While on patrol on August 30, 1919 shortly before 3:00 a.m., Edmonton city police constable William Nixon approached a man standing at an entrance of the Twin City Transfer office in downtown Edmonton.
He asked what the man was doing. The man pulled out a gun, shot Constable Nixon, and ran. On September 1 there was an attempted murder in west Edmonton, and the description of the culprit matched that of the man given by Constable Nixon before he died of his gunshot wound on August 31.
The suspect, John Gundard Larsen, recently released from prison for forgery, was wanted on a warrant for robbery, and was reported to be heading west of Edmonton on a Grand Trunk Pacific train.
On September 2, pilot Wilfred “Wop” May took off in his recently-acquired 1918 Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplane with city police detective James Campbell to chase the suspect, landing at Edson in front of the Edson Hotel.
It was the first use of an aircraft in the Dominion of Canada to chase a wanted suspect. Detective Campbell continued the manhunt on the ground with Alberta Provincial Police constable McElroy. Wop May took off on Edson’s main street to return to Edmonton, having to dodge the town pump on takeoff, and soon had to make a forced landing at Wabamun for fuel, as he had faced strong headwinds in the return flight.
On Saturday, August 29, 2009, the chase will be re-enacted by the Alberta Aviation Museum using its 1920s-style Kelly-D biplane.
It is the aircraft acquired by the museum in December 2008 and used by pilots Tom Hinderks and Curtis Peters to re-enact the 1928 first scheduled air mail delivery from Winnipeg to Edmonton. Later, in early 2009, the same pilots used the biplane to re-enact the 1929 flight when pilots Wop May and Vic Horner delivered diphtheria serum to northern Alberta.
In June 2009, Hinderks and his daughter, Victoria, re-enacted the 1919 first commercial flight in western Canada when George Gorman and Pete Derbyshire delivered copies of the Edmonton Journal to Wetaskiwin.
The August 29 flight will be the fourth re-enactment of a historic flight as part of the celebrations of Canada’s Centennial of Flight by the Alberta Aviation Museum Association and the Edmonton Aviation Heritage Society. Again the pilots will be Hinderks, the museum’s executive director, and Peters, a Calgary pilot and businessman.
As part of the re-enactment chase, vintage cars and hot rods will follow the biplane to Edson along with representation from the Edmonton City Police.
How did the chase end?
John Gundard Larsen was captured by Detective Campbell and Constable McElroy near Edson on September 3, 1919. He managed to escape for a brief time and was captured the next day by the same policemen and returned to Edmonton for trial. Larsen was a dangerous man, wanted for murder, attempted murder and robbery.
While at the police station in Edmonton awaiting trial, he attempted to escape by attacking a city policeman, Constable Little, who was seriously wounded by Larsen when struck on the neck with the sharp rim of a granite cup. For his attack, Larsen was charged with attempted murder.
Accused killer Larsen was found not guilty of Constable William Nixon’s murder; there were no witnesses and proof was difficult. However, at his trial, several witnesses and victims testified about armed robberies committed by Larsen, who was convicted of armed robbery and attempted murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Constable William Nixon, pictured right, was the second Edmonton police officer to be killed by gunfire while on duty. Ironically, after service with Edmonton police, he enlisted for service in the First World War, when he was awarded the Military Medal for bravery in the field. After the war, Nixon returned to police service, then was gunned down on a city street.
The first Edmonton policeman to be shot and killed while on duty was Constable Frank Beevers, less than a year before William Nixon was shot. On October 17, 1918, while investigating an armed robbery near the Northern Hotel, 97 Street and 102 Avenue, Constable Beevers was confronted by a suspect who shot him and fled. Beevers died a short time later.
The third Edmonton policeman shot and killed was Constable Ezio Faraone. On June 25, 1990, Constable Faraone, who was assigned to a Tactical Team Unit, detected in an alleyway the vehicle used by two suspects fleeing an armed robbery. Faraone observed only one suspect with the vehicle. With his attention focused towards this suspect, a second suspect hidden from view in the backseat, exited the vehicle and shot Constable Faraone.