Officer Frank Evan Corley
(July 14, 1895 -- Aug. 24, 1924)

The official story of the shooting death of Officer Frank Evan Corley -- the version posted on most police officer memorial websites, including the LAPD's official website -- is that Corley heard gunshots in an alley, ran to investigate, and was shot and killed by an angry gambler who had just lost all his money in an illegal, late-night craps game.

According to this version, Corley, who was in uniform but off-duty at the time, was walking near a pharmacy at East 12th Street and Hooper Avenue, about two miles south of downtown Los Angeles, late on Saturday, Aug. 23, 1924 -- three days after the shooting death of LAPD Officer Edward Everett Wilhoit.

Corley heard gunshots coming from behind the pharmacy, and immediately ran to investigate. He came upon the craps game in the alley, with three participants. Two of the gamblers, including fellow LAPD Officer Elmer Roberson, 28, who was also in uniform but off-duty, had gotten into an argument, which turned into a physical altercation.

During the struggle, Roberson's gun fell out of his holster, the other gambler picked it up and fired, hitting Roberson twice in the abdomen, and the other gambler, John A. Gilmore, a 44-year-old janitor at a local bank, once in the abdomen.

When Corley arrived at the scene, he was also shot once, and the gunman fled.

A doctor who happened to be in the area transported Corley, Roberson and Gilmore to the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. Corley died early the next morning, and Gilmore died a day later. Although Roberson initially was not expected to survive his injuries, he did recover.

But newspaper articles at the time tell a slightly different story.

The craps game in the alley behind the pharmacy, according to the contemporaneous newspaper reports, included four players, not three. The fourth player was Officer Corley. Though Corley and Roberson were both off-duty, both officers were in uniform. Other newspapers reported that Corley was at the game, but as a spectator, not a player.

According to the newspaper articles, one of the players lost all of his money in the craps game, and either asked if he could borrow $1 to continue playing or accused the other players of cheating by using loaded dice. The player was ordered out of the game by Roberson, who drew his revolver as enforcement.

In a physical struggle with Roberson, the aggrieved craps player gained control of Roberson's gun, and opened fire, hitting Corley first. Roberson and Gilmore were shot as the gunman fled the scene.

Shortly after the shooting, the 35-year-old gunman, a Mississippi-born waiter and the son of a preacher, turned himself in to police and gave a full confession. Although he was initially charged with two counts of murder and one count of assault with a deadly weapon, he eventually pleaded guilty to one count of voluntary manslaughter, and was sentenced in October 1924 to one to 10 years in San Quentin State Prison.

He arrived at San Quentin on Oct. 23, 1924, and was released on April 23, 1931, after serving exactly six and a half years. He died on March 23, 1964, three days before his 75th birthday. A World War I veteran, he was buried at the Los Angeles National Cemetery.

Officer Corley was born July 14, 1895, in South Carolina, the seventh child -- all boys -- of John and Augusta Knotts Corley. John Corley was a farmer, and all of the boys worked as farmhands while growing up.

By 1900, the Corley family had moved to a farm in Guadalupe County, Texas, just northeast of San Antonio. John Corley died there in 1915.

After his father's death, Frank Corley served in the military during World War I, then settled in Los Angeles, where he initially worked for a trucking company and lived in a rooming house at 775 Ceres Ave., then joined the LAPD in about 1921.

At the time of his shooting, Officer Corley lived at 2816 E. 3rd St. in the Boyle Heights neighborhood on the east side of Los Angeles.

Although Officer Roberson survived the shooting, his police career did not.

In early October 1924, less than two months after the shooting and following an internal LAPD investigation, Roberson was charged with "misconduct while in uniform" and suspended because of his participation in the craps game, and was then fired by LAPD Chief Robert Lee Heath. The Board of Police Commissioners upheld the chief's decision to fire Roberson.

After his dismissal from the LAPD, Roberson worked a series of menial odd jobs, including laborer, shoe-shiner, blacksmith and window washer. He died on March 20, 1952, at the age of 55, and is buried at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, in 2011, Corley was posthumously awarded the LAPD's Purple Heart, an honor established by the Board of Police Commissioners in 2009 to recognize officers "who have sustained traumatic physical injury during an on-duty tactical situation." The inaugural Purple Heart ceremony recognized and honored 82 officers.

Officer Corley was the second African-American LAPD officer to be killed in the line of duty, less than two years after the shooting death of Officer Charles Perry Williams on Jan. 13, 1923.

Corley is buried at Evergeen Cemetery in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, about three blocks from his home. The other man killed in the shooting, John Gilmore, is buried about 100 yards north of Corley's grave.

The shooting took place near the intersection of East 12th Street and Hooper Avenue, but the location of Officer Corley's memorial sign is unknown.

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