Evening star., 1935-06-02

! at the colOred man, who reeled ana
fell, head first, down the basement
stairway.
They then entered the Office and
ordered the bandits to come up out
of the basement. This they refused
to do. Pvt. Tompkins then went to
the scout car and procured q tear
gas grenade and Pvt. Salkeld threw
the same into the basement.
After the grenade exploded, one
man came up the stairway and the
fourth bandit came up through the
basement window and was arrested.
The night operator of the station
came up out of the basement where
he had been held a prisoner and
said, The bandits took S23.75 from
me- His clothes had been torn
and he had been hit on the back of
the head with the butt of a revolver
by one of the bandits.
AT this time, Lieut.. L. E. Kelly
arrived on the scene. Putting on
gas-proof goggles. he went into the
basement and saw the colored man.
later identified, lying at the foot of
the steps. dead. Lieut.. Kelly recov-
cred two revolvers from the basement.
THE bandits in question were taken
to the police lineup and positively
identified by several persons as the
men who had held them up, robbed
and assaulted them
EOR almost six hours this quartet
had assaulted and robbed at will
They struck quickly and were away
before hands could be laid on them.
Where their masks and guns would
next appear, it was impossible to tell
Then radio stepped In little
more than the time it to- to reach
the police on the phone, Tt the
hold-up and get it on the al their
activities were stopped. Police Sdio
had literally picked them out of the
air, focused them in its invisible beam
as much as put them in the full
glare of the scout cars searchlight.
At the turn of the century, had
this hold-up occurred. the night man
ager of the gas station would probably
have been the proprietor of an all
night livery stable. After the men
behind the masks had butted him on
the head with their pistols and rif1ed
his till, the proprietor would probably
have shaken his dazed head then
rushed out into the street crying, "Po-
ice!" at the top of his lungs.
If there had been one Of these gen.
tlemen on his beat nearby at the mo-
ment, he might have tapped his
night-stick on the pavement as a call
to his comrades, then hot-footed it
in the direction of the cry. Leaving
the victim in the care of a neighbor
or fellow policeman who may have
arrived by that time, he would have
proceeded to his precinct headquar-
ters, reported the incident, etc. by
which time the robbers might we'll
have been in the neighboring county.
THE decades between then and now,
as far as police protection to the
citizen is concerned, may be pictured
rather accurately in the rise of the
radio as applied to crime. WASH
ington's equipment, fourth to be set
up in the country, was designed, built
and installed during the latter months
of 1880 and officially opened for COM
munications on January %, 1881. It
followed the pioneer radio-controlled
police car system of Detroit, which
was established in 1927.
Since that day in 1881, Station
WPDW had sent out total of 226,-
935 calls over the air up to May 1,
1885, and is increasing that total at
the average rate of 189 more every
"a hours-almost eight every hour,
or one every 7.6 minutes of the day
and night. Most remarkable, how
| ever, is the fact that, whenever it
was necessary, scout car was on
the scene in actually four-fifths of
the cases in not more than minutes.
Just what does happen in WASH
ington between the time the citizen
hears an unfamiliar footstep in his
house, shrill scream in the night.
| or witnesses scene which only the
police can cope with, and the time
the scout car pulls into the pic
ture?
First, the citizen calls his number.
in the belief that a situation has
arisen which ..e himself cannot con-
troll. He will find that, "a hours of
the day. National 1918 will respond
i