On this day in 1927 was the bloody Santa Claus Bank Robbery in Cisco (Eastland County), Texas.
" It all began on December 23, 1927, around noon when Marshall Ratliff, Henry Helms, Robert Hill, all ex-cons, and Louis Davis, a relative of Helms, held up the First National Bank in Cisco. Ratliff had been caught with his brother Lee after robbing a bank in Valera, and they had each served only a year of their sentences before being pardoned by Governor Miriam A. Ferguson. They had planned to rob the Cisco bank together, but Lee had already been arrested again. So Marshall pulled in Helms and Hill, whom he knew from Huntsville…"
" During this period three or four Texas banks a day were being robbed, and in response, the Texas Bankers Association had offered a $5,000 reward to anyone shooting a bank robber during the crime. It was partly this reward that turned a simple bank robbery into a deadly crime. "
" A fusillade of gunfire began, as many citizens who owned guns were now outside the bank. The robbers forced all of the people in the bank out the door and towards their car. Several of these hostages were wounded as they emerged into the alley, including Alex Spears, the bank president. Most of the customers escaped; however, two small girls, Laverne Comer and Emma May Robertson, were taken as hostages. In a shootout in the alley, as the robbers tried to get to their car, Chief Bedford and Deputy George Carmichael were mortally wounded; Bedford died several hours later, and Carmichael held on until January 17. Ratliff and Davis were also wounded in the shootout, Davis severely."
MY COMMENT:
(You can't accuse Eastland County residents of shying away from enjoying a good gunfight.)
" Helms was identified as the one who had gunned down both lawmen and was given the death sentence in late February. After an unsuccessful insanity plea, he was executed by electric chair on September 6, 1929. Ratliff was first convicted of armed robbery on January 27, 1928, and sentenced to 99 years in prison. On March 30 he was sentenced to execution for his role in the deaths of Bedford and Carmichael, although no one could testify to having seen him fire a gun in the bank."
Marshall Ratliff subsequently killed a jailer in an escape attempt and was lynched by a mob of Eastland County citizens on November 19, 1929. Had to hang him twice. The knot came loose the first time.
6 dead, 8 wounded in the robbery.
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/santa-claus-bank-robbery “If you’re going to have crime it should at least be organized crime”
-Havelock Vetinari