Joseph Westlake, 31, male, White, was walking his beat along Narragansett Pier on the night of August 22, 1902, when the quiet gave way to the sound of gunfire. He and his partner hurried toward a nearby bar off the Casino district, where a brawl between two local men and two U.S. Army soldiers had spilled out of control. One of the soldiers had already fired at a civilian and missed, drawing the officers into a foot chase along the waterfront resort area that summer visitors knew well.
In the pursuit, the fleeing soldier turned and shot, striking Westlake fatally and wounding his partner, ending the patrolman's watch in a town that had only recently grown into a fashionable seaside destination. The soldier suspected in the shooting was apprehended afterward and charged with murder, a swift response to a killing that shook a small department which would long remember Westlake as its lone line-of-duty death from that era.
