Okemah Police Department, Oklahoma
End of Watch: Saturday, February 26, 1927
Age:
Tour of Duty: 4 years
Badge Number: Not available
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: February 26, 1927
Weapon Used: Handgun
Suspect Info: Sentenced to life
Officer Claude Ryan was shot and killed when he interrupted a burglary in progress at a local warehouse at approximately 9:30 pm.
A local auto dealer manager saw Officer Ryan pass by and then heard a gunshot in an alley a few minutes later. Officer Ryan's body was found in the alley with a gunshot wound to the chest. The warehouse next to where Officer Ryan was found had been burglarized.
Four suspects were eventually apprehended. Three were convicted of murder and sentenced to life. The fourth suspect was acquitted but held for authorities in Texas, Illinois, Montana, and Kansas for armed robberies and other crimes he committed. One who was sentenced, an associate of Pretty Boy Floyd, was released in 1933 because he had tuberculosis. Days later he robbed a bank in Topeka, Kansas, and then was shot when he and another man tried to kidnap a farmer. He lost his arm as a result of the shooting and was returned to the Oklahoma Penitentiary. In 1946 he was released again but soon returned after he burglarized a business in Dodge City, Kansas. In 1961, at age 61, he was released for the third time but arrested in 1968 by FBI agents for robbing a bank in Alvord,Texas, six months earlier. After serving a sentence in Texas he was killed in 1983 in a traffic accident in Tulsa. Another who was sentenced, the suspect who shot Officer Ryan, was an escapee from the Kansas Penitentiary.
Officer Ryan had served with the Okemah Police Department for four years.