Special Agent Oscar E. Olson

Oscar E. Olson

Special Agent Oscar Olson was shot and killed while searching for bootleggers at a house on the Morongo Indian Reservation near Banning at 4:30 am.

Agent Olson was investigating who was supplying alcohol to the people on the reservation. Around midnight, Agent Olson found two men who did not belong on the reservation and told them to leave and not return. A few hours later, one of the men returned a few miles from where he had been ordered to leave. The subject stated that he did not have a key to the vehicle, but his partner, who was in the house nearby, had it. Agent Olson enlisted the aid of a Morongo Indian Reservation officer, and they entered the house. While inside the home, Agent Olson drew his weapon when the subject became threatening. As he backed out the door, he was shot and fatally injured by another man who had grabbed a rifle and hidden in the bushes outside.

On February 2, 1931, the subject, 19, was apprehended, convicted of voluntary manslaughter, and sentenced to eight years in a federal prison because the murder was in Indian territory.

Agent Olson was a North Dakota National Guard veteran and served with the United States Department of the Interior - Bureau of Indian Affairs - Office of Justice Services for ten years. He was survived by his wife and three children.