Local departments buy Tommy guns

An Associated Press article published in the Southeast Missourian last month revealed that the St. Louis Police Department was preparing to sell a variety of outdated weapons, including 29 Thompson sub-machine guns dating from the 1920s, a time when bank robberies were becoming more frequent.

While the Cape Girardeau police force never had that big an arsenal of Tommy guns, it did boast at least one, purchased in 1929. Actually, the Scott County Sheriff's Department got things rolling, when it announced plans to buy a Thompson in February of that year.

The following week, Cape Girardeau did the same.

Note that the bankers in the community had security concerns and were considering buying riot guns.

Scott County received its machine gun first, followed a short time later by Cape Girardeau.

Cape Girardeau Police Chief H.F. Wickham and his men were soon out testing their skills with the new gun in the quarry south of town.

I could find only one instance of the Cape Girardeau Police Department using the Thompson sub-machine gun, and that was shortly after its arrival here.

On the same page, an article noted the purchase of tear gas by two of Cape's banks, as well as a demonstration of the gas at The Missourian Building.

Our newspaper files don't record any other instance when the Tommy gun was employed by the Cape Girardeau constabulary. However, Scott County Sheriff Tom Scott's gun made news across the state in 1932, when a certain great-uncle of mine used it to dispatch two lions on a Mississippi River island near Commerce.

But that's another story...