Latest Posts

Here is an LF & C Model Trench Knife dated from 1917 and used by the US Army during World War One.

It is one of the oldest confiscated weapons in the museum’s collection.

Here is a homemade flail made from a chain and a steel ball.

It is just one of the interesting confiscated weapons we have in our collection.

We have a number of confiscated weapons at the Minneapolis Police Museum.

Here is a Smith & Wesson 37mm Tear Gas Launcher from our collection.

For those of you who are dreaming of cooler weather, here is a look at three of the coats in our collection.

Appointed February 15, 1923 – End of Watch September 20, 1938

At 4:00 am on February 23, 1928, Minneapolis Police Officers James H. Trepanier and Bernard Wynne responded to a call for help from one of Minneapolis mobster Kid Cann’s hangouts. The call came from The Cotton Club which was located at 716 6th Avenue North. A fight had broken out amongst patrons. Upon entering the club, Officers Trepanier and Wynne ordered several patrons to line up against a wall to be searched for weapons. A few seconds later, five men in a corner overturned a table, hid behind it and started shooting.

Both officers were shot but were able to return fire and gain control of the room. When back-up arrived, 30 persons, including Kid Cann, were arrested and taken to the Minneapolis City Jail.

Officers Trepanier and Wynne were taken immediately to General Hospital. Officer Trepanier had been hit several times and was paralyzed from the waist down. Officer Wynne was hit in the leg. Kid Cann was arrested for the shooting of both officers and the attempted murder of Officer Trepanier but was released due to insufficient evidence. It is generally now accepted that the shooter of Officer Trepanier was gangster Verne Miller.

Officer Trepanier spent the next year in the hospital where he was to slowly regain some of his health. The severity of his injures made it impossible for him to resume his policing duties. He took a course in watch and jewelry repair and opened a shop on Chicago Avenue where he worked until 1934 when the effects of his injuries became too much to bear and he went to live at the Veteran’s Hospital. Officer Trepanier continued to repair watches and jewelry from his hospital bed there.

Officer Trepanier was a veteran of World War One serving in the 151st Field Artillery, 42nd Division. He served on the Minneapolis Police Department for five years nearly always as a motorcycle patrolman. Officer Trepanier was a member of the Police and Firemen’s Post of the American Legion.

Officer Trepanier passed away at the age of 42. His funeral was attended by many members of the Minneapolis Police Department and he received a final tribute from the Honor Guard. His funeral services were held at the Swanson Funeral Home. He was buried at Sunset Memorial Cemetery.

Officer Trepanier was survived by his wife, Ruth, and their two daughters, Joyce and Marie. He was also survived by his father, two brothers and four sisters.

Photograph and material about the shooting of Officer Trepanier is taken from Killed in the Line of Duty by Sergeant Tony Miranda, 1998

Additional material is taken from Officer Trepanier’s obituary in the Minneapolis Tribune on September 20, 1938.

Isadore Blumenfeld (September 8, 1900 – June 21, 1981), who was commonly known as Kid Cann, was the most notorious mobster in Minneapolis from the mid-1920s to the early-1960s. He was a life-long criminal and he was reputed to be protected by corrupt politicians.

Before Prohibition, Kid Cann and his two brothers were considered to be small-time criminals. With the advent of Prohibition they established ties to Al Capone’s “Chicago Outfit” and to the Genovese crime family of New York City. Kid Cann came to oversee illegal activities in Minneapolis such as bootlegging, prostitution, extortion and labor racketeering.

He was arrested for killing taxi driver Charles Goldberg in a fight over a woman outside the Vienna Cafe on Nicollet Avenue in 1924. Kid Cann admitted to the shooting but claimed it was an accident and was never tried.

In 1936, Kid Cann was tried for the murder of Walter Liggett the founder and editor of a weekly paper called The Midwest American. Mr. Liggett had been threatened and offered bribes to stop reporting on organized crime figures and political corruption in Minneapolis. He was machine-gunned in the alley behind his home on December 9, 1935. His wife and daughter witnessed the murder as did several neighbors. All identified Kid Cann as the shooter. During the trial, Kid Cann’s barber provided an alibi and Kid Cann was acquitted of the murder. 

At 4:00 am on February 23, 1928, Minneapolis Police Officers James H. Trepanier and Bernard Wynne responded to a call for help from one of Kid Cann’s hangouts. The call came from The Cotton Club which was located at 716 6th Avenue North. A fight had broken out amongst patrons. Upon entering the club, Officers Trepanier and Wynne ordered several patrons to line up against a wall to be searched for weapons. A few seconds later, five men in a corner overturned a table, hid behind it and started shooting.

Both officers were shot but were able to return fire and gain control of the room. When back-up arrived, 30 persons – including Kid Cann – were arrested and taken to the Minneapolis City Jail.

Officers Trepanier and Wynne were taken immediately to General Hospital. Officer Trepanier had been hit several times and was paralyzed from the waist down. Officer Wynne was hit in the leg. Kid Cann was arrested for the shooting of both officers and the attempted murder of Officer Trepanier but was released due to insufficient evidence. It is generally now accepted that the shooter of Officer Trepanier was not Kid Cann but was gangster Verne Miller.

In 1959, Kid Cann was tried along with several others for fraud in connection with Twin Cities Rapid Transit. He was the only defendant who was acquitted in the trial.

But then suddenly later that year, his luck ran out. Kid Cann was convicted of a Mann Act violation due to his long association with a prostitute and sentenced to two years in prison.

In 1961, Kid Cann was convicted of running illegal liquor operations in Minneapolis, and attempting to bribe a juror in the case. He was sentenced to eight years in Leavenworth.

After he was released from prison, Kid Cann moved to Miami Beach with his frIend Meyer Lansky where they focused on stock market fraud, money laundering and questionable real estate dealings.

Kid Cann died in Minneapolis of heart disease in 1981.

Material on Kid Cann is taken from Paul Maccabee in the article “Alias Kid Cann” from Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine (November 1991), and the book John Dillinger Slept Here from Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1995

Material about the shooting of Officers Trepanier and Wynne is taken from Killed in the Line of Duty by Sergeant Tony Miranda, 1998

Photograph of Kid Cann handcuffed and being led into federal custody in 1961 (taken by Don Black of the Minneapolis Star Tribune) courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

On Friday, December 16th, 1932 at 2:30 pm, five robbers entered the Third Northwestern National Bank at Central and East Hennepin Avenues. They grabbed one of the tellers and Bank Vice President Ray Teuscher at gunpoint. When the teller could not open the door on the safe, the robbers struck him in the head.

At one point in the robbery, one of the robbers opened the front doors and saw Officer Leo Gorski and Officer Ira Evans driving up to the bank. As the officers were getting out of the squad car, the robbers fired at them from 15 feet away inside the bank through the windows. Another robber shot a machine gun from the street corner.

Officer Evans was hit and slumped over the wheel. Officer Gorski stumbled out of the car with his shotgun and collapsed on the street. Two citizens stopped to help the officers and took them to the hospital where Officer Evans died. Officer Evans had ten slugs in his body from two different guns.

The robbers fled with $20,000. As they drove along Larpenteur Avenue, a tire that had been hit in the exchange of gunfire went flat. At Snelling Avenue the tire fell off. The robbers then pulled into Como Park where a green car was waiting for them. Oscar Erickson, 25, an innocent bystander who had no idea who the robbers were, had the bad luck to be driving through the park. As he glanced at the suspects standing next to their car with no tire, they opened fire hitting Mr. Erickson in the head and chest. Mr. Erickson’s passenger, Arthur Zachman, 22, took control of the car and drove to the hospital where Mr. Erickson died later that day.

When officers arrived at Como Park they found the suspects’ vehicle but the suspects were gone. The suspects’ vehicle turned out to have been stolen a year prior. It was believed the suspects had also robbed the North American Bank in the spring. The officers assumed that the robbers had kidnapped a driver of another car to get away.

On Sunday morning, December 18th, at 3:00 am officers were called to a loud party at a St. Paul apartment. Lawrence Barker, who appeared to be drunk, had been thrown out of the party and had taken a gun from his coat and went to a nearby apartment.

Officer George Hammergren entered the apartment where a man sitting in the living room told him that the suspect the police were looking for was in the bedroom. As Officer Hammergren wrestled with Lawrence Barker for his gun Officer Harley Kast entered the room and joined in. They took Lawrence Barker into custody and placed him in their squad car.

When Officer Kast left to call headquarters, Lawrence Barker attacked Officer Hammergren from the back seat, biting him in the wrists. Officer Hammergren dragged Lawrence Barker from the car and they again wrestled. Lawrence Barker got away and a foot pursuit started. Eventually, Officer Hammergren was able to regain custody of Lawrence Barker.

After some time, Officers Hammergren and Kast returned to the apartment. There they found $1,700 still in Third Northwestern National Bank wrappers and $10,000 in securities which had also been stolen. They found the robbery plan written out with the money divided seven ways: $3,200 to go to each of the five robbers; one for the driver for the green car; and one for the “finger man” who had surveyed the bank and drawn up the plan.

On Sunday at 5:00 am, two hours after Lawrence Barker’s capture, Officer Gorski died of his wounds.

Lawrence Barker, aka Lawrence Devol, 27, was identified as the ring leader of the gang of robbers. He was the one with the shotgun that had killed the officers. He was a member of the criminal Ma Barker gang. After being questioned, he admitted to the killings of Officers Evans and Gorski. He was also wanted for the murder of another police officer in Kirksville, Missouri in November of 1930.

The St. Paul Police later arrested Clarence Devol, aka James Colton who was Lawrence Barker’s brother. The Minneapolis Police also arrested Robert Newbern and Leonard Hankins, aka Owen Lewis. Bernard Phillips was also identified as a possible suspect. All of the suspects had lengthy criminal records and aliases.

Lawrence Barker pled guilty on January 10th, 1933, to second-degree murder and was sent to Stillwater State Prison. In May, 1936, he was transferred to St. Peter State Hospital. Two years later he led an escape of 15 inmates and began robbing banks again. He killed another police officer and wounded two more in a shootout in Enid, Oklahoma in July of 1936.

Leonard Hankins, aka Owen Lewis, was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in Stillwater State Prison. Both Robert Newbern and Clarence Devol were acquitted.

Officer Ira Evans was hired by the Minneapolis Police Department on January 1st, 1924. He had received two commendations: one on November 4, 1926; and one on February 11, 1929. He served at both the Bryant Avenue and East Side Stations. Office Evans was 39 years old and was born on October 6, 1893. He lived at 3010 Johnson Street Northeast with his wife, Irene, who survived him. His funeral was held at the Buchinger Funeral Home at 2535 Central Avenue on Monday, December 19th. Officer Evans was buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery.

Officer Leo Gorski was 37 years old. He was hired by the Minneapolis Police Department on January 24, 1924. Officer Gorski was a veteran of World War One and was wounded in France. He lived at 2915 Benjamin Street Northeast and was survived by his wife and their nine year old son. On December 21, funeral services for Officer Gorski were held at Holy Cross Catholic Church at University and 17th Avenues Northeast. He was buried at Sunset Memorial Cemetery.

Story and photographs from Killed in the Line of Duty by Sergeant Tony Miranda, 1998

Here is a view of the Third Northwestern National Bank of Minneapolis, at Central (left) and East Hennepin (right) Avenues as the crowd forms after the robbery.

The bank robbers escaped through the door at the left after fatally shooting two Minneapolis Police Officers – Ira Evans and Leo Gorski – who stood in their way. The bank robbers fled to St. Paul where they killed another innocent victim before going into hiding.

Photograph courtesy of Hennepin County Library

This was the headline of a 1922 article in the Minneapolis Tribune on women in law enforcement and civic leadership roles.

The article begins, “You may like it, and you may not, but women have firmly insisted upon being lawyers, policemen, judges, sheriffs, and what not and there is little likelihood that they are going to be persuaded to go into retirement”.

The article was published less than two years after final passage of the 19th Amendment (August 18, 1920) and it provides a valuable glimpse into how these women viewed their work and what they hoped to achieve.

To read the entire article, just click on the link below and scroll to page 25.

https://newspapers.mnhs.org/jsp/viewer.jsp?doc_id=mnhi0005%2F1DFC5G5C%2F22020501&query1=&recoffset=0&collection_filter=1a9ae500-bb04-4cc1-b561-375dde8926af&collection_name=addabf07-f848-43e3-a488-2782562f220d&sort_col=relevance&objRsltIdx=4&CurSearchNum=1&recOffset=0

View of Minneapolis Tribune of February 5, 1922 courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society