On this date, Sept. 23, in 1970, Boston police Officer Walter Schroeder was shot and killed while responding to a silent alarm at a bank being robbed by a gang of anti-Vietnam War activists.
While the armed and masked robbers fired into the bank’s walls and ordered everyone down on the floor, Schroeder drove up in his patrol car, got out and started walking toward the bank when getaway driver William “Lefty” Gilday shot him in the back several times with an M1 rifle.
Recommended Stories
Schroeder, 42, died and was survived by his wife and nine children.
Gilday was captured sentenced to life in prison. One of the co-conspirators, Katherine Ann Power, a 21-year-old student from Brandeis University, fled to Oregon, married and had a son, and hid out as cooking teacher before turning herself in to authorities 23 years later. Power served six years in prison.
Three years after Schroeder’s death, his brother, Boston police Detective John Schroeder, was shot and killed while responding to a burglary.
– Scott McCabe
