Famous Cop Killers

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Introduction

Murder has been one of the most unforgivable crimes throughout human history and in recent years,the crime has elevated to a higher level when certain people or groups are killed ‘ specifically law enforcement employees’¦ police officers, gendarmes, garde, coppers, cops.Their job is to protect people so it is no surprise when a country is outraged at a cold-blooded killing of a public servant

1. Dale Cregan

Dale_CreganA well-known drug dealer in Manchester, England,he might have remained in obscurity had he not been responsible for the deaths of two police officers ‘ both female ‘ in the line of duty.It was also the first attack to use hand grenades.The women had been responding to a burglary call ‘ though sadly this later proved to be false and engineered so Cregan could lure some Police Officers into a trap. After making their way into the house both came under fire. One died at the scene and the other died later of her injuries. Cregan is serving a Whole Life Order

2. Christopher Dorner

It is one thing to be a Cop Killer but another entirely when the Cop Killer is a former Cop himself.In February 2013, Christopher Dorner began a vendetta against the LAPD and was responsible for a series of shootings against serving Cops and their families. He killed three Officers in the line of duty and injured three other people. He was eventually tracked to a log cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains where after a brief standoff, he took his own life

3. Ned Kelly

One of the most famous cop killers of all time, the Australian criminal began early: at the age of 14 he robbed a livestock trader after claiming to be a Ranger and demanding money. He beat the trader and stole 10 shillings from him. In 1878, Victoria police launched a massive manhunt for Ned and two accomplices. Kelly killed three Police officers and the colonial government proclaimed him an outlaw.Two years later he was captured after a shootout, convicted and hanged on multiple counts of murder

4. Kevin Gregson


Another former cop who killed another cop, Gregson had been part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police between 2000 and 2008 but numerous clashes with senior officers led to the demand of his resignation. He refused and was suspended without pay. In December 2009, Gregson attacked and killed an Ottawa Police Officer and was wrestled to the ground by four civilians. The two men had no past history so no personal motive was ever presented ‘ it was simply random. Gregson received a mandatory life sentence

5. Sean O’Callaghan

The Troubles of Northern Ireland saw many civilian and Police casualties. O’Callaghan is a former IRA activist turned informer who in 1974 walked into a bar in Omagh, Co. Tyrone and shot DI Flanagan ‘ a Catholic Police Officer who was considered a traitor by his community. Two years later he left the IRA, moved to Scotland and married a Protestant ‘ he soon felt that the IRA was a despicable organisation and when pressed to re-join, he did so in order to become an informant. He eventually confessed to the crime, was jailed and upon his release in 1999 released his memoirs

6. Christopher Craig

One of the most shocking cases of cop-killing in the United Kingdom was of the conviction and hanging of a young man with learning difficulties named Derek Bentley. He had fallen in with a bad crowd ‘ in particular a wannabe gangster named Christopher Craig. One night in 1952, the pair broke into a warehouse. They were spotted and Craig ‘ who had a gun on him, ended up shooting the investigating Police Officer. Though nobody was under any doubt that Craig was the killer, Bentley was convicted for having shouted out ‘Let him have it!’ Bentley’s family always maintained that he had meant ‘Let him have the gun’

7. Max Matern

Before the rise of Hitler’s Germany, the country was in a struggle against the expansion of Communism ‘ and that was before the country would be broken up following WWII. Matern was an active Communist who killed two Police Chiefs in political assassinations, considered fascist enemies of the party. Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck were killed in the incident but a third man survived and was able to identify the killers. Though some of his accomplices made it to the Soviet Union, Matern was captured, convicted and executed in 1933

8. Billy the Kid

The USA’s most famous Wild West outlaw killed his first man when aged 17. Though legend says he killed 21 people, realistic estimates suggest it may have been between four and nine. He killed a number of ‘law men’ and state officials that would eventually seal his fate. The final showdown would come with an old acquaintance Pat Garrett who ‘ depending on which story you believe ‘ was the man who killed him or the man who made a deal and let him escape into Mexico for a 50-year exile

9. Harry Roberts

Criminal gang member Harry Roberts is famous for one of the most brutal killings of any British Police Officer ‘ and he and his accomplices killed three individuals (The Shepherd’s Bush Murders). They had been planning an armed robbery when the three Officers went to investigate the van they were holed up in. Fearing discovery, they opened the doors and shot the three men. Roberts was acknowledged to have killed two of the men and one of his accomplices killed the third. Sentenced in 1966 to a minimum of 30 years in jail, in 2014 he is still behind bars

10. Irene Schroeder

As the first woman executed in Pennsylvania by electric chair, she is one of a few women to have been convicted of killing a cop. She was just 22 at the time of her execution. Schroeder left her husband shortly after giving birth and along with her brother turned to a life of crime. Robbing a grocery store one day, they were stopped by two Police Officers. A shootout ensued and though some of them escaped, it was her 4 year old son who provided the witness testimony that his mother had shot a cop.

Conclusion

Society makes examples of those who kill people who are supposed to protect us from the wrongdoers and with good reason. The list above is not extensive; sadly all over the world law enforcement employees are killed every year in the line of duty. In countries without widespread guns, the debate is about whether to arm cops and in countries with widespread guns, there is often debate about whether gun deaths could be cut if they were more greatly regulated

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4 Responses

  1. Edward C. Stengel

    April 16, 2017 11:21 pm

    My heroes will always be cop killers. My favorite cop killer was Mark Essex, who around New Year’s eve 1972, basically declared war against the entire New Orleans police department. Before it was all over, he had killed 9 people, 5 of them cops, including the deputy superintendent of the New Orleans police department.

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