Lowell Police Department, Massachusetts
End of Watch: Monday, May 3, 1971
Age: 58
Tour of Duty: 30 years
Badge Number: Not available
Cause of Death: Assault
Date of Incident: December 5, 1969
Weapon Used: Blunt object
Suspect Info: Not available
Officer John J. Winn died as a result of injuries received in an assault seventeen months earlier.
Office Winn was checking the doors of a church and two men attacked him when he entered the dark back stairwell to check the door. They attacked him with a tire iron, leaving him for dead, to take his pistol so they could hold up a liquor store and get money to buy drugs.
However, Officer Winn wasn’t dead. He crawled and walked to a local pay phone where he called for an ambulance. His optic nerve was damaged and he went blind right away. Officer Winn lived for another seventeen months, dying as a result of the severe injuries that he sustained in that horrendous beating.
Both suspects where apprehended and convicted of assaulting Officer Winn. One was sentenced to 15 to 25 years in prison and the other to 10 to 15 years.