Theodore Perry Gates, a 37-year-old White/Caucasian male, was a La Crosse police officer whose life ended during an armed confrontation with three robbery suspects near the heart of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in September 1900. Gates had been born in La Crosse on April 7, 1863, and joined the La Crosse Police Department on September 13, 1897. By the time of his death he had already endured a devastating personal loss: his wife had drowned in 1898, leaving him to raise their three children.
Historical records differ slightly on the date of his death. The current City of La Crosse history lists September 7, 1900, while the Officer Down Memorial Page and an earlier La Crosse Police Department memorial record September 8, 1900.
The chain of events began shortly before 1:00 in the morning when La Crosse police received word from authorities across the Mississippi River in La Crescent, Minnesota. Three armed men had reportedly entered a railroad boxcar and robbed the men inside at gunpoint. One victim, Alfred Carlson, resisted their demands. He was severely beaten or whipped by one of the robbers, who took approximately nine dollars from him. After the robbery, the three men fled on foot, and Minnesota authorities alerted La Crosse police that the fugitives appeared to be moving toward the Wisconsin side of the river.
Gates believed the Mississippi River Wagon Bridge was a likely route for the fleeing men and suggested that officers search the area. He and Officer Schubert hitched the department's patrol horse to a buggy and headed toward the bridge, while Officers Jacques and Horschak approached the area on foot. When Gates and Schubert reached the bridge, the tollmaster told them that three men had passed through only about ten minutes earlier. The officers continued searching and soon encountered three men matching the description near the intersection of Third and King Streets.
Gates stopped the buggy, jumped down and drew his weapon. He ordered the three men to halt. According to Schubert's account preserved in the department's history, the suspects initially stopped while standing abreast of one another. One of the men then shouted words to the effect of "throw up," and all three suddenly produced handguns and began firing. Gates returned fire, but the eruption of gunshots frightened the police horses. The animals bolted, carrying Schubert and the buggy away from the confrontation while the armed men also fired in Schubert's direction.
Schubert eventually managed to stop the horses and make his way back. By then Gates was lying in the street. He had been struck twice, once in the abdomen and once in the right arm, and was dead when his partner returned. Contemporary newspaper accounts likewise described him as having been mortally wounded while attempting to intercept the three armed men and reported that law-enforcement officers immediately began searching the surrounding region for the fugitives. His death left his three children without either parent.
The killing triggered an extensive manhunt, but the suspects proved difficult to identify and capture. Contemporary newspaper reporting indicated that rewards totaling as much as $800 were offered during the immediate search. The investigation continued well beyond the first days after the shooting. By November 1900, La Crosse Police Chief Byrne traveled to Clintonville to examine two men being held as possible suspects, but he was unable to identify either man as one of Gates's killers. Those suspects therefore did not provide the breakthrough investigators were seeking.
The search was still active the following year. In October 1901, newspaper reporting said that a private detective in Washington, Iowa, contacted Wisconsin authorities claiming that he had located a man believed to be responsible for Gates's murder. At that time a $600 reward was said to remain in effect, divided between the State of Wisconsin and La Crosse. La Crosse Sheriff Barber reportedly believed the description of the man located by the detective resembled the person being sought. Available online records, however, do not show that this lead produced an arrest, prosecution or conviction.
Later memorial information states that investigators eventually identified the man believed to have killed Gates, although the accessible account does not provide his name. According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, authorities nearly captured that suspect in Grand Rapids, Michigan, approximately two years after the murder. He escaped and was reportedly never seen again. The same memorial continues to list the offender as at large. Despite numerous suspects being investigated and several promising leads developing over the years, no online record located establishes that anyone was successfully arrested, charged, tried or convicted for the murder of Theodore Perry Gates.
Gates's killing therefore remained an unresolved line-of-duty murder. What began as an attempt to intercept three men suspected of a relatively small railroad robbery became one of the earliest fatal incidents in the history of the La Crosse Police Department. More than a century later, Gates continues to be remembered by the department as one of its officers killed while serving the city, while the armed men responsible for the confrontation escaped the justice Gates had been attempting to bring them to that night.
