100 years ago in Spokane: Car chase with bootlegger ends in gunfire, discovery of whiskey

A thrilling police chase, bullets flying, ended in the arrest of a suspected rumrunner.

The officers said they were driving up Division Street on another call when they spotted a car racing south. They saw what appeared to be “several sacks of what we thought was liquor.” They knew that residents on Five Mile Prairie had just reported that an airplane had landed up there and unloaded some liquor into a car. So the officers gave chase.

The suspect outran the pursuing officers, turned onto Buckeye Avenue and headed for the hills. But the officers were able to keep him in sight until they got to Minnehaha Park. Then they lost him and began searching around the waterworks.

“He evidently thought he had given us the slip,” said an officer.

He was wrong. Just as he pulled out of his hiding place on a side road, the officers spotted him again and chased him back toward town.

The officers drew their guns and one of them shot out his left rear tire.

“The next thing I knew, the car was turning somersaults,” said the officer.

They found Vern Secrest crawling out of the wreck. They also found seven cases of bonded Canadian whiskey.

Secrest, who emerged only with a sprained ankle, was arrested for bootlegging. This was not the first time he had been arrested for liquor violations.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1865: Union Gen. Gordon Granger declares enslaved people in Texas are free; the end of slavery is celebrated across the U.S. as Juneteenth.