBERG was interred at National Cemetery on December 1, 1956.

One of the youths, 18, surrendered to police at 1 a.m., and three others, whom
he named as his companions, were picked up within two hours.

The 18 year-old and his 17 year-old companion admitted having engaged in a running fight with two men between Seventh and Eighteenth Avenues on East Lake Street early Sunday, March 25th.

It was near there that Officer MCHALE, 36 years old, was found bleeding from the wounds in his legs that led to his death in General Hospital two hours later.He apparently had been knocked through the plate glass window of Nolander’s department store at the corner of Lake Street and Seventeenth Avenue South.

Jagged fragments of glass had severed the main arteries of his legs and he died from loss of blood, despite several transfusions.

Police began the hunt for Officer MCHALE’S assailants on the story of Mason W. Wolke, operator of a service station at 5419 Lyndale Avenue South, who had been MCHALE’S companion that evening.

Wolke said the two of them left the Bee Hive Tavern, 1721 East Lake Street, shortly after 1 a.m. and crossed the street to a parking lot.

As he started to get into his car, Wolke said, he was knocked unconscious by two men.

Officer MCHALE ran around his side of the car and gave chase as the men fled. He caught up with them near Nolander’s and another fight ensued.

During the exchange of blows. Officer MCHALE apparently fell through the window and the men fled.

Exactly how long MCHALE lay bleeding near the scene of the fight is now known. But police got their first call at 1:37 a.m.

It was relayed from Blue and White taxi garage, which said that one of its drivers had radioed in a report of a man “down and bleeding” at that point.

When police and an ambulance arrived, Officer MCHALE was found about 200 feet from the corner, headed back toward Wolke’s car. Wolke’s billfold, still containing $90, was found near him.

The two youths who admitted being in the fight near the corner said they encountered two men in a car on Lake Street.
They said words led to blows and then they left the scene when one of the men went down.

The other man followed, they said, and a new fight started on the corner of Seventeenth. They recalled that a window was smashed and that they got “the other fellow” down; but they couldn’t; remember that their opponent had fallen through the
window.

The Hennepin County grand jury heard the evidence and refused to indict the four teenage youths held in the death of Officer MCHALE. Seventeen witnesses appeared before the jury which, according to County Attorney Michael Dillon, failed to find sufficient evidence of gross or criminal negligence to warrant an indictment.

Officer MCHALE lived at 5836 Bryant Avenue South with his wife and five children, ranging in age from 9 years to 8 months. He had been a member of the police force for 3 years, and was attached to the traffic squad.

He was a veteran of World War II and had attended De La Salle High School and St. John’s College.

Funeral services for Officer MCHALE were held on March 28, 1951 at Annunciation Church, with burial in Fort Snelling National Cemetery.

Wicklund joined the Police Department a little over a year after the U.S. entry into World War II. Because he was married with three children and because being a police officer was considered a vital occupation during war time, Wicklund was unsuccessful in his first three attempts to enlist. Finally, on Aug. 1, 1944, he was accepted into the U.S. Marine Corps.

Following basic and advanced infantry training, he was assigned to Company H, Third Battalion of the 29th Marines of the Sixth Division which was sent in as part of the invasion of Okinawa.

He was with his machine gun squad in action against the Japanese forces on June 6, 1945. Wicklund had personally accounted for several enemy killed when he was hit in the head by a sniper’s bullet. He died instantly.

Wicklund, 30, who lived at 3923 Upton Ave. N. in Minneapolis with his wife and children, was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, Victory Medal World War 11 and a Presidential Unit Citation with ribbon bar and star for “extra ordinary heroism in action.”

One of the victims, who was home on leave from the Navy, had successfully negotiated the falls two days earlier. Higher water and a heavier current in the river, however, turned the second attempt to disaster.

Minneapolis police and the Coast Guard immediately began a search for the two missing boys without success, and they continued into the next day, June 7th, in an effort to locate their bodies.

This relentless search cost the life of Minneapolis Police Sergeant John W. O’NEIL, 47 years old, who fell from a sluiceway at the west end of the falls and drowned while attempting to recover the victim’s canoe.

Sergeant O’NEIL was a twenty-one year veteran of the police department. He lived with his wife and children at 4219 Twentieth Avenue South.

A police honor guard escorted Sergeant O’NEIL’S body when funeral services were held on June 10th at St. Helena’s Church, Forty-Third Street and Thirty-Third Avenue South. Burial was at Sunset Memorial Park.

A memorial fund for the family of Sergeant O’NEIL was set up by the Minneapolis Civic & Commerce Association.

“Sergeant O’NEIL lost his life because he was serving the city beyond requirements of duty,” the president of the association said in announcing the fund. “Although this officer was entitled to retirement with a life income, he chose to remain during the manpower shortage resulting from the inroads of war,” he said.

“We know there are a number of firms and citizens who desire to bring this man’s family some measure of relief and we have agreed to receive donations to this memorial fund. This is a voluntary movement and no drive is contemplated. Donors should make their checks payable to the fund and present them to the association.

The association president, who made a donation of $100 on behalf of the Coca Cola Bottling Company, said the association has acted in this capacity of similar occasions and any sum is acceptable.

After the accident, Officer Olson gave police a complete description of the car he was chasing, saying it was traveling about 65 miles an hour at Forty-Sixth and Lyndale Avenue North.

Officer OLSON’S motorcycle was going about 55 miles an hour when he struck the truck. He was catapulted through the air by the impact and suffered head injuries and a broken shoulder and
a broken right leg.

Officer OLSON struck the truck of a driver who made a left turn off Lyndale Avenue into a driveway which police said was unauthorized and which had been ordered closed July 21st by the City Engineer’s office.

The driver of the truck said he made the turn after the speeder passed him, but he did not see the motorcycle officer. Officer OLSON struck the rear of the truck. Police said the driver would not be prosecuted.

Officer OLSON was 32 years old and had been on the police force only 10 months. He resided at 3443 Twenty-Fifth Avenue South with his wife.

Funeral services were held at Bethel Lutheran Church, Seventeenth Avenue South and Thirty-Second Street, with burial in Lakewood Cemetery on August 11, 1941.

He was taken to Fairview Hospital, but released several days later.

Officer KARPINSKI was readmitted to the hospital on May 19th, due to complications. He died two days later on May 21, 1941.

A microscopic examination of the spine of Patrolman KARPINSKI was conducted at the University of Minnesota on order of the Hennepin County Coroner.

The examination was to determine whether death was caused by his injured spine, which doctors said had mended.

Officer KARPINSKI had been a police officer for 11 years, and was a veteran of the World War.

He had lived at 1906 Quincy Street Northeast with his wife. KARPINSKI was buried at Hillside Cemetery on May 23, 1941.

On July 10, 1939, a special force of 120 Minneapolis policemen were on strike duty to maintain law and order at a Work Progress Administration (WPA) members strike.

This special detail included 76 day men at their regular posts, 40 night men, 60 traffic officers including motorcycle patrolmen, and 20 detectives.

A disturbance occurred at the sewing project headquarters at Second Avenue and Second Street North.

Officer John B. GEARTY was accompanying two other patrolmen while they were escorting a non-striker, who had been knocked down in a struggle, to police headquarters for safety.

When a picket struck one of the patrolmen, officer GEARTY pursued the picket between two automobiles, where the picket turned upon him.

Officer GEARTY suffered a blow on the temple on the scuffle. There were reports that five or six men aimed punches at GEARTY, but these could not be verified.

Officer GEARTY managed walk on to police headquarters, where other patrolmen persuaded him to go to the hospital. One policeman drove him to General Hospital over his protests.

Officer GEARTY didn’t say much; his face was flushed and he was weak. He was assisted into the hospital where he told a nurse:

“I was hurt by one of those WPA strikers.” She understood him to say either he was kicked or hit in the head.

“I was out for a few minutes,” she quoted him as saying.

Officer GEARTY told a physician he had an “awful headache”. He asked for some pills. He was taken into a ward, protesting he would rest for a little while and then go home. But shortly afterward, attendants found him unconscious. He died an hour after he had entered the hospital.

Inquiry by members of the WPA division of investigation into the cause of death of Officer GEARTY was asked immediately by the State WPA administrator of the assistant WPA commissioner in Washington, D.C.

The official report of the deputy Hennepin County coroner said:

“The autopsy revealed that death was due to coronary disease. There is a history of his having been beaten over the head. In fact, the deceased made such a statement before he died, but the autopsy did not reveal any injury which could have caused death or that they were sufficient to be contributary. On the other hand, there was a definite and severe heart condition.

The grief stricken widow said at her home at 3451 Bryant Avenue North that GEARTY had never complained of a heart ailment or any other internal disease, and that he had taken no sick leaves in recent years.

Chief of Police Frank Forestall said of Officer GEARTY’S death:

“Regardless of how he died, he died in the line of duty. If he died as they say he did of a heart attack, that attack was induced by the exertion imposed on Officer GEARTY as a result of strike activities. He was a good officer.

Officer GEARTY was 46 years old. He had been a member of the police department for 12 years. He was known to hundreds
as the traffic officer at Fifth Street and Hennepin Avenue.

He had served with a squad car out of the Bryant Avenue station before being transferred to traffic duty. Officer GEARTY was survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.

Funeral services were being held on July 13, 1939 at the family home and St. Bridget’s Church, Dowling and Emerson Avenue’s North, with burial in St. Mary’s Cemetery.

Two
police patrolmen and a bootlegger were shot when police raided a
cabaret, the Cotton Club, 718 Sixth Avenue North, to investigate a fist
fight at 4 a.m. on February 3, 1928.

Wounded in the cabaret gunplay were:

Patrolman
James H. TREPANIER, 32 years old, 4214 Nicollet Avenue South, near
death at General Hospital, with a bullet wound in his abdomen and one
in his left shoulder. A dozen policemen volunteered to give him their
blood in an attempt to save his life.

Patrolman Bernard
Wynne, 39 years old, 3823 Bryant Avenue North, World War hero, was
wounded in a gunfight two years ago in which Minneapolis Police
Sergeant Michael Lawrence was killed, and Wynne was shot three times in
the legs. In this latest pistol battle at the cabaret, Officer Wynne
was again shot in the leg.

Harry Bloom, also known as “Kid Cann”, a bootlegger and notorious North Minneapolis character, also shot in the leg.

Police gave the following account of the early morning shooting:

At
3:30 a.m., two men guests at the Cotton Club attempted to flirt with a
woman entertainer. A friend of the woman objected, pistols were drawn
and a fist fight followed, police were told by witnesses.

Cafe
patrons closed in on the fighters and quieted them. Meanwhile someone
had called the police and informed them a pistol had been drawn at the
cafe. Patrolmen TREPANIER and Wynne walked into the cabaret, drew their
pistols and commanded patrons of the cafe to line up to be searched for
pistols.

“Call the wagon while I search them,” Officer TREPANIER told Officer Wynne.

As
TREPANIER started to search the first patron in line and Wynne walked
to the telephone, a table was overturned in one end of the cabaret.
Five men were standing around the overturned table.

There
was a tense moment while the two police and five men glared at each
other. Then, with a sudden movement, one of the men drew a pistol and
opened fire on the officers. In a second several other pistols were
drawn in the crowd.

At the first shot, Officer
TREPANIER fell to the floor, severely wounded, and after two or three
more shots, Office Wynne staggered when a bullet struck his leg. Both
patrolmen returned the fire.

For a moment Pandemonium
reigned. Pistols barked and filled the small hall with their roar.
Bullets thudded into the walls, splintered chairs and tables and broke
out windows.

Women and men alike screamed, dodging,
scurrying and fighting to cover. Patrons turned over tables and cowered
behind them, fear in their eyes.

Officer TREPANIER,
stretched on the floor, groaning from his wounds, braced his right arm
with his left hand and emptied his pistol at armed men in the place.

Officer
Wynne only staggered when a bullet struck his leg. He emptied his
pistol at the crowd and, despite the pain of his wound, brought them to
order. Waving his empty pistol at the disordered mob, he commanded:

“Now
all of you line up here and be quiet.” He called the patrol wagon and
loaded the thirty remaining patrons of the cabaret into it, directing
that they be taken to police headquarters.

At
headquarters, all but eight were released. These eight were lodged in
jail and questioned after three pistols were seized from them.

Detectives
and gun squads were sent out through the city seeking other persons
believed to have escaped during the gunfight. On a tip from a man whose
car was found standing in front of the cabaret, detectives were sent to
St. Paul in search of three men believed to have been companions of the
man said to have started the shooting.

Bloom, who was
taken to General Hospital under guard after he had been questioned by
police, is said to be the same Harry Bloom who gave himself up May 1,
1924, and was charged with first degree murder in connection with the
shooting of a man in a loop cafe. Bloom told police he had shot the man
accidentally. He was never prosecuted on the charge.

The
condition of officer TREPANIER remained unchanged at General Hospital,
as two patrolmen submitted to blood transfusion operations in an
attempt to save his life. Office Wynne and Harry Bloom, both shot in
the leg, were reported out of danger.

Superintendent of
Police Frank Brunskill ordered the Cotton Club establishment closed and
declared his intentions to close every similar place in Minneapolis.
Meanwhile, every cabaret in the city was under police observation. A
week later, the license of the Cotton Club was revoked by the city
council for violating city ordinances.

The Hennepin
County grand jury indicted four men on first degree assault charges in
connection with the shooting of the two patrolmen at the cabaret.

One
of the four was Harry Bloom, who was charged with the shooting and
wounding of Patrolman Wynne. Bloom went into court and pleaded not
guilty to the charge, and was released on $2,500 bond.

The
other three indicted men, who are all charged with shooting Patrolman
Trepanier, are still at large. Of these three men sought by police, one
is a former South Dakota sheriff who had served a term in the South
Dakota penitentiary, a second is a Sioux Falls South Dakota fight
manager and the third is a former St. Paul barkeeper.

Officer
TREPANIER never recovered from the injuries he suffered in the gun
battle. One bullet struck him in the spine, paralyzing him from the
waist down.

Since the shooting, TREPANIER had been in
the hospital numerous times. Once, after he had partially recovered, he
opened a jewelry store at Lake Street and Chicago Avenue South, but
soon afterward went back to the hospital. Later, he moved his jewelry
repair bench to Veterans’ Hospital where he designed and made jewelry
and repaired watches when able to sit up.

Officer
TREPANIER waged a ten year long fight against his paralysis, but he had
grown worse steadily for more than a year, and finally succumbed on
September 20, 1938, at the U.S. Veterans’ Hospital. He was 42 years old
when he died.

TREPANIER had been a patrolman for 5
years at the time of his injury. He had been cited for bravery in the
capture of a bandit in 1924. He had served as a motorcycle policemen
prior to his transfer to the North Side precinct.

Officer TREPANIER was survived by his wife and two daughters.

On
Sunday, January 31, 1937, Policewoman Georgiana L. SHARROT was crossing
the street at Lyndale and Franklin Avenues So., when she was run down
by a taxicab. The cab driver said he was turning left onto Lyndale
Avenue at the time of the mishap.

Policewoman SHARROT suffered a broken left leg and internal injuries. She was taken to General Hospital for treatment.

During the course of a lengthy hospitalization, she suffered a stroke.

Policewoman SHARROT died in the hospital on June 14, 1937 of
complications from her injuries. She was 67 years old at the time of
her death, and had been on the police department for 23 years.

Before becoming a policewoman, Mrs. SHARROT was a special officer for the Juvenile Protection League.

Policewoman
SHARROT was buried in Lakewood Cemetery on June 16, 1937. She had
resided at 5309 Columbus Avenue South, and was divorced and the time of
her death.