In the 1930s, the Sunset District was still a sleepy outer neighborhood covered with sand dunes. From time to time, however, mayhem and mischief visited the fogbelt. Today, we'll look back at a bloody grocery store robbery on Lawton, a bizarre kidnapping and robbery, and a wild car chase that ended in a hail of gunfire near Frederick and Waller.
SF Chronicle, 2/8/1930
On February 7th, 1930, a grocery store holdup at 1908 Lawton St. turned into a deadly shootout when two thieves "ran into a carefully planned police trap." Weeks before the incident, Park Station Capt. J.J. O'Meara had assigned Policeman Albert Harlow to stake out the market at the corner of Lawton and 25th Avenue.
At 4:10pm, Alexander Hiller, 22, and Thomas J. Moody, 17, entered the store brandishing guns and ordered Mrs. Edna Jones and Miss Elizabeth Koski to "get on back to the till." Jones and Koski "fell on the floor, rolled under the counter and screamed lustily," which was Harlow's cue to come out of a back room, "in his hands a murderous police shotgun." Hiller dropped his revolver and bolted out the front door, ignoring a warning shot from Harlow's weapon.
Far left: Capt, J. J. O'Meara in 1909. (photo UC Berkeley Bancroft Archive)
When Hiller stood up holding Moody's gun, Harlow "let him have it," and shot the bandit in the face. Moody attempted to flee the scene, but Harlow commandeered a passing car and captured him after three blocks. Moody claimed he would have escaped "except that I forgot to take the safety off my rod." Hiller was transported to SF General where he succumbed to his injuries.
"With all the bravado of a hardened criminal," Moody told police that he and his partner had "knocked over" a restaurant and about 15 gas stations since leaving Los Angeles for San Francisco. On May 14th, Moody was found guilty of second-degree robbery and was sentenced to serve one year to life at San Quentin. Harlow received an official SFPD commendation for his actions.
SF Chronicle, 11/27/1930
On November 26th, 1930, the Chronicle reported that a radio singer named Rene Sarazan was kidnapped upon leaving a voice lesson in a Civic Center hotel. According to the victim, two armed men forced him to drive "to an isolated spot in the sand dunes of the Sunset district in his own car."
His captors relieved him of a wallet containing $9 (adjusted for inflation, that $128 in 2015), as well as his clothes, hat and shoes. After picking him clean, Sarazan said the bandits made their getaway in a vehicle that had trailed them from downtown.
"Garbed only in his underwear," the entertainer drove to Park Station, where police took his statement and lent him a blanket for the drive back to his home at 225 21st Ave.
On April 23rd, 1934, a "wild automobile dash through the Sunset District" ended in a hail of gunfire after two men in a stolen car fled the police after they nearly hit several schoolchildren in a crosswalk. Patrolman Edward Borbeck began a high-speed pursuit at the corner of Funston Avenue and Judah Street, but according to the police report of the time, the chase ended near Waller and Frederick streets after Borbeck "poured a fusillade of bullets into the fugitive machine."
Police booked Thomas Crandall, 33 and Lloyd Kellett, 30 into custody and charged them with auto theft and weapons charges. After an investigation, the men were later charged with three store robberies across the city. The year before, Borbeck had achieved notoriety after a gun duel in which he killed the "kidnapper of William F. Wood, Sausalito capitalist."
Previously in the Inner Sunset: Crimes Of Yesteryear: Butcher Butchered In Grisly 1913 Inner Sunset Slaying, Crimes Of Yesteryear: Sutro Forest Kidnapping, Masked Highwaymen, More Cowbell
