Policeman killed in bandits’ attack on Alberttown station
By Oscar P. Clarke
Two carloads of armed men riddled the Alberttown police station with gunfire last night killing a ruralconstable, Andy Atwell and wounding another in his arm.
If there had been any doubt that the police were being targeted by criminals in recent weeks that was dispelled by last night’s attack which was one of the most outrageous and heinous since the eruption of a crime wave. Observers saw it as a virtual throwing down of the gauntlet to the police by the criminals.
Atwell was hit by four or five bullets including one to the chest which entered one side and exited the other. He is the fourth policeman to be killed in just under three months by criminals. According to reports, Atwell was just outside the station entrance in the yard when several men who were aboard one of two white cars approached the station shortly after 10 pm. They emerged from the car and began discharging rapid bursts of gunfire and the other car did the same from another vantage point before the men scrambled back into their vehicles and escaped west along Fourth Street.