HEAD HUNTING

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 June 1928, Page 8

HEAD HUNTING

BANKERS OFFER REWARDS.

The entire South-west of Texas is watching the more or less singlehanded light which Ranger Captain Frank A. Hamer is waging on the standing reward of £lOOO offered by the Texas Bankers’ Association for dead bank bandits. Hamer fired his first gun recently when he appeared before a grand jury at Rankin, Upton County, and offered testimony supporting his claim that the reward has resulted in organisation of a “murder ring.” Several months ago the Texas Bankers’ Association offered a reward of £lOOO for dead bandits, and the printed notices in the windows of the member banks specified that not one cent would be paid for live ones This offer was made in an effort to stem a wave of banditry in which banks had been heavy losers.

On the day following the announcement, Hamer, senior Ranger Captain and the South-west’s most picturesque and most feared peace officer, denounced the reward, asserting flhat it would lead to ‘‘frame-ups” and the slaughter of innocent men. Within two weeks two men were killed at the back door of a bank in Odessa, a West Texas village, by four officers late at night. The officers shared a reward of £2OOO. Within a few days Hamer charged that a fifth man had “tippdfl’’ the officers and had sent the two men to their death. He pointed out that the men were not equipped for safe-breakingj were palpably amateurs with no criminal records, and he claimed they were duped into going to the bank at the hour of the killing. Within a fortnight three Mexicans were shot down while standing in front

of a bank at Stanton, 40 miles from Odessa. Two men, one a deputy sheriff, did the shooting. Two of the Mexicans died instantly, but a third lived to tell how the two assailantshad brought the trio to a point near Stanton in a truck and arranged to meet tihem in front of the bank, having promised them employment. The two men were a nested and one confessed that they had shot down the three men in the expectation of collecting a reward of 15.000 dollars from the bankers’ association. One of these men later broke gaol and is now at large.

A few weeks subsequent to this, two more men were shot down at the back of a bank, this time at Rankin, near both Odessa and Stanton as Texas distances go. They were shot by a sheriff and his deputation at night, and instantly killed. The officers asserted they had been warned of an attempt to rob the bank. About three weeks previously Captain Hamer made public a letter he had written W. M. Massie, president of the bankers’ association, inviting him to appoint a committee of bankers to look over the proof which Hamer had assembled. No action was taken by the bankers Taking cognizance of Hainer’s statement, the grand jury of Upton County, in which Rankin is located, summoned the Ranger

Captain and he testified before the jury recently. Its findings and indictments will not be announced until the men affected, if any, are under arrest. Hamer contends tlhat it is entirely doubtful if the four men, other than the Mexicans, knew for what purpose they were to go to a tryst near the bank buildings, and it has been established that the Mexicans had no thought of robbery. x Governor Dan Moody and Adjutant General R. L. Robertson, Hamer’s superiors, have backed the Ranger captain, as have a majority of the Texas newspapers who have given editorial expression to opinions. The reward has been denounced as contrary to public policy, calculated to incite criminal acts and constitutes an as-

sumption of power not vested in any private organisation. The reward may have cout’ijbnted to the slight abatement in bank robberies, although numerous banks have been robbed since its announcement. In no instance has a bank employee or official killed a bandit. The purpose of the reward was to encourage bankers and private citizens to resist Hie hold-up men.