Volume 18 , Issue 18

1933 - Net Spread For "Pretty Boy" Floyd In New York

In May 1933, a "Net Spread for "Pretty Boy" in New York State After Killing of Detective In Bank Holdup." That is what the Miami Daily News-Record, Miami, Oklahoma, dated 29 May 1933, Monday, had on it's front page headlines. Warning to look out for Oklahoma outlaw coupled with Renesselaer, New York raid, in which six bandits shot way out of police trap.

Found on Newspapers.com

Renesselaer, NY, May 29 (1933) -- Surprised by police while in the act of holding up the Rensselaer County Bank just before noon, six bandits shot their way out of the institution, killed one detective and fled with $2,000 in a waiting automobile.

The holdup occurred a few hours after police were warned in a police message from Lee, Mass, to be on the lookout for Charles (Pretty Boy) Floyd, 28, notorious Oklahoma outlaw, wanted there for bank robbery and in Ohio for murder. On that lead police spread a net for Floyd.

Monday crowds filled Main street of this up-state village when the six men walked into the bank, waved submachine guns, and crowded a dozen frightened customers, clerks and bank officials into a back room.

"Line up against that wall, and don't move," ordered one of the bandits.

But Nicholas Walters, a bank employe, unknown to the bandits, touched a holdup alarm.

The alarm bought two detectives, James A. Stevens and Frederick Rabe, running up the street from police headquarters, a block or two away. As the bandits saw them they opened fire. The detectives replied with pistol bullets, but they were mowed down by a wave of firing. Steven was fatally shot, and died a few minutes later in an Albany hospital.

Still firing, the men leaped into a waiting automobile, just as another detail of police rushed up the street.

Floyd, the Oklahoma outlaw, was said in the message from Lee to have been accompanied by a man named Bradley. The message said there was a reward of $4,000 for Floyd's arrest.

State police did not mention Floyd, however, int he general alarm that went out after the holdup. This alarm notified all points that five or six men escaped in a large blue sedan. The car, when last seen, was speeding past the steamship docks south of Albany. Previously it had traversed South Pearl street, a narrow business street, for half a mile at high speed.

Later police said Detective Rabe, in spite of his wound, fired one shot through the back of the sedan. He did not know whether the shot struck any of the escaping bandits, Rabe was shot in the leg. Stevens, the slain detective, was killed by a bullet in the head.

At Rensselaer police headquarters it was said police "had no idea whether 'Pretty Boy' Floyd was involved int he holdup, but his reported presence in the East lead to his consideration."

Oklahoma City, May 29 (1933) -- Oklahoma officers were interested in news today that police at Rensselaer, NY, had spread a net for the possible capture of Charles Arthur (Pretty Boy) Floyd, elusive bandit leader, following the attempted robbery of a Rensselaer bank. Several such nets had been spread for Floyd in Oklahoma without success.

The outlaw's whereabouts had remained a mystery from the time he was known to have returned to Oklahoma several years before after his escape from an Ohio prison. State, county and city officers for months had been on the lookout for the bandit, but every time Floyd had been cornered he had shot his way to safety.

It had been several months since the outlaw had been reported definitely seen, his bank robbing activities having ceased since his lieutenant, George Birdwell, was shot to death in the robbery of a Negro bank at Boley the year before. Several robbers believed to have worked with Floyd had been killed in bank raids, or when cornered after robberies, while others had been convicted and imprisoned.

Some time ago, officers in northeastern Oklahoma received word credited to grapevine channels that Floyd had left the state and taken up his abode somewhere in the East. Since that report spread, various officers had expressed different opinions as to the robber's whereabouts.

Each time Floyd had been reported seen by officers and robbery victims recently, an Oklahoma City newspaper had run the caption, "we don't believe it.
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