CHECKING BANK ROBBERS

Evening Star, Issue 19795, 20 February 1928, Page 13

CHECKING BANK ROBBERS

CASHIER'S HEROIC ACT SHORT AMD FATAL DRAMA [From Our Correspondent.] SAN FEANCISCO, January 25. Out of the welter of America’s continued carnival of crime has come a plucky act on the part of a bank cashier to check the all-too prevalent daring hold-ups of banking institutions in many parts of the United States. Two bandits sidled into the suburban Mount Scott State Bank at EorUand, Oregon, each waving before him a heavy automatic pistol. Sharp commands were barked at the employees of the bank; the employees hesitated a moment, and the two gunmen dropped to the floor, each shot to death by bullets tired by A, J. Demorest, cashier-manager of the institution. Four members of the bandit gang, who remained outside the bank, escaped m two automobiles bearing tho license plates of the adjoining Slate of Washington. The dead were Fred Williams, aged thirty-two, former inmate of the Washington State reformatory at Monroe; and John R. Benton, aged twenty-two, who had police records in Seattle and Spokane. A shot was fired by Demurest at the fleeing automobilo as tho “ Jook-oiits fled from the hold-up. It was believed tho shot found its mark, as ono ol the men crumpled in the seat. On the night previous to the sensational attempted hold-up, Demorest sat by the fireside in his homo and read a magazine article, ‘ Preparedness Prevents Hold-ups.’ “ I believe I’ll take the .22 down to tho bank in the morning,” he mused to his wife. “If 1 took any gnu it would be the 30-30,” Mrs Demorest replied. “ I’d have something effective.” Mrs Demorest is employed at the bank “ temporarily,” she says. So Demorest’s deer rifle accompanied him to tho bank. He placed it behind the door of the vault. “I’m late,” Mrs Demorest called out to her husband as she stepped into tho bank on tho following morning. Sho walked into a small room to hang up her wraps, and returning, found two mon entering the bank door. They whipped out pistols. She screamed, and hurled an inkwell through the window, just missing a bandit “ look°Ut' SAW PISTOLS GLITTER.

Demorest, too, saw tho pistols glitter. He was standing near the vault, and now stepped toward it. Mathew Harris, the teller, was .standing behind the cashier’s window, and Harold Jones, a bookkeeper, was at the cage near the door. The bandit subsequently identified as Williams held a pistol in tho face ot Harris. “Back to the vault—get back,” he commanded excitedly. Harris and Jones obeyed. Benton, the second bandit, went to the back of tho vault, and confronted Demorest with his pistol. Demorest reached behind the heavy door of the vault, seized his rifle, and, firing from tho hip, dropped Benton, who still clutched his weapon. The bullet from tho rifle had severed the bandits jugular vein, and had broken his neck. Harris stepped forward and took tfie pistol from the dead man’s hand. Then Williams, the “cover man, fired through the teller’s window, but not until one shell had been thrown from the defective weapon. Demorest stepped from the vault and faced tfie second automatic weapon within a space of several seconds. Tho pistol was raised, aimed directly at bun. Tho bandit pulled the trigger, but the mechanism jammed as Williams tugged to release it. And calmly, Demorest raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired. Through the glass of the cage the bullet crashed, flattened, and struck Williams in the right eye, tearing away the back of his skull, and passing through an outside window of the bank. With the sound of shots the bandits outside the bank ran to the automobiles parked nearby, and sped away, but under the cover of the deer rifle of the cashier.

The black sedan and blue touring car tore at high speed toward Iho more populated portion of the city. The men managed to get away. “Tf we can make bank robbing synonymous with suicide, then we shall not hear of so many hold-ups.” that was the first paragraph of the article in a bankers’ magazine that inspired Demorest to take a weapon with him when he went to the bank on the day of the foiled hold-up. One hour later the two bandits entered—and ten minutes later were carried away by deputy coroners.