The Young Brothers Massacre happened in Missouri in the early 1930s where 6 lawmen were killed trying to arrest two criminals inside their 2 story farm house. Attached is a statement from an expert shortly after the massacre describing the tactical mistakes and how he would have handled the arrest. I found the tactics interesting.
(The publishers of this booklet requested one of America's best known authorities on the apprehension of barricaded criminals and insane persons to comment on the theories involved in raiding a fort such as the Young Brothers made of their mother's farm house. Although it was impossible for the expert to travel to Springfield, all sorts of floor plans, air pictures, ground pictures, illustrations, maps, and the first three chapters of this booklet were made available for his study. The author of the following article is a busy official without any time to devote to correspondence, so he requested that his name be withheld from publication in connection with the treatise.-The Publishers.)
It is always easy to tell the other fellow afterward how he should have one anything. We Americans enjoy that past-time to the fullest, but as a result we can trace much of our advancement in everything to the fact we do generally read some lesson in the mistakes and experiences of others. It is not in criticism of the slain officers at all that I write, but only in the belief I might be able to help others who may in the future be confronted with a similar problem, that I consent to attempt to tell how I would have raided the Young farm house in an endeavor to apprehend the Young brothers.
At the outset, of course, I realize none of the officers knew for sure the criminals sought were on the Young premises. And I guess, too, that from past experiences they looked for little trouble. These were circumstances to the proposed capture of the Young brothers that prompted Springfield officers to use less caution than they should. Lack of caution is the cause of more deaths in law enforcement circles than any other contributing factor. Bravery is always to be applauded, but lack of caution should not be condoned.
My chief criticism of the whole Young brothers episode is laid at the door of the city and county officials who permitted their law enforcement apartments to sink to such a low state of preparation for such emergencies. It seems to me the peace officers of the central west ought to admit pretty soon that they have about as much contact with big-time crooks as we metropolitan officers do. Just off-hand, I could run down through considerable list, beginning with Fleagle, Burke, Colbeck, Underhill, Spencer, Starr, Pendleton, Watson, Floyd, on down through a considerable roster of notorious bad men, ending up perhaps with the Kimes boys, some of whom have in the past driven over much of the territory of the central west. If I would actually put my mind to it, I probably could think up hurriedly a much longer file of notorious criminals who are at present moment actually infesting the great open spaces within the Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas rivers.
The tourists look upon your central west area as a beautiful and bountiful country, full of opportunities and pleasures for home seekers and visitors, but we metropolitan peace officers hear less about its charms than we do its advantages as a hideout for big-time crooks. We get our information from the criminals themselves and we get it pretty straight and pretty often, too, that there are a lot of real bad men in the wide open spaces even to this day. Events in recent months seem to prove our contention that the big cities are freer of bad men than the smaller towns and countrysides of the central west. Events in future months, unless we get the wrong dope from talking to crooks, will prove our contention still further. Officers of the central west are certain in the future to flush some bad men, and when they do come upon them they had better be prepared fully to cope with bad men in a bad frame of mind.
It is axiomatic in America, that we look beyond us always for something to worry about. No doubt, the people of the central west all worry considerable about the gangsters of Chicago and New York. It is well, perhaps, they do worry about conditions in the big cities and for the same reason it is just as well that we people in the cities worry a lot about the gun-toting wild men who run loose to shoot and kill in the central west.
Your worst crooks frequent our cities. Our worst criminals frequent your country. When we corner a crook in the city, we arc prepared to bring him to justice without the loss of life. When you corner a bad man in the smaller cities of the central west, you run the chance of losing more men than you capture. There is a big difference in being prepared for crooks and they know the difference as well as anybody. Half-way measures should not be tolerated in the preparations that are necessary to properly apprehend barricaded criminals and insane persons.
The Springfield officers were forced to go to the Young premises with many odds against them, and they were after a murderer who had boasted he would not be taken alive. They had no armored car to protect them, they had no bullet-proof shields or vests, they had no sub-machine guns or automatic rifles, they had no gas masks, they had no smoke screens, they had no sickening gas, they had little tear gas; in fact, they had very little that would be considered useful in such raids by metropolitan police. They had a world of valor then, but it doesn't do them or their families any good now.
I understand that from the Young house, one can see in all directions for considerable distance. Such a place is especially hard to raid, and the Young house is particularly so because there is little if any cover available to officers. There are hundreds of thousands of such houses nevertheless in the United States, that may soon contain a sane or insane killer and it will be the duty of some officers to apprehend him.
If I had been leading the Young brothers' raid, I "would have taken Lorena and Vinita Young along, and I would have had more officers and much more equipment or there wouldn't have been any raid.
In the first place, without an armored car, I would have completely surrounded the farm buildings at a considerable distance. High-powered rifles, sawed-off shotguns, sub-machine guns or automatic rifles, long range gas shells, bullet-proof shields or vests, smoke candles and sickening gas would have been available to some of the officers on each side of the premises. The officers would have been stationed far enough apart to permit no flank or enfilade fire to injure more than one of them at a time.
Having stationed the men and outlined their duties and arranged signals to be passed with the hands or arms or voice between each other for advances or retreats, I would have given the agreed signal to advance. After advancing in crouched positions to a reasonable distance from he buildings, I would have given the signal to stop. Right then I would have determined how well my signals were being obeyed. If well enough, would then have dispatched Lorena and Vinita Young handcuffed to each other to the Young farm yard with orders to return in so many minutes with some word from the inside, if they could not implore the occupants to come out with hands up.
In all likelihood the girls would have stayed in or returned empty-handed with some false report, but it would have been worth the trouble anyway to complicate them somehow in the mesh of evidence involving any later shooting. My next step would have been to advance the skirmish line nearest the barns to such outlaying sheds, barns, coops and other buildings as were built there. These would have been searched thoroughly from top to bottom. I understand the Springfield officers did not search any of the out buildings before gathering around the house. It was apparent to them, as it is apparent to me, the desperadoes would not have been likely to take refuge in the barn or shed since neither afford good protection. The precaution of thorough search nevertheless is always practicable and advisable. In all probability a thorough search of the barn and shed at the Young home would not have revealed either of the Young brothers, but it might have uncovered someone else. If anyone had been discovered in the barns under my supervision, they would have been fetched to me immediately for questioning, and their stories would ve been checked against reports, if any, brought back from the house with the girls.
Next, I would have devoted my time to the house. First of all, from the barn I would have advanced two men under cover of shields and the ** toward the front of the house to within shooting distance with a riot gas gun. At the same time, I would have advanced two men from the west or rear under cover of shields and the poultry house to shooting distance with another riot gas gun. Then I would have advanced the whole skirmish line close enough for them to see the operations of the gas men.
It is assumed here that most peace officers know enough to lay prone or sit in a crouched position when they are without cover of some sort. At a prearranged signal, the gas men would have fired their riot or long range gas guns from a distance up to 300 feet, closer if good cover had been available that made the windows easier to hit. Tear gas would have been shot into both upstairs rooms and then following that a tear gas shell would have been fired into each downstairs room on the east and into each downstairs window from the west; also in the basement had there been one. The gas men would have been ordered to act now as observers behind their trees and the poultry house.
Ten minutes would have elapsed then before I made any other move except to have all officers behind shields get ready to receive gassed occupants with hands up in front of leveled guns. Any officer is supposed to know enough to keep his cover and direct the blinded person or persons toward him and around obstacles in their path without endangering his life in possible line of fire.
If no prisoners came out with their hands up in ten minutes, I would then have ordered the gas men to make an attack with shells containing sickening gas. Sickening gas is not to be used in thickly settled city areas because it causes discomfiture akin to seasickness for several hours, but it would have been applicable for the second barrage of gas at the Young house. After sickening gas had been fired into the upstairs and downstairs rooms through the same holes if possible, I would have waited another ten minutes. It is always bad practice to shoot out or to break a lot of windows where gas is to be used since any draft through the house has a tendency to disperse the gas.
Ten more minutes should have elapsed before any further steps were necessary. If sickening gas had failed to bring all of the occupants out, it would have been safe to assume they were outfitted with tested gas masks or were barricaded in air-tight closets.
Our next step at the Young house would have been both practicable and spectacular. There are several ways of accomplishing the same end, but first of all, if the wind was not blowing hard on the side of the house nearest the best cover one or more smoke candles or smoke bombs would have been hurled under each window shutting off all visibility from the inside. Officers can quickly run to cover then right up to the windows. While some of the officers knock small holes through the glass and curtains in smoke screened windows, others can hurl candles to other windows all around the house. It wind does not bother on barricaded premises it is always better to hurl smoke candles around the entire house from the skirmish line, but either way accomplishes the same result. The important thing is for one officer, or better yet two officers, to get small holes made through the bottom sections of the windows, if curtains are drawn, in order that they may carefully peek through the hole into the whole of the room while the smoke screen is shutting off all visibility from the inside.
The officers armed with sub-machine guns, automatic rifles, and high-powered rifles under my direction would remain in the skirmish line that they might answer fire from any window. It should be understood by all peace officers who are protected with a skirmish line that upon drawing fire through a window as a result of peeking in holes, waving hats, flapping coat sleeves, and etc., that they are to flatten out below the "' window or step back close to the siding away from the window to give the gunners on the skirmish line an opportunity to fire both through the windows and siding nearby.
When an officer prior to any gun play has determined that no one occupies the room he is peeking into, he can kick the smoke candle out of his way if it bothers any. If persons are located in the room they can be fired upon through shields at the window holes, or if they are unarmed they can be directed to do the officer's bidding.
After all rooms are reported to be apparently empty, the men at the windows still remain there. At the Young home I would have sent but two men into the house. One of them protected with a shield and armed with large calibre, revolvers or a single sawed-off shotgun. The other officer would have been protected with a shield or steel vest and armed I with an axe or pike. Both men would have been equipped with tested gas masks. It is risky and unnecessary to send more than two men into a house. They are apt to be fired upon by each other or from the outside when hurrying from place to place in the house.
The two trained inside men would have gone through all closets in the first room entered. The man with the pike opening or breaking down doors. The officers with the shield stepping in to investigate, being aided hy a flashlight in the hand of the other.
The officers at the windows through using gas masks, handkerchiefs or other means, if the windows are broken, can take turn about keeping the inside of the rooms carefully covered while the downstairs part of the house is thoroughly searched.
The upstairs rooms of the Young farm house could easily have been searched by two men under cover of shields, but it is the usual practice to send four men into an upstairs section.
From their reaction to gas at Houston, Texas, I imagine that had Jennings and Harry Young been properly gassed at Springfield, officers would have found them dead inside, probably in an upstairs room where they most likely would have gone for a final and futile attempt to kill those in the skirmish line before killing each other. Under my direction, those in the skirmish line would have been poor targets for even an expert's aim.
The important thing to remember in raiding barricaded criminals and Insane persons, is that gas must be given time enough to do its work, and that great caution must be exercised in any and all approaches to the barricade. Every police department and every sheriff's force in the central west not having an armored car ought to be provided with a full supply of the chemicals commonly used in police work and plenty of good firearms. Raids such as I have described could be staged on the Young premises just as effectively at night with the use of star shells which illuminate over considerable areas as in the daytime."
(The publishers of this booklet requested one of America's best known authorities on the apprehension of barricaded criminals and insane persons to comment on the theories involved in raiding a fort such as the Young Brothers made of their mother's farm house. Although it was impossible for the expert to travel to Springfield, all sorts of floor plans, air pictures, ground pictures, illustrations, maps, and the first three chapters of this booklet were made available for his study. The author of the following article is a busy official without any time to devote to correspondence, so he requested that his name be withheld from publication in connection with the treatise.-The Publishers.)
It is always easy to tell the other fellow afterward how he should have one anything. We Americans enjoy that past-time to the fullest, but as a result we can trace much of our advancement in everything to the fact we do generally read some lesson in the mistakes and experiences of others. It is not in criticism of the slain officers at all that I write, but only in the belief I might be able to help others who may in the future be confronted with a similar problem, that I consent to attempt to tell how I would have raided the Young farm house in an endeavor to apprehend the Young brothers.
At the outset, of course, I realize none of the officers knew for sure the criminals sought were on the Young premises. And I guess, too, that from past experiences they looked for little trouble. These were circumstances to the proposed capture of the Young brothers that prompted Springfield officers to use less caution than they should. Lack of caution is the cause of more deaths in law enforcement circles than any other contributing factor. Bravery is always to be applauded, but lack of caution should not be condoned.
My chief criticism of the whole Young brothers episode is laid at the door of the city and county officials who permitted their law enforcement apartments to sink to such a low state of preparation for such emergencies. It seems to me the peace officers of the central west ought to admit pretty soon that they have about as much contact with big-time crooks as we metropolitan officers do. Just off-hand, I could run down through considerable list, beginning with Fleagle, Burke, Colbeck, Underhill, Spencer, Starr, Pendleton, Watson, Floyd, on down through a considerable roster of notorious bad men, ending up perhaps with the Kimes boys, some of whom have in the past driven over much of the territory of the central west. If I would actually put my mind to it, I probably could think up hurriedly a much longer file of notorious criminals who are at present moment actually infesting the great open spaces within the Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas rivers.
The tourists look upon your central west area as a beautiful and bountiful country, full of opportunities and pleasures for home seekers and visitors, but we metropolitan peace officers hear less about its charms than we do its advantages as a hideout for big-time crooks. We get our information from the criminals themselves and we get it pretty straight and pretty often, too, that there are a lot of real bad men in the wide open spaces even to this day. Events in recent months seem to prove our contention that the big cities are freer of bad men than the smaller towns and countrysides of the central west. Events in future months, unless we get the wrong dope from talking to crooks, will prove our contention still further. Officers of the central west are certain in the future to flush some bad men, and when they do come upon them they had better be prepared fully to cope with bad men in a bad frame of mind.
It is axiomatic in America, that we look beyond us always for something to worry about. No doubt, the people of the central west all worry considerable about the gangsters of Chicago and New York. It is well, perhaps, they do worry about conditions in the big cities and for the same reason it is just as well that we people in the cities worry a lot about the gun-toting wild men who run loose to shoot and kill in the central west.
Your worst crooks frequent our cities. Our worst criminals frequent your country. When we corner a crook in the city, we arc prepared to bring him to justice without the loss of life. When you corner a bad man in the smaller cities of the central west, you run the chance of losing more men than you capture. There is a big difference in being prepared for crooks and they know the difference as well as anybody. Half-way measures should not be tolerated in the preparations that are necessary to properly apprehend barricaded criminals and insane persons.
The Springfield officers were forced to go to the Young premises with many odds against them, and they were after a murderer who had boasted he would not be taken alive. They had no armored car to protect them, they had no bullet-proof shields or vests, they had no sub-machine guns or automatic rifles, they had no gas masks, they had no smoke screens, they had no sickening gas, they had little tear gas; in fact, they had very little that would be considered useful in such raids by metropolitan police. They had a world of valor then, but it doesn't do them or their families any good now.
I understand that from the Young house, one can see in all directions for considerable distance. Such a place is especially hard to raid, and the Young house is particularly so because there is little if any cover available to officers. There are hundreds of thousands of such houses nevertheless in the United States, that may soon contain a sane or insane killer and it will be the duty of some officers to apprehend him.
If I had been leading the Young brothers' raid, I "would have taken Lorena and Vinita Young along, and I would have had more officers and much more equipment or there wouldn't have been any raid.
In the first place, without an armored car, I would have completely surrounded the farm buildings at a considerable distance. High-powered rifles, sawed-off shotguns, sub-machine guns or automatic rifles, long range gas shells, bullet-proof shields or vests, smoke candles and sickening gas would have been available to some of the officers on each side of the premises. The officers would have been stationed far enough apart to permit no flank or enfilade fire to injure more than one of them at a time.
Having stationed the men and outlined their duties and arranged signals to be passed with the hands or arms or voice between each other for advances or retreats, I would have given the agreed signal to advance. After advancing in crouched positions to a reasonable distance from he buildings, I would have given the signal to stop. Right then I would have determined how well my signals were being obeyed. If well enough, would then have dispatched Lorena and Vinita Young handcuffed to each other to the Young farm yard with orders to return in so many minutes with some word from the inside, if they could not implore the occupants to come out with hands up.
In all likelihood the girls would have stayed in or returned empty-handed with some false report, but it would have been worth the trouble anyway to complicate them somehow in the mesh of evidence involving any later shooting. My next step would have been to advance the skirmish line nearest the barns to such outlaying sheds, barns, coops and other buildings as were built there. These would have been searched thoroughly from top to bottom. I understand the Springfield officers did not search any of the out buildings before gathering around the house. It was apparent to them, as it is apparent to me, the desperadoes would not have been likely to take refuge in the barn or shed since neither afford good protection. The precaution of thorough search nevertheless is always practicable and advisable. In all probability a thorough search of the barn and shed at the Young home would not have revealed either of the Young brothers, but it might have uncovered someone else. If anyone had been discovered in the barns under my supervision, they would have been fetched to me immediately for questioning, and their stories would ve been checked against reports, if any, brought back from the house with the girls.
Next, I would have devoted my time to the house. First of all, from the barn I would have advanced two men under cover of shields and the ** toward the front of the house to within shooting distance with a riot gas gun. At the same time, I would have advanced two men from the west or rear under cover of shields and the poultry house to shooting distance with another riot gas gun. Then I would have advanced the whole skirmish line close enough for them to see the operations of the gas men.
It is assumed here that most peace officers know enough to lay prone or sit in a crouched position when they are without cover of some sort. At a prearranged signal, the gas men would have fired their riot or long range gas guns from a distance up to 300 feet, closer if good cover had been available that made the windows easier to hit. Tear gas would have been shot into both upstairs rooms and then following that a tear gas shell would have been fired into each downstairs room on the east and into each downstairs window from the west; also in the basement had there been one. The gas men would have been ordered to act now as observers behind their trees and the poultry house.
Ten minutes would have elapsed then before I made any other move except to have all officers behind shields get ready to receive gassed occupants with hands up in front of leveled guns. Any officer is supposed to know enough to keep his cover and direct the blinded person or persons toward him and around obstacles in their path without endangering his life in possible line of fire.
If no prisoners came out with their hands up in ten minutes, I would then have ordered the gas men to make an attack with shells containing sickening gas. Sickening gas is not to be used in thickly settled city areas because it causes discomfiture akin to seasickness for several hours, but it would have been applicable for the second barrage of gas at the Young house. After sickening gas had been fired into the upstairs and downstairs rooms through the same holes if possible, I would have waited another ten minutes. It is always bad practice to shoot out or to break a lot of windows where gas is to be used since any draft through the house has a tendency to disperse the gas.
Ten more minutes should have elapsed before any further steps were necessary. If sickening gas had failed to bring all of the occupants out, it would have been safe to assume they were outfitted with tested gas masks or were barricaded in air-tight closets.
Our next step at the Young house would have been both practicable and spectacular. There are several ways of accomplishing the same end, but first of all, if the wind was not blowing hard on the side of the house nearest the best cover one or more smoke candles or smoke bombs would have been hurled under each window shutting off all visibility from the inside. Officers can quickly run to cover then right up to the windows. While some of the officers knock small holes through the glass and curtains in smoke screened windows, others can hurl candles to other windows all around the house. It wind does not bother on barricaded premises it is always better to hurl smoke candles around the entire house from the skirmish line, but either way accomplishes the same result. The important thing is for one officer, or better yet two officers, to get small holes made through the bottom sections of the windows, if curtains are drawn, in order that they may carefully peek through the hole into the whole of the room while the smoke screen is shutting off all visibility from the inside.
The officers armed with sub-machine guns, automatic rifles, and high-powered rifles under my direction would remain in the skirmish line that they might answer fire from any window. It should be understood by all peace officers who are protected with a skirmish line that upon drawing fire through a window as a result of peeking in holes, waving hats, flapping coat sleeves, and etc., that they are to flatten out below the "' window or step back close to the siding away from the window to give the gunners on the skirmish line an opportunity to fire both through the windows and siding nearby.
When an officer prior to any gun play has determined that no one occupies the room he is peeking into, he can kick the smoke candle out of his way if it bothers any. If persons are located in the room they can be fired upon through shields at the window holes, or if they are unarmed they can be directed to do the officer's bidding.
After all rooms are reported to be apparently empty, the men at the windows still remain there. At the Young home I would have sent but two men into the house. One of them protected with a shield and armed with large calibre, revolvers or a single sawed-off shotgun. The other officer would have been protected with a shield or steel vest and armed I with an axe or pike. Both men would have been equipped with tested gas masks. It is risky and unnecessary to send more than two men into a house. They are apt to be fired upon by each other or from the outside when hurrying from place to place in the house.
The two trained inside men would have gone through all closets in the first room entered. The man with the pike opening or breaking down doors. The officers with the shield stepping in to investigate, being aided hy a flashlight in the hand of the other.
The officers at the windows through using gas masks, handkerchiefs or other means, if the windows are broken, can take turn about keeping the inside of the rooms carefully covered while the downstairs part of the house is thoroughly searched.
The upstairs rooms of the Young farm house could easily have been searched by two men under cover of shields, but it is the usual practice to send four men into an upstairs section.
From their reaction to gas at Houston, Texas, I imagine that had Jennings and Harry Young been properly gassed at Springfield, officers would have found them dead inside, probably in an upstairs room where they most likely would have gone for a final and futile attempt to kill those in the skirmish line before killing each other. Under my direction, those in the skirmish line would have been poor targets for even an expert's aim.
The important thing to remember in raiding barricaded criminals and Insane persons, is that gas must be given time enough to do its work, and that great caution must be exercised in any and all approaches to the barricade. Every police department and every sheriff's force in the central west not having an armored car ought to be provided with a full supply of the chemicals commonly used in police work and plenty of good firearms. Raids such as I have described could be staged on the Young premises just as effectively at night with the use of star shells which illuminate over considerable areas as in the daytime."
