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Officer Earnest Wylie Smith At about 10 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22, 1925, four well-dressed men walked quietly into the Hellman Commercial Trust & Savings Bank at 1522 S. Santa Fe Ave., west of the Los Angeles River, north of Olympic Boulevard (known as 10th Street at the time and renamed in 1932 when the Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles), and south of the current location of the Santa Fe Avenue underpass beneath the Santa Monica Freeway.
Three bank employees were working at the time -- bank manager Ralph E. Blaisdell, bookkeeper John E. Sinclair, and teller Harry Schaar. There were no customers in the bank.
The bank employees didn't notice the men until one of them shouted, "Stick 'em up!" Each of the four men was holding a gun in each hand.
The bank bandits ordered the three employees to the rear of the bank, and told them to lie on the floor, which they did. With one bandit guarding the employees and another stationed near the bank entrance, the remaining two robbers started gathering money from the bank's cash drawers, focusing primarily on small bills.
While the robbers were scooping up the money, six customers entered the bank, and they were quickly ordered at gunpoint to join the bank employees on the floor at the rear of the bank, which they did.
Eventually, the robbers collected $19,304.30 from the cash drawers -- more than $348,000 today -- left the bank, jumped into their getaway car parked outside and sped off, heading north on Santa Fe Avenue. The getaway car had been stolen the evening before the robbery from 1367 Figuroa St.
Truck driver John Shields of Long Beach saw the armed men run out of the bank and speed off, and he gave chase. When LAPD Motorcycle Officer Oscar Bayer, 27, attempted to pull Shields over for speeding, Shields pointed to the car ahead of him and shouted, "Bank robbers!" Bayer left Shields and took off after the fleeing car.
When the bank robbers noticed Bayer chasing them, they broke out the rear window of their car and started shooting at Bayer, with pistols and sawed-off shotguns. Bayer returned fire, while continuing to chase the car through traffic.
At the time, police officers had no radios -- no way of contacting police headquarters or communicating with their fellow officers. In a situation like this, they were completely on their own.
The robbers' car turned left at high speed onto Eighth Street, their vehicle teetering on two wheels, as the gunfire continued from the rear window. One of the bank robber's bullets struck Bayer on the left side of his chest, but was deflected by his badge, and the ticket book and wallet he carried in his shirt pocket. The gun battle between the bank robbers and the motorcycle officer continued as the robbers' car turned right onto Alameda Street.
At Seventh and Alameda streets, LAPD Traffic Officers Wylie Smith and George A. Moore were just starting their shifts when they heard the shots and saw the rolling gun battle going past them on Alameda, and they joined the chase on their motorcycles. Several civilian cars had also joined the pursuit.
The robbers' car turned left onto Seventh Street. At Seventh Street and Central Avenue, Bayer -- who continued the high-speed chase while reloading his gun -- alerted Officer Jack A. Stambler, 19, who commandeered a civilian's automobile and ordered the driver to chase the robbers' car while he stood on the running board and fired at the fleeing car.
The civilian driver of the commandeered car, 30-year-old Vernon C. Beeler, an electrician, was struck in the right hand by a bullet fired by one of the bank robbers, but he continued to chase their car, as Stambler continued shooting from the running board.
As the gun battle continued, more civilians joined in the chase. Stambler jumped off the running board of Beeler's coupe and commandeered a larger car. LAPD Officer Claude Weaver, 32, who was directing traffic at Seventh and San Pedro streets, jumped on the running board of Beeler's coupe and joined the chase.
At Central and Towne avenues, the robbers' car made a sharp left turn, heading south on Towne. Back to Eighth Street, the car turned right, to San Pedro Street, where LAPD Officer Bertrand M. Steventon,
The robbers shot at the car in front of them, but the driver, W.J. Baldwin, saved himself by dropping to the floor of his vehicle as bullets shattered his windows.
The bank robbers continued shooting at the officers who were converging on them. Smith was knocked from his motorcycle when a bullet from the robbers' car hit him in the chest. Another shot knocked off Moore's cap, grazing his scalp.
While stuck in the traffic jam, two of the bank robbers jumped from their vehicle to the sidewalk and ran off, each firing two guns as they fled, while the other two remained in the getaway car. One of the robbers in the car tried to shoot at Bayer as he approached, but he was quickly hit by three bullets in the back, fired by Officers Stambler, Weaver and Steventon, and he died at the scene. He was later determined to be the leader of the gang.
The Los Angeles Times breathlessly reported the incident as "the city's most spectacular gun battle" during which "several hundred shots were fired."
Despite the fusillade of bullets being fired in all directions during the three-mile chase through a heavily populated business and residential area in late morning, there were only two fatalities -- the bank robber who was shot as he aimed at Bayer, and Smith, who was hit in the chest when he joined the police chase at Seventh and Alameda streets.
Otherwise, the only four injuries were to Bayer, who suffered a minor graze wound to his hip and several bullets that had passed harmlessly through his shirt, but he was back on duty the next day after his wife had repaired the bullet holes in his uniform; the bandit captured in the getaway car, who was hit in the shoulder by a shot fired by Bayer; one of the escaped bank robbers, who was believed to have been hit in the leg by Smith; and Beeler, the civilian driver who lost the tip of his right thumb when he was hit by gunfire.
In addition to his injury, Beeler's car was riddled with bullets, and he was off work for two weeks while he recovered. He submitted a letter to the L.A. City Council requesting reimbursement of $100 for his medical costs and damages.
Following the incident, the L.A. City Attorney informed LAPD Chief R. Lee Heath that his officers should no longer commandeer private vehicles during chases.
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Earnest Wylie Smith was born in July 10, 1897, in Snyder, Texas, in the central part of the state, about 260 miles west of Dallas. He was the fourth of five children born to Earnest K. and Nannie Green Smith. His father worked as an innkeeper, although the 1900 Census listed his occupation as "inventor."
After her husband was arrested and sentenced to prison for murder, Nannie Smith filed for divorce. In 1908, Nannie Smith married wealthy Colorado-born cattle rancher and dry goods store owner George Shanley, and she and her five children -- Irine, 18; Albert, 16; Maude, 14; Earnest, 10; and Vera, 8 -- moved to live with Shanley in Globe, Arizona, about 60 miles east of Phoenix.
A few years after their marriage, on March 14, 1911, Shanley was shot and killed in a tavern by his best friend and fellow cattle rancher, Globe City Marshal Robert Anderson. Anderson claimed the shooting was a tragic accident, but he was convicted by a jury of manslaughter and sentenced to six and a half years in jail.
On Dec. 18, 1913, Nannie married for the third time, to Michigan native Harry E. Best. The couple lived in Miami, Arizona, with her children, a few miles west of Globe. Best worked as a smelter and driller, which were key jobs in central Arizona's booming silver and copper mining area.
On Feb. 16, 1916, Nannie's 17-year-old son, Earnest, enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and served as a water tender and fireman on the troop transport USS George Washington. Earnest likely was serving on the ship when the Washington carried President Woodrow Wilson and the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in December 1918.
Earnest Smith was honorably discharged from the Navy in September 1919. The following year, Earnest -- who now went by his middle name, Wylie -- had moved to Pinal County, Arizona, about 80 miles southeast of Phoenix, where he worked in a copper mine, and as an iron and steel worker.
Smith briefly studied law in Arizona before he moved to Los Angeles and joined the LAPD on Oct. 1, 1924, at the age of 26. He worked as a traffic officer for his brief LAPD career of less than one year. He never married and he lived at 1151 East 20th St.
The bullet from the gun battle hit Smith in the chest, and passed through both of his lungs. He was taken to the Central Receiving Hospital, on First Street, between Broadway and Hill Street. His family members in Texas and Arizona were notified of the shooting, but they were told that the officer had a good chance of survival.
Upon hearing the news of the shooting by telegram, Smith's mother immediately left her home in Arizona and headed for Los Angeles by train, but she didn't arrive in time. Smith died at 2:40 a.m. the next morning, about 16 hours after he was shot. He was 27 years old. Smith's death added a murder charge to the bank robbers.
After viewing her son's body, Smith's mother said, "I want Wiley to be buried in his uniform, wearing his badge. Ever since he was a little boy, he wanted to be a policeman."
Smith's body was sent back to Arizona, escorted to the L.A. train station by a police honor guard and accompanied by his mother, where he's buried in Pinal Cemetery, in Gila County, Arizona.
After the shootout, the L.A. Times described Bayer and Smith as "the type of men indispensable to the carrying on of civilized government in the community."
Officers Bayer and Smith were two of the first four LAPD officers to receive the Medal of Valor, the department's highest honor, in March 1926. The third award that year was presented posthumously to the widow of Officer Herbert Klade, who was killed in a gunfight on Feb. 8, 1926 in San Pedro. The fourth Medal of Valor went to Sgt. Frank S. Harper, who was injured when he shot and killed a suspected serial robber in a gun battle on June 8, 1925.
In addition, Bayer was given $1,000 in cash by Irving H. Hellman, vice president of the Hellman Commercial Trust & Savings Bank, and also a loan of $400 to help him pay off the $1,400 mortgage on his home.
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After running through traffic on Seventh Street, the two robbers who fled the gun battle next appeared at Crocker and Seventh streets, a block east of where they jumped from their getaway car. They approached a car parked in front of 655 Crocker St., with 38-year-old salesman Otto A. Luhring sitting in the driver's seat. One of the men carried a .45-caliber automatic pistol, climbed into the passenger seat next to Luhring, and pressed his gun against his Luhring's ribs. "Do as we say, or we'll plug you," the man said. The other man, who had received a gunshot wound to the leg in the shootout, climbed into the back seat of the car.
They forced Luhring to drive west a little more than a mile to Sixth Street and Fremont Avenue, where they got out of his car, and told Luhring to drive north on Fremont. If he turned around and looked back, they told him, he would be shot. Luhring did as he was told, and later notified police.
Following the shootout, the Times reported that "150 policemen were searching every residence, hotel and apartment house in the vicinity of Sixth and Fremont streets, where a second desperate gun battle was anticipated at any moment."
"Take no chances," LAPD Captain of Detectives Jack Finlinson told his officers. "Shoot to kill on sight."
Back at San Pedro and Seventh streets, police officers recovered all the money taken from the bank in the getaway car. Upon questioning the captured bank robber, and analyzing fingerprints found in the car, police determined that the men had come to Los Angeles from Illinois, and the slain robber had served time at the Joliet State Penitentiary for robbing a bank in Chicago. The other men were suspected to be members of his bank robbery gang.
Based on documents found on the dead bank robber, police determined that the four men had recently arrived in Los Angeles from Chicago, and had been staying for about a month prior to the attempted robbery in a rented room at 1956 Santee St., less than three miles from the Hellman Commercial Trust & Savings Bank.
The day after the bank robbery, the injured would-be bank robber was arrested in San Francisco and he quickly confessed to his role. He told investigators that the gang came to Los Angeles after Chicago "got too hot for them."
In early November 1925, the fourth bank bandit, who was the brother of the gang leader killed during the robbery in Los Angeles, was captured in Chicago. He initially scuffled with police and attempted to reach for his gun, but he was arrested without incident or injury. LAPD Capt. James Bean and Officer Bayer, who initiated the chase of the would-be bank robbers, traveled to Chicago to bring him to justice in California.
The robber who was wounded and captured during the chase, and the robber who was captured in San Francisco were were tried together, and both were convicted of first-degree murder by an all-female jury. Despite the prosecution's recommendation of the death penalty, the jury recommended a sentence of life in prison, which the judge accepted. Newspapers reported that the two were "saved from the gallows by an all-women jury's leniency."
Defense attorneys decided against pursuing an appeal, since a new trial would raise the option of a death sentence for their clients.
The robber who was captured in Chicago was also convicted of murder. He was determined to have been the one who hit Smith with the fatal bullet. He hanged himself with a bedsheet in his cell in Folsom State Prison on Jan. 22, 1934.
Smith's mother, Nan Best, remained in Globe, Arizona, for the rest of her life, until her death on July 28, 1948, at the age of 76. She's buried at Greenwood Memorial Lawn Cemetery in Phoenix, Ariz.
With one notable exception, the other officers involved in the running gun battle enjoyed long lives, and long careers with the LAPD. Officer Steventon died in 1969, at the age of 67. Officer Weaver died in 1962, at the age of 68. Officer Moore died in 1983, at the age of 74. Officer Stambler died in 1982, at the age of 76.
The exception was Medal of Valor recipient Motorcycle Officer Oscar Bayer, who initiated the chase of the bank robbers. He joined the LAPD in 1921, and became a motorcycle officer in 1923. By 1929, four years after the shoot-out, he rose to the rank of Detective Lieutenant. In addition to his LAPD career, Bayer, a World War I veteran, was also a pilot.
After the war, Bayer served as a U.S. Army Air Service Reserve pilot. He served with the 478th Pursuit Squadron, based at Clover Field in Santa Monica. During the late 1920s, several L.A Times articles reported on Bayer's aviation exploits.
On April 16, 1929, Bayer and a passenger were killed when the plane Bayer was piloting crashed on the 18th hole at the municipal golf course next to Clover Field.. Bayer was 31, and he left behind his wife, Josephine M. Banbury Bayer, and four children, all between the ages of 1 and 7.
Officer Smith's memorial sign is located on the northwest corner of San Pedro and Seventh streets.
A Guide to the Movie Stars' Final Homes
(July 10, 1897 -- Aug. 23, 1925)