100 years ago in Spokane: A suspected bootlegger fired twice at an officer in a bust gone wrong

Motorcycle officer J.W. Hudson fired three shots at a gang of suspected bootleggers near the old Schade Brewery just east of downtown.

Police had received a tip that booze was to be delivered near the brewery, so Hudson was detailed to stake out the area.

At 11 p.m., he saw a car pull in. He “sneaked up close,” pointed his gun, informed the men in the car he was an officer and ordered them to put up their hands.

Unfortunately, there were four men in the car, instead of the two he expected. And one of them was beating another man over the head with a gun.

The man with the gun stopped whacking the other man’s head long enough to point his gun at the officer and pull the trigger twice. The gun misfired both times, possibly because it had been employed too vigorously as a cudgel.

“I thought it was time to get going myself, as I wasn’t too sure just how many shots would misfire,” officer Hudson said.

Hudson stepped back and shot three times in the direction of the gunman. Then the driver hit the gas, and the car sped off. Hudson wasn’t sure whether he hit anyone. He was convinced that there was whiskey in the car and that “one bootlegger was trying to rob another.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1933: Nazi Germany staged a daylong national boycott of Jewish-owned businesses.

1976: Apple Computer was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.