The Little Old Murder From Pasadena
A retired police sergeant and a historian discuss history and true crime in the City of Roses.
The Little Old Murder From Pasadena
Guts, Guts, and Still More Guts
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A 1928 bank robbery leads to a violent and dramatic Pasadena Police car-to-car gun battle with two heavily-armed gangsters.
I'm back with another episode of The Little Old Murder from Pasadena. I'm the historian Elise and I'm with my co-host.
SPEAKER_01:Victor Cass, retired police sergeant with over 30 years experience all with the Pasadena California Police Department.
SPEAKER_00:So last week we discussed a shooting from not long ago in 2021 shootout. And we're gonna go back nearly a hundred years before that, in 1928, when there was another shootout. And it would be interesting to see the differences in how the citizens and the police react.
SPEAKER_01:Also, for those of you who are big Paladina and South Pasadena history box, um you're gonna find this uh episode uh very interesting for some of the different locales and uh uh characters involved in this incident.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, lots of colorful characters in that including uh our uh Chief Kelly has a really good line in this again. Yes, we'll get to that. So it's August of 1928, according to uh Victor's Pasadena police history book. When the police start to hear of this bank job that's going to happen.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there are rumors that a couple of bad dudes, uh notorious bank robbers, uh have been casing a bank in Pasadena. Um and uh an anonymous caller uh stiffs in a tip to Pasadena PD uh at the time that uh uh the Security, Trust, and Savings Bank at Colorado and Broadway, by the way, Broadway is now a Royal Parkway, um, that it would be hit at 12:30 uh on the afternoon of August 10th.
SPEAKER_00:And they were not hit. But Chief Kelly started to make a whole bunch of plans for you know, just in the event that it did end up happening one day. So his plan was to like figure out all the exits out of Pasadena.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, he uh really mapped out the city and uh you know uh prepared the department, the officers, that hey, in case this happens, you know, you're gonna be here, you're gonna be there, we're gonna cover all these escape routes. Um, and so that you know each of these exits uh could be, you know, covered, you know, within minutes upon a pre-arranged signal.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And so that the first tip that they got was on August 10th. And seven days later, on August 17th at 1015, there was a robbery at the Pasadena National Bank, which was at 1312 North Fair Oaks Avenue.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So at the time, uh those of you who are familiar with the Pasadena's different neighborhoods, uh, this bank would have been at the intersection of Fair Oaks and Washington Boulevard in our northwest neighborhood. Um the bank does not exist anymore, and um you know, there's that there actually is no really real like prominent businesses at that corner except a laundromat and some small mom and pop shops and uh a park on the other side, and then of course the King's Village's apartment complex. Um but yes, at the time there was a bank there, and um at 1015 on that Friday, um they get the alarm.
SPEAKER_00:And the two bad guys of this case are not from Pasadena, they're from LA. Uh 24-year-old Raymond Peltier is from Los Angeles, and Wilbur Hinton is from Long Beach. He's 37 years old.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and apparently these are some bad characters. Um they've apparently been involved with other robberies, and apparently they've been involved in other shootouts with the police, so they claim.
SPEAKER_00:Career criminals.
SPEAKER_01:Career criminals.
SPEAKER_00:And so yeah, they hold up the bank and they end up leaving, they don't fire a single shot, and they leave with seven thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_01:Which if you can imagine in 1928,$7,000 is a lot of money.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And you know, within five minutes they're out of there, but the alarm gets sounded or whatever, and Pasadena police rush to all of those exit points that uh Chief Kelly had mapped out.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, so at this time, uh one of our desk sergeants, uh William Beal, uh, no relation here uh to our co-host, um, he dispatches Traffic Lieutenant Lynn Harrison and uh motorcycle patrolman Fred Walker to uh guard the intersection of Colorado. This is West Colorado in Grand Avenue uh in a patrol car. And their job was to watch over the Colorado Street Bridge, which of course would have been an exit way uh leading out of Pasadena into uh northeast Los Angeles. And not far from them happened to be an off-duty Pasadena police officer, didn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, so Ralph Shad was quite the character. Yes, he was. He was off duty and he was in his own Chandler sedan that he won in a newspaper contest, a popularity contest.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, Ralph Shad was an interesting character, freckle-faced, red-headed, good-looking, all-American boy type officer, very prominent.
SPEAKER_00:There was a quote about him that was like everyone either hated him because he was redheaded or they loved him because he was red-headed.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. But apparently, this uh Chandler sedan uh needed to be uh looked at by uh uh auto shop, and he was happened to be at uh a garage, an auto repair garage at 254 West Colorado. Uh this place is called Sykes in Alexander, and um, you know, he's 40 years old, you know, he has uh been with the department for about three and a half years, almost four years, and he suddenly hears sirens. He can hear his own fellow cops that seem to be in the middle of the SH going down.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. He's like, shit's going down.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We're just there for you.
SPEAKER_01:You know, uh, and he knows so he already knows about these pre-assigned positions in case of this bank robbery. And he uh he later says, I knew something was up, and I rang into Sergeant Beal, uh, and he assigned me to watch for the bank bandits at Orange Grove in Columbia. So interesting that at even at that time they would tell an off-duty cop, hey man, since you're there, keep an eye out for these bad guys. You know.
SPEAKER_00:He was on it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it it so happened that the bad guys, uh Peltier and Hinton, were driving their cars with the Royal Sacco to swap it for another car at where the Brookside Park is.
SPEAKER_01:Right, they had a drop-off car.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but I guess they saw so many cops around, they're like, no, this is not a good idea, so they leave.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they decide not to do the old switcheroo. Uh they turn east onto Linda Vista, and uh at Grand, they uh make a right turn and they head south to Colorado Street. At that time, Lieutenant Harrison's on the corner of Colorado and Grand. Uh Officer Walker, Fred Walker, had gone to a uh police call box to get more information. And when uh there was another motorcycle cop there, Roy Ewing, who was on his bike, and one of our detectives, Leon Scholl, and another patrolman, Frank Cook, happened to join them. And Harrison, Lieutenant Harrison, later recalls that Walker gives Ewing, Schul, and Cook the latest dope on the bandits. As Walker was talking to them, I saw a car turn off grand on Colorado. I knew it was the robbers' car from the description, and because one of the men was holding a rifle, and he goes, and he hears Walker go, there they go.
SPEAKER_00:That was such a comic book scene, like this bad guy like hanging out of the car with the rifle, and there they go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, so you know, once the two bad guys, Hinton and Peltier, you know, once they turn left on Colorado, they see the police and they know that the shit's about to get real. And Peltier tells his little compatriot there, look there, buddy, two cops. We're surrounded. And it's the rifling gats to cut our way out. Get busy with the gas.
SPEAKER_00:I love the lingo mess. Um, so the car chase is on.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And we have Harrison driving the car, and then the motorcycle cop Fred Walker is in the passenger seat.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And then you have Hinton, I guess, in the backseat or in the passenger seat of the other car with uh Peltier driving it.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, Peltier's driving, and they're southbound on Orange Grove, by the way. So this is in Pasadena's Millionaire's Row area. A lot of wealthy homes, not the place that you're expecting to see this like car-to-car shootout with the police department. You know, and kind of like, you know, in the North Hollywood Bank shootout in 1997, our bad guys are armed with much better firepower than the Pasadena PD has at this time. Most of our cops just have the revolvers, and I think one of them has the shotgun. Meanwhile, um Hinton's armed with a Winchester 3030 repeating rifle. Now, this is a serious piece of machinery uh that can throw lead downrange at a high rate of fire. Okay. So right now you can consider the police being outgunned. You know, they're going about 35 miles an hour, um, and Hinton opens fire with his Winchester uh on Harrison's car, which is about you know 150 feet away. Uh the past officer Walker returns fire with his shotgun, getting off three blasts before his gun jams. So already uh the Pasadena police there in a pickle.
SPEAKER_00:So, but Shad hears what's going on again, right? And he jumps back into his car and joins the chase after them, too.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Off duty uh officer Shad uh jumps in his car, joins the chase.
SPEAKER_00:Followed by Ewing on his motorcycle.
SPEAKER_01:Motor officer Ewing's following also in hot pursuit on his bike. At this point, Walker's able to get his shotgun unjammed, and he opted to uh he climbs out on the police car's running board, you know, probably hoping to get a better shot uh at the bad guys. Um meanwhile, you know, they're reloading their little 38 revolvers that the police have. You know, each one only carries six shots, and they're trying to shoot at this car. You know, Walker's holding onto the window of the police car with his left hand, Harrison's driving in a zigzag manner so that Hinton's 30-30 bullet shots don't, you know, don't take them out.
SPEAKER_00:Meanwhile, they're literally driving through the Coston ostrich farm. Yes, so like to shootout through an ostrich farm, if you can imagine.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so by this time, this chase, which has gone all the way down Orange Grove, has now entered the city of South Pasadena, where there's a very prominent ostrich farm at this time. Anybody who's familiar with South Pass history and souvenirs and their museum knows that the Coston ostrich farm played a big role in uh their social and economic life in South Pasadena. And now the the poor ostriches and whoever's there, you know, doing business is hearing the gunshots of this roving.
SPEAKER_00:You can still find these ostrich eggs and feathers from the Coston ostrich farm in antique stores in Pasadena.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Um, yeah, I wonder what an ostrich cry sound like.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Because I'm sure that was going on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I'm sure they were terrified at these gunshots that are going down. Um, so they're down there in South Pass now. Peltier turns right onto Mission Street from Orange Grove. Um, and just when it seemed like the bad guys would continue driving into Highland Park, they doubled back through the Coston Ostrich Farm. It's like a crazy movie. And so they're going through the farm. Um, Peltier leads a caravan of police vehicles onto Monterey Road in South Pasadena, where they headed east back towards Fair Oaks Avenue. I actually used to live at the corner of Monterey and Diamond Avenue. In fact, when my daughter was first born, that's where we lived in a little apartment down the corner. So I can just picture these guys zooming past, you know, back in the day. Yeah. Um Hinton, the bad guy Hinton, was determined to shoot Walker from off of the police car's running board. He can see this cop standing there.
SPEAKER_00:And, you know, it's just such a 20s, 30s thing to do, by the way. He's like shooting off of the running board.
SPEAKER_01:It is, it is. It's like a movie. Um, so Hinton takes careful aim and he fires, and he's using hollow point 30-30 rounds, okay, and he hits Walker in the right side of his torso. Clearly, the shot knocks the wind out of Officer Walker, but you know, he's a tough dude. He's one of these burly 20s cops, and so he hangs on, he sucks it up.
SPEAKER_00:Hold on to the car, even though he was shot.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and he doesn't even bother to tell Lieutenant Harrison that he's been shot. The gangsters, these guys don't all they're not only shooting at these guys, but like a cartoon, they're using tacks too.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Tacks weighted with lead?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, they're throwing these in the street, hoping these tacks blow the tires out of these Pasadena cars and motorcycles.
SPEAKER_00:I wonder how many other cars ran over these tacks and afterward, you know.
SPEAKER_01:And keep in mind, you gotta go back and collect them all, you know, after this whole case is done and there's evidence, you know. I'm sure they missed a few. Um, so Hinton throws out the tacks, which causes one of Lieutenant Harrison's tires to eventually go flat. Um, then Hinton continues shooting, and he not only shoots off the left side of the wood grip, pistol grip from Walker's revolver, but shoots off poor Walker's thumb as well. Yes, things are not looking good for the passing PD at this point. Um, they're really taking some hit hard hits.
SPEAKER_00:And I think he gets uh hit by a ricochet piece of something.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, a little piece of bullet um also hits Walker in the throat, barely missing his jugular vein. Um, and although Walker is in pain, he continues to take careful aim and fire at the bandits. These are hardcore in the throat and loss of thumb. He's bleeding thumb and this guy still hanging on and he still has the presence of mind to stay in the gunfight.
SPEAKER_00:These cops are-still not even saying anything.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he's not even saying these cops are hardcore. Um Walker has two rounds left in his revolver when a third bullet from Hinton's Winchester 3030 struck the rear left of the trigger guard of Walker's gun and blown off most of his right and middle and ring fingers, along with part of the top. Blood is now rolling up in his mouth. He's beginning to grow weak from the loss of blood, and um, he has the courage to take one last aim and he shoots at the bandit's car. Um, his bullet hits a rear tire, which slows the bad guys down, um, helping to turn the tide of the battle.
SPEAKER_00:Just that one shot made all the difference.
SPEAKER_01:Made all the difference because then the bad guys couldn't take off.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, and so he finally admits to Harrison, they've got me.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, he finally coughing up blood, and you know, poor Lieutenant Harrison, he's angry. Um, he leans out of the driver's side window and fires off the last of his 38 rounds. You know, he's torn between going after these bad guys, but he has to help his buddy. He has to help the cop.
SPEAKER_00:But also he knows that Shad and Ewing are coming up from behind on the motorcycle.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, he knows there's backup, he knows there's other officers that are gonna stay in the chase, uh, but he pulls over and he has to uh tend to his wounded Conrad, you know, and as Chad and Ewing, you know, speed by, Harrison yells out, get those robbers, never give up. So these cops are determined. Yeah, and it's one of the craziest gun battles in Pascalan history to date. It would still rank like in the top three craziest gun battles in Pascadinian history today.
SPEAKER_00:Um I imagine they are pissed.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So as motorcycle officer Ewing crosses Fair Oaks Avenue on Monterey Road, his right cheek gets grazed by one of Hinton's rifle shots. Um, the gangsters, these these guys were hitting their targets. I mean, these guys' shooting was an amazing. Yeah. I mean, they're putting rounds on target. Ewing's motorcycle gets shot out from under him. You know, poor Ewing, you know, he's down. He almost gets run over by you know, Ralph Shad's car, who now, oddly enough, is the sole officer in pursuit. Ewing would not be deterred, however, um, because following Shad, and this is an interesting part of the story.
SPEAKER_00:I love this part. So just some random Todd, random guy named Todd Ford, was a son of a Pasadena millionaire, and he's there, sees what's going on, and he's like, Oh, hell yeah, I want in on this. And so he tells Ewing, like, get in, let's go.
SPEAKER_01:And he joins in. Yeah, so this young man, Todd Ford III, rich kid, privileged, happened to see this thing way back when it started, jumped in his own car and followed this put this police pursuit. And so by the time he sees Ewing go down, he's not gonna miss out on this.
SPEAKER_00:He has Ewing jump in his car, and this young guy not just that, but he also has his own gun with him.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Firing at the bad guys.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, he does have a 22-caliber pistol.
SPEAKER_00:I need to ask, would you recommend that citizens help the police by like firing?
SPEAKER_01:No. I would not recommend that uh citizens, armed or not, uh do something like young Todd Ford III did. Um, but again, this is 1928. Our even our young uh rich kids were a little different breed, and uh this kid is clearly showing some spunk. And uh who knows?
SPEAKER_00:He might have just gotten back from war or something this time.
SPEAKER_01:Who knows? Yeah, you know. Um so keep in mind by this time, Shad's already emptied his revolver at the bad guy's car to slow it down. You know, he slows down and reloads, and once he gets back into the fight, Shad later describes I followed the robbers' car on Monterey Road to the top of the hill. Firing all the time with my pistol. Um, bad guy Hinton had already uh unleashed more tacks in the hopes of disabling Shad's car. Um the gangster then opens fire on Shad with a Winchester. These bullets barely misses Shad's head, crashing through his windshield.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Um he would have been dead as a doornail had Shad not been leaned out of his car firing at the bad guys.
SPEAKER_00:That's crazy.
SPEAKER_01:It's like the craziest. Like, have you ever seen photos from this pursuit? You can see the bullet holes all over the police cars and the bad guys. This is incredible. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we'll try to post some photos for you guys.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, in fact, it would later be revealed that Shad's car was hit 17 times by Hinton's Winchester 3030 fire.
SPEAKER_00:17 times.
SPEAKER_01:So interestingly, unbeknownst to Hinton, the man he was shooting at, Ralph Shad, just happened to be an expert police sharpshooter. Okay, this is one of the best shots in the apartment. Uh, you know, his talents were in keeping with uh, you know, it was a recent tradition for passing a police to uh practice marksmanship. Um, you know, one of their previous chiefs had been emphasizing the police marksmanship since 1921. And um, you know, the bad guys, as much as they were laying uh lead on target, they were probably equally as frustrated by the good shooting that the police were showing, disabling the bad guy's car.
SPEAKER_00:So in fact, I read a another article that was kind of joking saying it was several years after this shootout, they're saying how I guess the Pasadena police have proved themselves like worthy enough shots to be sent to some competition, shooting competition somewhere.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes. And you know, keep in mind at this time a lot of these Pasadena police officers, especially some of their top marksmen, are World War I veterans. So they've had a lot of a lot of expert training and experience. So the bandit's car obviously shot multiple times. They got a tire that's out, it starts to die, and Pell Tier pulls over against the south curb of Monterey Road, just east of Milan Avenue in South Pasadena. You can go to this intersection today, by the way. I've oft I visited this intersection once shortly after I wrote this book, and um, I wanted to see the intersection. You can see right where this final part of the gun battle occurred in South Pasadena. So there's a T intersection there with Montrose Avenue. Um the bad guy hidden, didn't even wait for the car to stop. He jumps out and takes cover behind a tree approximately 18 feet south by southwest from where Shad's car stops dead in the middle of Monterey Road.
SPEAKER_00:And he turns and he tells Peltier, I've killed six cops, and this guy is going to be the seventh. It will be the sweetest killing I've ever had.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so this bad dude cop killer, self-uh proclaimed, uh, thinks that he's gonna take out Ralph Shad, not knowing that uh Shad's a bad dude marksman in his own right. So Hinton open fires on Shad, and Shad has taken cover behind the north side of his crippled Chandler. And as the bad guy Peltier looks on in horror, Shad stands there calmly, takes aim, fires three times, and the first two 38 caliber slugs hit the tree that Hinton's hiding behind, while the third hits Hinton literally right between the eyes and the forehead. What killing him instantly? Yes. So uh Hinton's dead as a doornail lying there, and um twenty-two minutes had gone by between the time the bad guys left the bank until the cop killer Hinton lay dead there on the sidewalk of Monterey Road. Yes, 22 minutes.
SPEAKER_00:And you can just imagine how chaotic it must have been, all this happening within 22 minutes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So at this point, Todd Ford drives up in front of Shad's car. Ewing jumps out to assist his fellow officer. Ford, meanwhile, approaches Hinton, who is still twitching and clutching the Winchester in a death grip, doing the funky chicken. Yeah, you know, and uh Ford bravely snatches the rifle out from the gangster's hands, and by this time he's dead, you know. Um Shad leaves the cover of his car, covering Peltier with his gun, um, ordering the surviving bad guy to throw up his hands. Um, Peltier took a pot shot at Shad with his 32 caliber semi-auto but misses. Um, as Shad later tells it, his gun seemed like a peace shooter after the other fellow's rifle. I fired so many shots, I wasn't sure I had any left. I didn't want to click down on an empty chamber. The man could kill me easily. So I told him to throw away his peace shooter and hold up his hands.
SPEAKER_00:And he did. He listened.
SPEAKER_01:Lucky for Shad, the bluff worked, for his gun was empty.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Almost like dirty Harry when he didn't know. Like the guy, I got to know. You know, yeah. Um, so Peltier drops his bluff. Yeah, nice bluff. Peltier drops the 32 and he moves slowly toward his car as he wanted to take cover behind it. Ewing, who had the angle on Peltier, noticed a revolver protruding from his pocket. So, you know, like a good, bad guy, he has other guns, you know. And uh fearing for Officer Shad's safety, Officer Ewing quickly fires a shot in Peltier's direction. The young gangster he abandons his little sneaky plan and he uh throws his hands up and uh he's quickly disarmed. Um, yes, of course, all this activity and excitement has caused the press to run to this location uh to get first hand accounts at the scene.
SPEAKER_00:Um, this is one of my favorite moments, is when one of the reporters goes up to Shad and he's smiling, and they asked him if he was scared, and he holds his hands out, and he's like, absolutely not. And he's holding his hands out to show, like they're absolutely steady.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, not even shaking it at all.
SPEAKER_00:Shaking whatsoever.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Um, yeah, so Shad's a bad dude, he knows what he's doing. These Pastina PD cops are old school, they're shooters, they're marksmen, they're tough as nails. You know, taking rounds from a 30-30 is not going to stop them or scare them off. And they uh they thankfully uh won the fight with these two bad dudes, these bank robbers. And luckily, no pastina PD cops were were seriously maimed, permanently, or killed. Um, you know, the only the only person that got killed that ended up murdered in this episode of our is the bad guy.
SPEAKER_00:Is the bad guy, yes. And even the other bad guy, Paltier, uh, he was a little in awe of Shad because he told the news reporters Ralph Shad, the man who caught me, is the bravest police officer I ever saw. And he shot the bravest man, my partner, I had ever known. Honestly, fellows, this man is without fear.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Shad definitely inspired awe. Um, you know, but again, all these cops showed heroism and dedication to their duty. Motorcycle patrolman Fred Walker obviously went to the went to the uh hospital. Um, they thought at first he was fatally wounded, but he he walked in to get treated.
SPEAKER_00:Um walked in. Walked in. All of his injuries, he walked in.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And what did he say?
SPEAKER_01:He said, he said to the doctor, I guess they got me, Doc, in the neck.
SPEAKER_00:I guess they got me, I guess. I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and the doctor, this is Dr. Tronsegaard. He told Walker the bullet hadn't entered his treat. Yeah, to which Walker goes, Hell, if I had known that, I'd stayed with him. Yes, these are these are definitely um bad dudes. And uh, you know, he gets treated on the operating table, they give him a local anesthetic, and uh, you know, you can tell Walker, you know, kind of wishes that they uh he had that they had been better armed, and he even says if we'd had a machine gun, a riot machine gun, they wouldn't have gotten two blocks. You know, but what happened to these two bad guys? I guess there was a pretty speedy trial.
SPEAKER_00:So Pelletier was sentenced to eight years to life. Uh the trial took like a day, and the jury deliberated for only 12 minutes.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Uh, and his charge was attempted murder. Um and uh Chief Kelly, again, who appears in almost all of our episodes at some time. Um Chief Kelly had lots of praise to heap on his heroes, didn't he?
SPEAKER_00:Including probably one of my favorite quotes of this whole podcast so far. I woke up at three o'clock this morning and concentrated until daylight in an effort to find words adequate to express my appreciation for the good work done by officers Shad, Walker, Ewing, and Harrison yesterday. I finally decided to say to you in plain language that for a policeman with a 38 revolver to follow a man armed with a 3030 rifle and plenty of ammunition and finally beat him at his own game requires guts, guts, and still more guts.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Great quote. Why do I see a title for a podcast?
SPEAKER_00:That is gonna be the title.
SPEAKER_01:Um, of course, the four cops, the four Pasadena officers, uh, especially Ralph Shad, they get immortalized in the press and in the public's imagination. You know, every Pasadena is proud of these guys. Businessmen and private citizens are sending the money. Uh they're getting gifts. Thank you letters are pouring in from every corner of the San Gabriel Valley on August 23rd. All the officers but Walker who are still in the hospital, they get honored with a luncheon at the Overland Club, where even the poet James W. Foley wrote a poem in their honor.
SPEAKER_00:And it is quite a poem.
SPEAKER_01:It is quite a poem. We won't read it all here too.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, let me read the just the first stanza.
SPEAKER_01:Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:Shad, he was mad. Just a redheaded lad of a copper, but say what a spirit he had. Shad, I am glad for the courage he had. In peace he can grin, but in war he is bad.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. And it goes on with much more like that, too. Um yeah, and eventually, uh past you know police hero Ralph Shad gets the American Legion Distinguished Medal for Valor uh later. And yeah, these officers.
SPEAKER_00:And I have a photo of Shad pointing to like the holes in his car, in the glass in his car.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Um, also Lieutenant Harrison uh and Fred Walker and Roy Ewing also got uh the medals for bravery.
SPEAKER_00:I was disappointed that that citizen didn't get any like shout-out or yeah, well that we know of.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, who knows? But yeah, again, we are um old potty. Yeah. Yeah. These uh these gun battles, you you never want to see them happen. Um you never want to see violence like this occur in your city, um, but sometimes it does happen, and you hope and pray that the police come out um on the winning side.
SPEAKER_00:I'm just glad that unlike the last episode, there was only one death in this one, and it was the bad guy who deserved it, who started it off.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Yes. On a little sad note, um, our motorcycle officer Roy Ewing um in April of 1938 took his own life. Um you never know if it had anything to do with this or something else, you know, the trauma. But yeah. But again, uh interesting story, interesting episode. Um, again, the top three craziest gun battles in past in a PD history for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Such characters, such guts.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. It really is like a 1920s gangster movie. It is.
SPEAKER_00:It really is. It has the lingo, the ostriches, the tacks in the road, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Everything that you would want from a story pops on the running board. Yes, everything you would want from a uh 1920s uh gangster shootout you got in this episode.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Next episode, I'm not gonna spoil it because we have a shocker for you.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, it's very shocking. Don't be dismayed when you see the title.
SPEAKER_00:I'm gonna spit out your coffee.
SPEAKER_01:But it's gonna be a good one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So we will see you next week for another Little Old Murder from Pasadena.