Ralph Hinds
Agency: Kansas City Police Department, MO
Officer Ralph hinds served with the Kansas City Police Department for 5 years.
On May 12, 1929, Officers Ralph Hinds and Delbert E. Bates were answering a disturbance call at 1409 Brooklyn Avenue. As the officers stepped onto the porch of the house, Ferdinand Brockington appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a derby hat, smoking a cigar, and held a suitcase in his left hand with his right hand hidden behind his back. As the officers neared him, he brought out his right hand, which was holding an automatic pistol. He shot Officer Hinds once in each leg, and as he fell, he shot him in the back. He then shot Officer Bates in one leg, and fled through the back of the house.
Officers, volunteers, and bloodhounds searched for Brockington. Later that day, Officer William J. Haines spotted a man who matched Brockington's description wearing a derby hat, and cigar at the corner of 15th and Brooklyn Avenue. Officer Haines did not want to become involved in a gunfight with him, so he enlisted the help of a motorist, who drove him around the corner allowing Officer Haines to approach Brockington from the rear. When Haines seized him, Brockington denied the shootings although he was still carrying the pistol. He was taken back to his house and was identified by his wife and eight children as the shooter. Brockington then said that he shot the officers because he thought they were burglars but his family and neighbors all agreed that there was enough light that they had no difficulty in distinguishing the uniformed officers. The family then made a statement that Brockington had vowed to "mow down the law as fast as it comes" after learning that one of his daughters called the police in an attempt to prevent him from beating his wife. It was reported that Brockington beat his wife on a regular basis for the last fifteen of their twenty-five years of marriage.
The 54-year-old suspect was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Two years later his death sentence was suspended indefinitely after he was adjudged insane and sent to the state asylum. On August 2, 1933, he escaped from the asylum. On September 25, 1941, he was captured in Pontiac, Michigan. In 1958 he died in the state mental hospital.
Officer Hinds died of his wounds May 17, 1929 at the age of 32.
Reflections:
Ralph was my great uncle. Although I never knew him, his death changed so many family members' lives. He was a wonderful uncle to six of my great aunts. He loved them so much. His sister lost her husband leaving her to raise my aunts. She ended up in a mental institution for the rest of her life.If Ralph had been alive, he would have been their caretaker. The two oldest nieces were 15 and 14 and went to live on the streets working wherever they could to survive.Three went to a Catholic orphanage and one of them went with an uncle, not the nicest man, he wouldn't take the rest of them. My aunts and grandmother were left with no family to take care of them. Uncle Ralph's death changed their lives forever and it was felt and is still felt today. I didn't know him, but yet I do know him very well.
Nancy Bradford
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