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Crime & Public Safety

Line-of-duty killings, whole: the county roll, and the CDP filter

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The roll used is the Indiana Law Enforcement Memorial's Fallen Officer Directory, read whole for St. Joseph County. It carries twenty-one officers. Fifteen are South Bend Police: Oscar Waldemar Christensen, 11 May 1897; Lewis Keller, 25 February 1898; Samuel A. Cooper, 1 November 1900; Hans B. Brandt, 18 June 1916; Fred Elbert Buhland, 10 January 1921; Neil Mason McIntyre, 25 December 1923; Lloyd L. Thompson, 27 February 1932; Charles F. Farkas Sr., 27 May 1933; Delbert Samuel Thompson, 27 May 1933; Howard C. Wagner, 30 June 1934; Ronald Russell St. Germain Sr., 19 August 1967; Thomas James DeRue Sr., 14 November 1974; Paul Richard Deguch, 24 August 1997; Scott Lee Severns, 23 April 2006; and Nick Samuel Polizzotto, 24 April 2007. Four are Mishawaka Police: Clarence Casper, 10 June 1930; Thomas Roberts, 13 December 2003; Bryan Scott Verkler, 13 December 2003; and James John Szuba, 9 January 2010. One is the St. Joseph County Sheriff's Department: James William Mumford, 25 May 1962. One is the Indiana State Police: Richard Terrell Gaston, 4 March 1999. Tested officer by officer against the CDP line, the count for Clay and Harris Townships is zero: every incident on the roll is seated in South Bend, in Mishawaka, or elsewhere in the county, and none on this ground.

The county's landmark case on the roll is Howard C. Wagner, shot and killed on 30 June 1934 as suspects fled the armed robbery of the Merchants National Bank in South Bend — a robbery committed by four members of the Dillinger Gang. Wagner was taken to Epworth Hospital and died there; the getaway car was found abandoned later that day near Goodland. The roll's oldest South Bend case carries the three-trials pattern: Oscar Christensen, shot on 11 May 1897 while investigating vandalism in the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway yards, was killed by a thirty-six-year-old railroad detective charged with second-degree murder; after three trials on a change of venue to LaPorte County, the shooter was acquitted of manslaughter by a jury. The Memorial notes the case is one of five line-of-duty deaths in its record in which the offender was himself a law enforcement officer.

The modern roll reads the same way. Scott Severns died on 23 April 2006 of gunshot wounds suffered on 21 April at 1433 Northside Boulevard, South Bend, while taking police action during a robbery although off duty; the suspect was sentenced to sixty-five years. Nick Polizzotto was shot on 24 April 2007 investigating shots fired near an unoccupied nightclub at 1631 Lincoln Way East, South Bend; the forty-five-year-old suspect was killed by another officer's return fire. Mishawaka's two murdered officers died the same night: Corporal Thomas Roberts, forty-three, and Patrolman Bryan S. Verkler, twenty-seven, were shot on 13 December 2003 responding to shots fired at 125 East Battell Street, followed the suspect, Raymond Matthew Gilkeson, thirty, to 1012 Sarah Street, where Roberts died at the scene and Verkler died in surgery about three hours later; Gilkeson, wounded by return fire, killed himself inside the house. They were the first Mishawaka officers murdered in the line of duty; the department's other roll names are Clarence Casper, killed in a motorcycle crash in 1930, and James Szuba, struck by a fleeing drunk driver in 2010 and the fourth name on the Mishawaka memorial. The city keeps its own count on the record: South Bend Common Council Resolution 2987-01, adopted 23 April 2001, honored thirteen fallen South Bend officers, and Resolution 4098-11, adopted 9 May 2011, honored fifteen — adding Polizzotto and Severns — and declared 20–31 May 2011 Law Enforcement Memorial Week. One conflict in the record is printed whole rather than resolved: the 2001 resolution spells two names "Fred E. Buland" and "Oscar Christenson," where the Memorial's roll spells Fred Elbert Buhland and Oscar Waldemar Christensen. No pardon campaign for any offender in a county line-of-duty case appears in the Memorial or Tribune record reached. The roll is carried whole so the zero stands on names and dates, not on a summary.

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Source: Line-of-duty killings, whole: the county roll, and the CDP filter, Moosed History by Project Moosed, https://history.projectmoosed.com/usa/midwest/indiana/granger/crime-public-safety/line-of-duty-killings-whole-the-county-roll-and/