October 2007 – Page 4

Brotherly Lumps

East Los Angeles
October 5, 1927

Found wandering in a dazed and bloody state near Ninth and Dacotah, all attorney Frank Sweeney could say to police in the Georgia Street Station was "please don’t hit me!" Taken round the corner to the hospital, he was discovered to have a possible skull fracture.

In a moment of clarity, Frank suggested officers talk to his sister-in-law Mrs. Jack Sweeney at 101 South Bunker Hill Avenue (a now lost street, one tail of which remains). The lady promptly admitted that Frank had been over the night before and had said unpleasant things about her, whereupon her Jack knocked him into the stove. Why yes, he had suffered head injuries in the fracas. But gee, a skull fracture? He must have gotten that after he left.

Entirely possible, of course. Bunker Hill’s not known as the Historic Skull Fracture District for nothing!

Don’t &#*% With the Librarian

These days, if you make off with a stack of library materials, the Los Angeles Public Library will report your thieving name to a collections agency. But library bandits of yesteryear like 20-year-old Clyde M. Thompson faced much stiffer penalties.

A librarian at LAPL noticed that the copy of Eugene O’Neill’s controversial play All God’s Chillun Got Wings was at large, and traced the missing copy to Thompson. About 30 library books were found in Thompson’s home at 1406 E. 110th St., and he was sentenced to 60 days in jail, 2 days for each stolen book.

samuelwardlaw During the 1920s, the Los Angeles Public Library employed detectives to investigate thefts and mutilation of library material. A 1929 Times article featured the efforts of Special Investigator Samuel Wardlaw, a man as hardcore as he was humorless.

He interrogated patrons in the stacks when he observed them hiding books, and once used a sorority pin to track down a young woman who tried to sneak a rare volume of Chaucer out under her coat. While he seemed to have a soft spot in his heart for the children he captured, Wardlaw regarded most library patrons with a certain degree of contempt. He said, "Sometimes I think the Los Angeles Public Library must be on the mailing or calling list of every crank and eccentric in the West."

While the library detectives frequently visited people at home to reclaim stolen books, it was rare that criminal charges were pursued. No particular reason was given for poor Clyde Thompson’s exceptionally harsh sentence.

Lunch Lady, Give Me a Scotch!

October 2, 1927
Bell

To twenty-first century eyes, the headlines make it sound like a retro-ironic hipster bar for postmodern cocktail sippers: "Liquor ‘Cafeteria’ Found. Raiders Say Drinks Made to Order in Bell House." Anybody feel a spree coming on?

Well, before you round up the gang and head on over, there’s one thing you should know about the house raided under the direction of Chief George Contreras this weekend: the top-shelf booze it poured was fake. That’s right, the "’Scotch’ whiskies of aristocratic highland brands, ‘fine old Kentucky Bourbons,’ ‘Gordon’ gin and other rare liquors of ancient lineage" were mixed up in the back room out of cut alcohol and glycerin—as the customer waited, no less.

Dry raiders found a complete bottling plant on the premises as well as printing plant where labels mimicking those of famous brands were created. Fifty gallons of the alcohol used as a base were secreted underground in the yard.

Come on Vacation, Leave on Probation

Come on Vacation Headline

October 1, 1927
Los Angeles

Police will be working twelve hour shifts until the men who robbed the Merchant’s National Trust and Savings Bank, at Fifty-Seventh Street and South Broadway, of $5000 ($59,746.26 USD 2007) are in taken into custody.

During the brazen daylight robbery, six unmasked bandits threatened more than forty bank employees and depositors with shot-guns and revolvers.

Witnesses told officers that the gunmen drew up behind the bank in a large, expensive black sedan. Five men piled out of the car and walked to the front of the building, while the driver of the getaway car pulled around and parked right in front of the bank doors. Bank interior

Waving a shotgun, the first crook entered the bank. He made no attempt to halt several terrified bank patrons as they ran screaming from the bank seeking safety.

One of the men stood lookout on the sidewalk, while the remaining thieves rushed into the bank lobby brandishing their weapons and shouting at everyone to hold up their hands. Bank manager R.C. Elliott was struck by one of the gunmen and forced to lie on the floor. The other employees were unmolested, and the customers were not robbed. Two of the crooks jumped behind the counter and forced the tellers to lie on the floor. The men then pointed their weapons at the prone employees, and proceeded to empty the cash drawers. Having made their withdrawal, the gang fled to the waiting automobile which then careened north down Broadway at a high rate of speed.

One of the tellers, W. Ord, raced to his car and followed the fleeing bandits several blocks before losing sight of them in traffic at Forty-Sixth Street and South Broadway. He managed to obtain the license number of the car, which had been reported as stolen only a few nights ago.

Police have concluded from the gang’s modus operandi that they are from the east, and not among the locals currently wreaking havoc in a city-wide crime wave. The law won’t rest until the miscreants are brought to justice. So…if the bad guys are here on vacation, they’d better pick up a Hollywood snow globe and a crate of oranges, and head for home.