Vancouver Police Department

When Cops Were Robbers Part 1

by Eve Lazarus on September 9, 2022

They called themselves the terrible three. Three dirty Vancouver cops who met during training in the notorious “Class of 1956.”

This story is from Cold Case BC: The stories behind the province’s most sensational murder and missing person cases

Constable Leonard Hogue was one of three rogue cops who supplemented their police paychecks through an escalating series of robberies. It started small. He and partner Joe Percival used their inside knowledge to commit a series of B&Es. But when David Harrison came onboard, they quickly escalated to bigger payoffs. They robbed a Hunter’s Sporting Goods on Kingsway and their haul included 14 guns and ski masks which they put to use in bank robberies.

The first job at the CIBC on Kingsway in Burnaby went off without a hitch, and they escaped with $106,000. In 1964 they knocked over the Simpson Sears on Kingsway. The following January they robbed the Bank of Nova Scotia at Dunbar and West 41^st Avenue.

When cops were robbers — Vancouver Sun, June 22, 1964

Things started to get really interesting early in 1965 when the gang learned of a $1.2 million shipment of cash scheduled to arrive at the CPR Merchandise service on West Pender Street. The cash was old money taken out of circulation by the banks and on its way to the mint in Ottawa to be destroyed. The robbery was perfectly planned and executed and they had pulled off the biggest heist in Vancouver’s history.

What they didn’t know was that the $1.2 million in cash (about $9.5 million in today’s dollars) had been drilled with three large holes and was virtually worthless. Retired CKNW investigative reporter George Garrett, dubbed it the Holey Money case.

Next: When Cops were Murderers – Part 2 – Episode 29

Show notes:

Sponsors: Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours and Erin Hakin Jewellery

Music: Andreas Schuld ‘Waiting for You’

Intro and voice over: Mark Dunn

Interviews: George Garrett (CKNW reporter, retired); Leon Bourque, (retired VPD detective)

Buy me a coffee promo: McBride Communications and Media

Source: Cold Case BC: The stories behind the province’s most sensational murder and missing person cases

Tags CPR Merchandise Service, David Harrison, George Garrett, Hunter's Sporting Goods, Joe Percival, Leonard Hogue, Simpson Sears, Vancouver Police Department, VPD

Vice in Vancouver’s West End

by Eve Lazarus on May 6, 2022

If you lived in Vancouver’s West End after 1981 you may not know that street barricades and parklets are a leftover from the West End’s prostitution era

West End:

Aaron Chapman’s latest book Vancouver Vice, is a colourful history of the West End in the 1970s and ‘80s. In those days up to 300 sex workers—male and female—strolled the streets—40 to 50 of whom might be working on any given day or night. As Aaron says, the only evidence that this open-air brothel existed is a memorial dedicated to sex workers on Jervis Street and the barricades that created those charming cul-de-sacs and parklets.

“The barricades were first proposed to calm traffic in 1973,” says Aaron. “But when they were eventually installed in 1981, the City of Vancouver was so desperate to look like they were doing something about the sex worker issue in the West End that their purpose was renamed.” The idea was that barricades would discourage motorists from driving up and down residential streets in search of sex.

Prostitution:

Up until the 1970s, prostitution was mostly tucked away behind closed apartment and rooming house doors, and later nightclubs and hotel lounges. A couple of high-profile cases managed to push sex workers out onto Davie Street. “Then people are upset that there is prostitution on Davie Street, so it goes to the residential streets and the people get upset who live there,” says Aaron. Increased patrols and a greater uniformed police presence in the West End had mixed results.

Hookers in Vancouver's West End — A West End sex worker, Courtesy Aaron Chapman, ca. 1980

“It seems like everything that the VPD tried to do to curb street prostitution had the worst unintended effect, including the street barricades,” he says. “The street barricades don’t really work because they just slow traffic down and that allows the sex workers more time to negotiate a price with their clients.”

On November 16, 1981, City of Vancouver workers began installing $28,000 worth of temporary barriers. These were little more than chain link fences made permanent the following year.

West End residents protest prostitution — West End residents protesting, ca.1980. Courtesy Aaron Chapman

Residents upset:

At the time, says Aaron, this upset residents who couldn’t park outside their apartment buildings. Even local Fire Hall #6 worried about longer response times and complained about the barricades. “If you proposed removing those barricades today and opening the streets back up to traffic, you’d have the same amount of people saying they don’t want cars going down their streets and parking in front of their buildings,” says Aaron.

Shame the Johns in Vancouver's West End — Shame the Johns, ca.1980. Courtesy Aaron Chapman

Vancouver After Dark: Richards on Richards

Tags Aaron Chapman, prostitution, Shame the John, Vancouver Police Department, Vancouver Vice, West End

The Man who Blew up the Courthouse Lion

by Eve Lazarus on August 6, 2021

It’s been nearly 75 years, but I’m confident that the mystery of who blew up one of the courthouse lions in 1942 has now been solved. No one will be charged for this crime, but it’s thanks to a reader—we’ll call him Dave. It was his grandfather who made a bang loud enough that Vancouverites thought the Japanese were invading the city.

The lions were created by Scottish sculptor John Bruce in 1910. This 2021 photo by Tom Carter clearly shows the split.

Blast rocks city:

According to the Vancouver Sun, the explosions could be heard as far away as Point Grey. The blasts rocked the city centre, smashing more than 70 windows at the Hotel Vancouver, the Devonshire, the Georgia Hotel and the courthouse.

The first explosion came at 9:37 pm and blew off the hind quarters of the lion on the right of the door. A second explosion quickly followed, and filled the air with flying chunks of granite.

Inspector JFCB Vance:

Inspector JFCB Vance of the Vancouver Police Department (and my podcast and book Blood, Sweat, and Fear) was called in to examine the fuse and wire. Vance found that dynamite ‘time bombs’ were placed one on each side of the lion. The wire was likely used to bind the sticks of dynamite together.

There were no reports of stolen dynamite, and police told the public that they believed the dynamiter was a crank. His crime called “an isolated incident of vandalism.”

Dave is sure that the “crank” was his Grandfather, Carl Schmidt. Carl was born in Germany in 1869, received a degree in engineering from the University of Heidelberg, married and had a son. When his wife died, Carl immigrated to Canada. He met Dave’s grandmother Ruth McKibbon in Vancouver and they married in 1909.

Family Secret:

Witnesses saw a short man running down the stairs just after the explosion. Carl, who stood about 5 foot 5, died four years later at age 77. It was before Dave was born, but the details have been passed down through the family. It’s become one of those known but rarely talked about family secrets. “I’m the only one left who has all the details of the story,” he says.

According to John Atkin, the lions were not modeled on the lions in Trafalgar Square as widely reported, but from photos and measurements taken of some circus lions that visited Vancouver in 1908. You can clearly see where the lion was put back together and the discoloration between the two parts in this photo by John Atkin.

The details are sketchy, but Dave says his grandfather was implicated in a plot to blow up a bridge in Seattle at the start of World War 1. He and his wife and two small daughters relocated to Calgary—away from the coast and presumably other German sympathizers.

Things did not go well for Carl. He struggled to find work, and his son who fought for Germany, was killed in WW1.

Anti-German sentiment:

The family moved back to Vancouver in the early 1920s, and soon after their marriage collapsed. By 1939, Carl had moved into a room on East Cordova Street. Anti-German sentiment would have been high in 1942, and the lion—a symbol of British justice and imperialism was an obvious target.

The second Hotel Vancouver shown left of frame was still standing in 1942. Vancouver Archives photo, ca.1920

“When you look at his life there was a lot of promise there and it all just fizzled out. He may have thought by 1942 this is my last point where I can make a statement or whatever he was trying to do and figured out how to do it,” says Dave. “Even though I’m his grandson and there’s nothing to be proud about, you can see why he would have a lot of resentment.”

Fortunately no one was hurt in the incident. John Atkin’s writes that the cost to repair the damages from the blast was $5,000 (a whopping $80,000 in today’s dollars). You can still see the split in the lion.

Carl is buried in the Mountain View Cemetery.

Tags Carl Schmidt, Devonshire Apartment Hotel, Georgia Hotel, Hotel Vancouver, Inspector JFCB Vance, Vancouver Courthouse, Vancouver Police Department

Episode 09: Shootout at False Creek Flats

by Eve Lazarus on July 12, 2019

On February 26, 1947 Vancouver Police officers Charles Boyes and Oliver Ledingham were murdered in a shootout at False Creek Flats.

This story is from Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance

Fats Robertson:

On February 26, 1947, three teenagers planned to rob the Royal Bank at Renfrew and First Avenue in East Vancouver. Seventeen-year-old William (Fats) Robertson, was upset with his friends for leaving him out of the robbery and tipped off police. Just as the teens were putting on their stocking masks, police rolled up. A car chase ensued, ending when the boys bailed out of the car and tried to lose police in the rail yards of False Creek flats.

Detective Percy Hoare had managed to disarm William Henderson, 17 but was unable to stop the gun fight. Officers Oliver Ledingham and Charles Boyes were killed, and Hoare, was shot in the leg and shoulder. Badly injured, but still able to shoot, Hoare killed 18-year-old Doug Carter. Another of his bullets hit Harry Medos, also 18, in the leg.

False Creek Flats in 1966, much the same as it was in 1947. The area is 450 acres and bounded by Great Northern Way, Main Street, Prior Street and Clark Drive. Courtesy Vancouver Archives

Shots fired:

Vancouver lawyer and gun expert Richard Berrow tells me that Detective Hoare’s actions were quite incredible. “He struck Carter twice and Medos once, while they were running away. That’s three hits with six rounds, by an officer who’d been hit twice himself in the leg and his non-shooting arm by a big, heavy, .44 calibre bullet.,” he says. “The three hits Hoare achieved (with his .38 army special) would have been a fine result even if he had not been injured at all. In modern time, deadly force shooting data out of the US indicates that today’s officers achieve an overall hit rate of 22% to 52% in violent encounters.

“The 1940s era police service revolver like Hoare’s Colt and the equivalent Smith & Wessons held only six rounds but were quite accurate, probably more so than the modern Glock-type pistols carried by most police nowadays.”

Between 1912 and 1987, 16 Vancouver police officers have been killed in the line of duty. The officers are remembered in an exhibit at the Vancouver Police Museum, For more information see: In Memoriam

Logo Image: False Creek Flats, 1954. Vancouver Sun photo

Credits:

Intro and outro music: Duke Ellington’s St. Louie Toodle
Steve Sweeney (retired VPD Deputy Chief of Police)
Richard J. Berrow (Vancouver lawyer and gun expert)
Intro and voice of Inspector Vance: Mark Dunn
Words of Detective Percy Hoare voiced by Matt Walton
Words of Mae Carter and Mary Magdalene Peterson voiced by Megan Dunn
Background track created by Nico Vettese wetalkofdreams.com

Sources:

Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s First Forensic Investigator, by Eve Lazarus (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017)
Vital Statistics
Coroner’s Inquest for Officers Boyes and Ledingham, courtesy BC Archives
Vancouver Police Museum and Archives
The personal files of Inspector John F.C.B. Vance
Newspapers: Vancouver Sun, Province, Vancouver News Herald, Daily Colonist, Globe & Mail

Tags Charles Boyes, Oliver Ledingham, Percy Hoare, Vancouver Police Department, William (Fats Robertson

Episode 04: Lay Off or We’ll Bump You Off

by Eve Lazarus on April 26, 2019

By the 1930s, Inspector Vance had become a familiar face at crime scenes and was often called to testify in court because of his knowledge of forensics. In fact, his skills and analytic abilities were so effective that in 1934 there were seven attempts on his life—including a car bomb—and for a time he and his family were under constant police guard from criminals afraid to go up against him in court.

Inspector Vance in his lab ca.1930s. Courtesy Vance family

The stories for this first series are from my book Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance (Eve Lazarus, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017). Vance was one of the first forensic scientists in North America, and during his 42-year-career, helped to solve some of the most sensational murders of the 20th Century. Each episode focuses on one of those cases.

Photo logo: Threatening letter from the personal files of John FCB Vance

Credits

Intro and outro: Duke Ellington’s St. Louie Toodle
Background track created by Nico Vettese www.wetalkofdreams.com
Inspector Vance’s voice by Mark Dunn

Photo logo: Threatening letter from the personal files of John FCB Vance

Sources:

Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s First Forensic Investigator, by Eve Lazarus (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017)
Primary source material from Vancouver Sun, Province, Vancouver News Herald, The World; Nanaimo Free Press, Daily Colonist, and the personal files of Inspector John F.C.B. Vance including his diary.

Tags Blood Sweat and Fear, Inspector J.F.C.B. Vance, the story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver Police Department

Blood, Sweat, and Fear: A True Crime Podcast

by Eve Lazarus on March 30, 2019

I’ve been working on a true crime/history podcast for the last couple of months based on my book Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s First Forensic Investigator. My original thought was that it would be a great way to reuse some of the research I do for my books, and it is, but it’s become a bit of an obsession, and I plan to do a future series on Cold Case Vancouver, where I can weave in many of the interviews that I conducted with family, friends, and law enforcement over the years.

Vance in his lab, now the Vancouver Police Museum and Archives building on East Cordova Street.

The learning curve is huge and my podcasts are a work in progress. I’m learning to write for the ear, and I’ve spent dozens of hours watching YouTube videos to teach myself Audacity, the free audio software program, so I can produce the show myself.

12-episodes:

There will be 12 episodes in this first series, published every second Friday. Each one follows a major crime that Vance helped to solve using cutting-edge forensics during his 42-year-career.

Vance’s exploits frequently appeared in “true crime” detective magazines

I’ve tried to show how the social forces of the time impacted the crime. For instance, Vance’s work took him all around the province and up into the Yukon in what is one of the most interesting periods in British Columbia’s history. Vance started work for the city of Vancouver in 1907, four months before anti-Asian riots swept through the city. He worked through the crime-ridden Depression and two world wars, and he was employed by two of the most corrupt police chiefs in the history of the Vancouver Police Department.

Vance’s work turned him into a celebrity, and he became known as the Sherlock Holmes of Canada in the press.

Much of the information came from the Vancouver Sun, Province, Vancouver News Herald, and the World. Most of the quotes are from Coroner’s Inquests, but the bulk of the information (including the clippings shown in the post) came from the personal files of Inspector John F.C.B. Vance that were discovered in a garage on Gabriola Island by one of Vance’s grandchildren when I was doing the research for the book in 2016.

The first episode: The Mysterious Disappearance of Clara Millard, takes place in Vancouver in 1914.

Tags Clara Millard, Inspector John Vance, Nanaimo Museum, Vancouver Police Department

The shootout at False Creek Flats

by Eve Lazarus on February 24, 2018

On February 26, 1947 Vancouver Police officers Charles Boyes and Oliver Ledingham were murdered in a shootout at False Creek Flats.

This story is from Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance

During the 1940s, many of Vancouver’s young men aged between 13 and 18 were recruited into “hoodlum gangs.” The youth were good at steering clear of police, members were rarely identified, and their crimes became increasingly serious. Police believed that an organized crime ring was recruiting these boys and using them to rob military depots and armouries and then use the stolen guns to rob banks around the Lower Mainland.

False Creek Flats and the Great Northern Railway Round House in 1956. CVA 447 250

Bank Robbery:

On February 26, 1947 three teenagers planned to rob the Royal Bank at Renfrew and First. A 17-year-old boy named William (Fats) Robertson, was upset with his friends for leaving him out of the robbery and tipped off police. Just as the boys were putting on their stocking masks, police rolled up and got into a car chase. It ended with the boys bailing out of the car and trying to lose police in the railyards of False Creek flats.

A gun fight ensured in which officers Ledingham and Boyes were killed, and another officer Percy Hoare, was shot in the leg and shoulder. Badly injured, but still able to shoot, Hoare killed Doug Carter, an 18-year-old with a wife and baby, another hit Harry Medos in the leg.

Oliver Ledingham and Charles Boyes. Courtesy Vancouver Police Museum

Gloves Off:

The shootings put Chief Walter Mulligan in a difficult position. Just two days before he had told a Vancouver Sun reporter that the “gloves were off” in a war against city crime. And, as the same newspaper reported, in the next 48 hours Vancouver experienced seven burglaries, two hold ups, two attempted robberies and 19 thefts.

Harry Medos, 18, was executed, while 17-year-old William Henderson received five years for possession of a firearm.

Fats Robertson, who was not invited along on the robbery that day, went on to a spectacular life of crime and a career on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. He was a co-owner of the Wigwam Inn on Indian Arm in the early 1960s and turned it into an illegal gambling operation, printed counterfeit money, and ran a brothel. Eventually he was jailed for trying to bribe an RCMP officer.

More than 100,000 people attended the funeral for Boyes and Ledingham. VPL 42982

Ledingham, 40, who was known in his Kitsilano neighbourhood for his crops of gladioli and tulips, left behind a wife and 13-year-old son. Boyes, 38, who was a wizard with tools and often fixed the toys of the kids in his Point Grey neighbourhood, left behind a wife and six-year-old daughter.

The full story of the Shootout at False Creek Flats is now a Blood, Sweat, and Fear podcast

Tags Charles Boyes, False Creek Flats, hoodlum gangs, Oliver Ledingham, Vancouver Police Department, William (Fats Robertson

The life’s work of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s first forensic investigator

by Eve Lazarus on February 10, 2018

In July 2016, several large cardboard boxes filled with photographs, clippings, forensic samples, and case notes pre-dating 1950, and thought to be thrown out decades ago, were discovered in a garage on Gabriola Island. They form the basis of Blood, Sweat, and Fear: the story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s first forensic investigator.

Crime Scene:

I first “met” Inspector John F.C.B. Vance when I was writing Cold Case Vancouver. He turned up at a crime scene in Chapter 1, the murder of Jennie Eldon Conroy, a 24-year-old war worker who was beaten to death and dumped at the West Vancouver Cemetery. It turned out that Vance wasn’t actually a police officer–he ran the Police Bureau of Science for the Vancouver Police Department, and his cutting-edge work in forensics solved some of the most sensational cases in the first half of the last century.

Unfortunately, Jennie’s wasn’t one of them.

Blood, Sweat, and Fear — Vance examines a spent bullet through a comparison microscope in 1932. Courtesy Vance family

240 Cordova:

For most of his career, Vance worked out of 240 East Cordova Street, the building that now houses the Vancouver Police Museum. With their help, I was able to track down a couple of Vance’s grandchildren. Janey and David remembered that J.F.C.B.—as Vance was known in the family—had packed up several cardboard boxes full of photographs, clippings, and case notes from dozens of cases when he retired in 1949. He took them with him when he moved in 1960, but no one had seen them for years, and it was thought that they’d been thrown out. And then, in July 2016, more than half a century after Vance’s death, the boxes were found in another grandchild’s garage on Gabriola Island.

Jennie Conroy:

Incredibly, when Janey opened the first box she found a large, tattered envelope labelled Jennie Eldon Conroy murdered West Vancouver, Dec 28, 1944. Inside there were smaller envelopes marked with the VPD insignia and filled with hair and gravel samples from the crime scene, an autopsy report, crime scene photos, and several newspaper clippings.

Vance was skilled in serology, toxicology, ballistics, trace evidence and autopsy. He was a familiar face at crime scenes and in the courtroom, and was called the Sherlock Holmes of Canada by the international media. Yet few people have heard of him.

Hopefully that will change with the publication of Blood, Sweat, and Fear, but best of all, all those boxes, the crime scene photos, the case notes, even Vance’s personal diary, are now with the Vancouver Police Museum and Archives. They’ll be properly processed, cared for, and eventually made available to the public.

Blood, Sweat and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance is now a 12-episode True Crime podcast

Tags 240 East Cordova Street, J.F.C.B. Vance, Jennie Conroy, Police Bureau of Science, Vancouver Police Department, Vancouver Police Museum and Archives

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