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16 June 2023
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On June 17, 1933, Kansas City’s Union Station was at the center of an incident that would shape law enforcement for the next generation.
The short flurry of gunfire that was the Kansas City Massacre lasted just a few seconds but ended with two KCPD Officers, an Oklahoma Police Chief, a federal agent, and the escaped bank robber they were escorting to Leavenworth dead and two other agents wounded.
“They got off the train here, were getting into two cars to drive them to Leavenworth and they were ambushed,” explained Union Station Director of Collections and Curatorial Affairs Denise Morrison.
The news quickly was picked up by papers across the country and internationally, reporting that an attempt to free escaped bank robber Frank Nash killed him and four other men instead.
The pictures that survive to today show that it was in broad daylight in the parking lot of what would have been one of the busiest places in Kansas City.
Violence in the 1930’s was shocking, but not rare.
“The summer of 1933, especially June, was a pretty dangerous time in Missouri history,” said State Historical Society of Missouri Assistant Director Sean Rost.
In the days before and after the Kansas City Massacre, the first Missouri State Highway Patrolman and the Boone County Sheriff were killed, the Polk County Sheriff was kidnapped, and infamous couple Bonnie and Clyde were hiding out in Platte City. Rost says the increased law enforcement attention after the Massacre revealed Bonnie and Clyde’s location.
“In the early 1930’s, we had gangsters and mobsters,” Morrison said. “It was that kind of time.”
Locally, Kansas City’s reputation was already marred by what happened outside the law.
“It solidified for a lot of people in the country that Kansas City was a wide-open town,” Morrison said. “There was that reputation, it was a Prendergast-run down, prohibition didn’t mean anything here. Whether they were true or not, that’s what people thought.”
A big problem was that local law enforcement didn’t have many good ways to share information or work together.
The Bureau of Investigation didn’t have much power and some historical sources suggest federal agents moving Nash through Kansas City weren’t even supposed to be carrying guns when they got ambushed.
“It was something J. Edgar Hoover used to take to the federal government and say, ‘My guys were sitting ducks,” Morrison said.
The result was new legislation within a year that expanded how federal agents could fight crime across state lines.
It also created a series of myths about who carried out the ambush, who sent the gunmen, and even that marks in the stone near the eastern entrance are from bullets fired during the Kansas City Massacre.
Experts say those marks are not bullet holes, but Rost says it’s all part of the lore.
“If you see a hole in the side of a building and you know there was a shootout nearby, you might assume that was the cause of it,” Rost said.
Kansas City Field Office Special Agent In Charge Charles Dayoub sent FOX4 this statement:
“June 17, 1933 was a sobering day for the nation and the FBI. On that day, federal and local law enforcement were ambushed outside Union Station in Kansas City. While going about their jobs, these men were fired upon, resulting in the death of KCPD officers W.J. Grooms, Frank Hermanson, McAlester, Oklahoma Police Chief Otto Reed and FBI Special Agent Raymond Caffrey. The actions that day shocked the nation and reshaped the Bureau’s operations – including eventually ensuring agents had the authority from Congress to carry firearms and make arrests. And while this 90th anniversary of their death is a solemn occasion, we will continue to remember and honor their exceptional bravery and lasting legacy.”