Page One of the Sunday News: Cops Kill War Heroes

The News had an established page one format, a headline referring to a lead story on the inside pages and an often unrelated photo, usually of a crime or accident scene. It was the ink on the photos ton this page as well as on the sports photo on the back page that proved so damaging to hands and shirt cuffs.

On April 14, the headline story was about a vote in the House of Representatives to suspend the draft for five months beginning May 15, pending an assessment from the Pentagon on its postwar manpower needs. This was a compromise between those Republicans and conservative Democrats who wished to abolish the draft all together and the supporters of the Truman administration and the Pentagon which wished to extend it. The House previously had voted to raise the draft age from 18 to 20. Back in these it was liberal Democrats who supported a large military and an interventionist policy and conservatives and Republicans who wanted to reduce the size of the Armed Forces and overseas commitments.

The page one photo showed Patrolman Carl Daum, posed by the photographer like an action figure with a gun in one hand and a nightstick in the other, crouched forward as if about to pounce on the pathetic, scrawny corpse of Albert J. Ray, curled in a near fetal position, his pants riding up and patterned socks riding down to expose bare calf, his hat on the floor to the side of his head. Ray, 28, of West 99^th Street, had been shot dead by Daum and Patrolman Albert Russo in the lobby of the Hotel Berkley, 70 West 74th at Amsterdam Avenue, after he and an accomplice, John J. Farragher, 31, of Academy Avenue in the Inwood neighborhood of upper Manhattan, robbed the hotel night clerk of $66. With the help of a third patrolman, William Armstrong, the cops also killed the unarmed Farragher with fatal shots in the back as he tried to escape. The story played up the heroism of the three cops who had been commended and then offered immediate promotions to detective by Police Commissioner Arthur Wallander, who had rushed to the 66th Street precinct where he told the cops "This is a perfect job. It’s an open and shut case. There's nothing to do but call the undertaker." Actually, until Wallender stepped in the precinct had some questions about the violation of police procedure.

According to the News, Patrolman Russo had noticed the two thieves entering the hotel at 5:15 AM when they had asked the night manager, Joel Davis, for a room. Russo had grown suspicious of the duo. Peeking through a window, he saw Ray pull out a Luger, apparently a war souvenir. This is where it begins to get a little weird. Did the thieves not see a uniformed cop in the street just outside the hotel? Russo did nothing immediately, waiting instead until Daum made his scheduled stop at the call box across the street. For "reasons not explained to the satisfaction of precinct officers," the cops took off their uniform coats and hats and crept across the lobby behind a partition as the hotel elevator descended to the lobby floor. Patrick Hartigan, the operator, then walked over to the desk where Ray slugged him. The cops moved in, calling out that they were policemen. Ray fired a shot at them and they cut him down with six bullets. Farragher "lammed" but he unluckily ran into Patrolman William Armstrong who was checking parked cars at 74th and 75th. Armstrong saw Russo in pursuit. Even though Russo was out of uniform, Armstrong supposedly recognized him as a cop by his blue pants. Armstrong ordered Farragher to stop then fired a warning shot. When the suspect continued to run, Armstrong shot him twice in the back, according to the News, killing him.

The Sunday Times, however, reported that the autopsy showed that Farragher had taken six bullets. The Times also reported that Ray and Farragher had forced the hotel manager into the small back office, bound his hands with his necktie and gagged him with a handkerchief. In this version, when the cops burst in, after Ray had struck the elevator operator across the face with his Luger, the culprits were rummaging through desks and files. They already had taken $35 from a cash drawer and $31 from Davis’s pockets. Ray fired a wild shot at the cops who each then emptied virtually a full round into the two men. Ray made it to the lobby before collapsing while Farragher ran into the street.

There was a human interest twist to the story. The two dead guys had been war heroes. Both had served in the Eleventh Armored Division. Ray had been awarded a Bronze Medal and two battle citations, and had been promoted in the field to second lieutenant. Farragher had been a tank gunner with the rank of corporal and had two battle stars. Both men had served time before the war for petty burglaries and may even have known each other from the reformatory. The photos in the newspaper, possibly mug shots from their earlier run-ins with the law, showed Ray as dark-haired, dark-complected and slightly built with a narrow face and the traces of a mustache, while Farragher had a thuggish look with thick fair hair and a long face and jaw. In the final edition, a News reporter spoke to Farragher’s twenty-five year-old estranged wife. She said that he had visited their four-year-old son only once, at Christmas time, since leaving the army. "I had a hunch something like this would happen," she is quoted as saying. "He was just no good." She added that "I guess I'll have to take care of the funeral arrangements. I'm all he has."

In a follow-up story on April 15, the Daily News reported that the duo had committed at least two other predawn stickups with pretty much the same modus operandi. The first was at the Woodstock Tower, an apartment house at 42nd and Second on February 24, where, joined by an unidentified third accomplice, they netted $66. On March 3 they stuck up the Hotel Tudor, a few doors to the east where they grabbed $409. This time Farragher held the gun. Apparently this was a case of two vets returning to their prewar occupation, which in their case was robbery.