About 10:40 p.m., Louis Palos
and Ted Jordan were closing the market for the night and had just
dropped $4,500 in cash and checks into the time-lock safe when Banks
and Green forced their way in and demanded money.

"Both men
were drunk and they were mean," Jordan said. "When I showed them the
sign on the safe explaining that it could only be opened by a time lock
they didn't seem to understand. They made us lie down on the floor,
kicked us, punched us and jabbed us with their guns."

The
robbers searched the men and became furious when all they found was 50
cents in Jordan's pockets, so they began beating the employees, the
Mirror-News said.

Someone passing the store noticed the robbery and called police.

The first officers to arrive were Charles E. Bogardus and Norman A. Comeau.
When the officers broke in, Banks and Green ran for the back door. But
it was bolted tight — they were trapped. They rushed up the stairs to
a loft and hid behind the compresser for the store's cold storage unit.

By this time, plainclothes Officers Charles Calvert and George Pettey arrived. Bogardus
and Calvert headed for the back stairway, despite Jordan's warning:
"There's a loft up there. You'll be sitting ducks if you go up those
stairs!"

Bogardus went first. In the dark at the top of the stairs, Grant grabbed Bogardus' gun and shot him in the head. Bogardus fell down the steps, but as Grant tried to escape Calvert killed him.

Banks shot at the officers, and while Pettey fired back, Comeau crawled out to the patrol car and radioed for an ambulance.

As the gunshots continued, ambulance attendants George Antonelli and Don Gardner crawled through the darkened store, found Bogardus and dragged him away.

Mildred Bogardus was rushed to Central Receiving Hospital, where doctors were struggling to save her husband's life.

"Please darling," she wept softly, "please know that I'm here with you. Oh, please stay with me," the Mirror-News said. Bogardus died a short time later. He was 40. 

In the meantime, more than 35 patrol cars responded to the store, and Banks was shot to death. 

During Bogardus'
memorial at Utter-McKinley Mortuary, attendants had to lead his widow
from his flag-draped casket because she kept pleading that they let her
see him again, The Times said. Hundreds of officers attended his
funeral at Inglewood Park Cemetery and he was posthumously awarded the LAPD's Medal of Valor.

"If ever a guy was completely fearless it was Bogie," Officer Comeau
said of his partner. "I suppose we should have called for help before
going in the store and maybe used tear gas. But at a time like that you
just don't wait."

Part of this story makes me uneasy. Based on the names and addresses, Howard Green Grant, 1406 W. 38th
Place, and Napoleon Nathaniel Banks, 1832 E. 103rd St., I wonder if the
robbers were African American. I especially wonder because there's some
question about how Banks was killed after Grant was shot to death.

The Mirror-News says the responding officers included Sgt. Thomas Cornwell and Lloyd F. Tucker. According to the Mirror, Banks stepped out from behind the compresser, fired at Tucker and was killed by Cornwell.

The
Times says: "Officer L.F. Tucker flushed Banks from behind some cans in
the rear of the market. After two warning shots failed to make the
bandit drop his gun, Tucker cut him down with three more shots."

It's
troubling when news accounts differ so much, especially between sister
papers. I wonder what Examiner and the Herald said. And I wonder if
there's anything in the Eagle or the Sentinel. Stay tuned.