Kansas City massacre

On the morning of June 17, 1933, a shootout at the Union Station railroad depot in Kansas City, Missouri, left four law enforcement officers and a criminal fugitive dead. The violence occurred during an attempt by a gang led by Vernon C. "Verne" Miller to free Frank "Jelly" Nash, a federal prisoner who had escaped from the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1930. Nash had been recaptured in Hot Springs, Arkansas, on June 16, 1933, by FBI agents Frank Smith and Francis Joseph "Joe" Lackey and McAlester, Oklahoma Police Chief Otto Reed, and was being returned to Leavenworth by train.

According to the FBI's account, the rescue scheme was conceived by Richard Tallman Galatas, Herbert Farmer, "Doc" Louis Stacci, and Frank B. Mulloy, with Vernon Miller designated to carry it out. Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Adam Richetti were reported to have joined Miller in Kansas City the night before the shooting after an unrelated incident in Bolivar, Missouri, in which they held a sheriff and garage attendants at gunpoint.

When the train carrying Nash arrived at Union Station, he was escorted by seven officers — Agents Lackey, Smith, Raymond J. Caffrey, Special Agent in Charge Reed E. Vetterli, Chief Otto Reed, and Kansas City police officers W. J. Grooms and Frank Hermanson — toward a waiting car. As Nash was being seated, gunmen emerged from near a parked Plymouth and opened fire. Officers Grooms and Hermanson were killed instantly; Agent Caffrey was fatally shot in the head; Chief Reed and Nash were killed inside the car; Vetterli and Lackey were wounded, and Agent Smith was unharmed. Survivors estimated the assault lasted about 30 seconds.

The FBI's investigation concluded that Vernon Miller, Adam Richetti, and Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd carried out the shooting, citing fingerprint evidence tying Richetti to Miller's Kansas City residence. Floyd's involvement has since been disputed by several authors, who argue he and Richetti were framed, while other researchers maintain the evidence against them, though contested, supports FBI conclusions.

Miller's mutilated body was found near Detroit, Michigan, in November 1933; some writers have suggested his death indicated the massacre may have been a syndicate hit rather than a rescue attempt. Richetti was captured after a 1934 car crash and shootout in Wellsville, Ohio; he was convicted of the murders on June 17, 1935, and executed on October 7, 1938. Floyd was killed in a shootout with law enforcement near Clarkson, Ohio, on October 22, 1934, denying involvement in the massacre as he died. The four men accused of engineering the escape plot — Galatas, Farmer, Stacci, and Mulloy — were convicted of conspiracy in January 1935 and each sentenced to two years in federal prison and a $10,000 fine.

The massacre is credited with prompting Congress to grant FBI agents statutory authority to carry firearms and make arrests in 1934, marking a significant shift in the bureau's law-enforcement powers.