On the night of August 17, 1957, Minneapolis Police Officer Ward Lee Canfield, a White male, and his partner, Officer Robert Fossum, were on patrol when they initiated a pursuit of a stolen vehicle. Unbeknownst to the officers, the three occupants of the car, brothers James, Roger, and Ronald O'Kasick, were on their way to commit a robbery at a local market.
During the chase, the suspects began firing at the officers' squad car, which eventually crashed.
As Canfield and Fossum approached the crashed vehicle, the O'Kasick brothers opened fire with armor-piercing bullets. Officer Fossum was struck in the head and died at the scene. The suspects then shot Officer Canfield, struck him with their vehicle, and dragged him for approximately 30 feet as they made their escape. The brothers managed to evade authorities for 28 days following the violent encounter.
The massive manhunt for the O'Kasick brothers concluded in a swamp near Anoka. In a subsequent shootout with police, Roger and Ronald O'Kasick were shot and killed. The third brother, James O'Kasick, was apprehended and later convicted of murder. In 1958, he committed suicide in jail.
Ward Canfield survived the initial attack but his injuries were catastrophic, with nearly all the bones in his body broken. He was forced to retire from the police force in 1960 and spent the remainder of his life confined to a wheelchair or his bed. His long and arduous battle for life involved over 100 surgeries and 97 blood transfusions. On March 2, 2000, at the age of 78, Ward Lee Canfield died from pneumonia, a direct complication of the gunshot wounds he had sustained over four decades earlier. The Hennepin County coroner officially ruled his death a homicide.
