Out of Our Lives II

WILLIE SUTTON AND ME Malcolm E. “Buck” Sample In 1952 the famous many-time bank robber, Willie Sutton, was captured in the streets of New York City by Police Department Detective Donald Shea on the Joint Bank Robbery Task Force. He had been spotted in a subway by an 18-year-old Brooklynite named Arnold Schuster. Already famous, it was at least partly because, when he was asked why he robbed banks, Sutton replied, “That’s where the money is!” Arno followed him because he knew that there was a $100,000 reward for the person who furnished information that would lead to his capture. A new patrolman, Shea was loading beer into his marked police car to take it to his son’s baptism party when Shuster came up to him. Donald Shea didn’t believe him and didn’t want to get involved, but the citizen reporting to him was so insistent that he finally arrested the robber. When Schuster went to the police station demanding the reward for turning the man in to the police, his request was refused and patrolman Shea himself was pushed aside by senior officers. When he hired an attorney and returned to try to claim the announced reward, Arnold produced threatening anonymous letters he had received—letters that warned him that Sutton’s friends would be after him. Although the Police Captain read the letters, he chose to ignore them. Schuster and his attorney got nowhere that day, but soon afterwards went to the FBI to try again. That’s where I came in. I listened to his story and put all the information on record. Later that Friday afternoon another Special Agent and I went to Brooklyn to take Arnold Schuster’s and his father’s fingerprints for elimination purposes. At that time the letters had been handled by both son and father, their attorney, and the police Captain so there was no way to prove that the Captain had handled the papers before they were sent. The next day, Saturday, Arnold was walking down the street when he was murdered gangland-style from a passing car. (Many years later information came out that he was killed by one of Sutton’s associates to discourage people from cooperating with law enforcement.) The FBI and the Department of Justice took the position that the murder was a local matter and should be investigated by the New York City Police Department. The NYC Commissioner of Police said that this was a Willie Sutton bank robbery matter and was solely under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Bobby Kennedy, the United States Attorney General, disagreed. Acrimonious correspondence ensued. Eventually Schuster’s parents sued the city of New York for a million dollars for not protecting their son. However, prior to Schuster’s death, his father had told the other agent and me that he had refused that protection because he didn’t think it was needed. The District Attorney for the County of New York subpoenaed me and the other Special Agent to testify at the trial. Attorney General Kennedy ordered us to answer the subpoena but respectfully decline to testify. If we didn’t, we would have been in contempt of court. and the city would not have had the benefit of that testimony to support its case. So, after numerous telephone conversations between the DA and the Attorney General, we testified anyway. That testimony was a deciding factor in the outcome of the trial. The jury found for the city and no damages were awarded. Willie Sutton spent the rest of his life in prison, but the Schusters got no reward for their son’s recognizing and turning in the bank robber. But there is a funny part of the story which was told to me by a fellow officer who is still in touch with retired Donald Shea. At the time, the Police Commissioner thought that the patrolman should have been rewarded by promotion for turning in Sutton. Thinking this was the rank where a detective would start, he made him a first-grade one. Everyone around him was afraid to tell the Commissioner that this was the highest grade a detective could ever earn. He should have started at the bottom with grade three.