Police Officer Warren K. Snow

Warren K. Snow

Officer Snow was shot and killed by a deranged man who entered police headquarters at the intersection of Bates Street and Farmer Street.

The man walked into the station with a dead snake in a pale bucket and told the Desk Sergeant that someone was attempting to poison him. The man was taken to the Detective Bureau on the second floor to make a complaint and then was sent to the basement. The man then made a second complaint with a Lieutenant who made a recommendation to get a doctor to check the man's mental condition. While waiting for the doctor the man became agitated and impatient and made an attempt to leave. He shot Officer Snow in the chest who was acting as a doorman as he attempted to prevent the man from leaving the room. The man managed to make his escape outside the station and got into a struggle with a doctor along a wall behind the Liberty Theatre. During the struggle, the man fired multiple times striking the doctor and another policeman as he and other officers and newspaper reporters who witnessed the struggle attempted to restrain the man.

The man was sentenced to life imprisonment at a State Asylum for the criminally insane and declared mentally unfit to stand trial. The man and seven other inmates made and escape from the prison on July 30, 1914, and were recaptured several days later.