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.

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 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.