A Great Depression gunfight left one officer dead, another injured, and a city outraged

Dec. 12—Editor's note: Special thanks to Mark Peihl of the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County for sharing his original article from the organization's newsletter from March-April of 1993 which became the basis of this story.

MOORHEAD — Ray Liggett didn't exactly stand out in a crowd. He was like a lot of young men that early winter day in 1930. A year after the great stock market crash, The Great Depression was taking its toll, even in small communities in the upper Midwest. You could almost see it on Ray Liggett's unshaven, sleepy-eyed face as he walked down Seventh Street in Fargo on Dec. 6, 1930.

He had to have been cold that Saturday morning wearing only a pair of worn, old pants and a heavy, red sweater against the winter wind. He had left his coat at the cheap hotel he squatted in the night before.

According to Clay County archivist Mark Peihl many unemployed men, like Liggett, wandered the streets of town back then. But Liggett would do something just hours later to stand out. He would become the central player in one of the darkest days in Fargo-Moorhead law enforcement history.

Just four days earlier on December 2, 1930, President Herbert Hoover asked for a $150 million public works program to help create jobs and stimulate the failing American economy.

But it wouldn't come soon enough for 29-year-old Ray Liggett. He was desperate right now. The Kansas native had worked as a farm hand in Grand Forks earlier that summer, but after harvest his job was done. Penniless, he made his way to Fargo and a cheap hotel on Front Street (now Main Avenue).

"Entering a side door, he avoided the front desk and helped himself to an unoccupied room," said Clay County archivist Mark Peihl. "In the morning, confronted by a clerk, Liggett was abusive and threatening, but eventually agreed to leave his overcoat as a deposit against the room charge."

But Liggett had a plan to get money. By 10:15 he walked into Fargo's Pure Food Grocery Store at Eighth Street and First Avenue South near Island Park with armed robbery on his mind.

"He casually strolled around the store counter where clerk Oscar Schumacher was standing with his back turned," Peihl said. "Liggett stuck a .38-caliber revolver into Schumacher's ribs and demanded that he open the cash registers."

Schumacher opened one drawer containing a few bills but said the other was out of order. It was not. It contained $300. But Liggett just got away with the $13 from the drawer Schumacher opened. He was said to quietly walk out the door and get into a cab where he ordered the driver to "take him to the east side," meaning Moorhead.

The cab driver, Ray Welch, later told authorities that Liggett claimed his coat had been stolen and had been located in Moorhead so he was in a hurry to get it.

"Step on it as hard as you dare, will you?" Liggett told him.

Liggett probably didn't know it, but he didn't get away scot-free. Schumacher and another grocery store clerk, Robert Sundt, decided to get into another cab and chase after Liggett.

Cass County Deputy Sheriff Peter MacArthur got wind of the trouble and took off in his car with inmate trustee, Bud Davis, who was serving a six-month term for a liquor violation. (As a trustee he had earned special privileges and limited responsibilities.) The two men drove to Moorhead after Liggett and, perhaps to protect the vigilante clerks.

By the time Liggett's cab had crossed the river into Moorhead, he might have seen the clerks and the deputy in the rearview mirror. He ordered his driver, Ray Welch, to stop the cab at the Jewel Tea Co. (what, until recently, had been Herberger's in the Moorhead Center Mall). But he didn't even wait for the car to stop.

"Liggett stepped out while the cab was still in gear, tossed the cabbie 50 cents, and started across Fourth Street toward Monson's Cigar Store," Peihl wrote.

Welch drove off just as the grocery clerks' cab was arriving. The two men jumped out to chase Liggett, while their cab driver alerted the Moorhead Police about what was going on. Moorhead Police Chief P.E. Malvey was soon on the scene with everyone else including Deputy MacArthur and inmate trustee Davis from the North Dakota side of the river.

Liggett came out of the cigar store and MacArthur ordered him to "act his age."

Liggett responded by shooting MacArthur just above his right eye.

MacArthur yelled, "I'm hit!" as a full-out gun battle broke out with more than a dozen shots fired between the men involved.

But the worst was yet to come.

Liggett managed to dodge the gunfire and run north to First Avenue and Fourth Street North, just east of what is now the American Crystal Sugar building. He began to run through people's backyards to ditch the police officers, which now also included Patrolman Roy Larson.

Peihl said Larson was a Clay County farm boy, raised in Spring Prairie township. He had received the nickname "the fastest cop in town," after he chased down and overpowered a robber on Main Avenue the previous Christmas Eve.

However, this run-in, nearly a year later wouldn't end as well.

After chasing Liggett to the Interior Lumber Company, the two men exchanged gunfire. Officer Larson hit Liggett in the shoulder, Liggett hit Larson in the head.

Officer Larson was taken to St. Ansgar Hospital where he died just before 1 p.m.

In the moments after seeing Larson fall, a distraught Liggett, realizing all he had done, shot himself. The injured Liggett, wounded not just by Larson's bullet, but also by the self-inflicted shot to the head, was bleeding, lying on the sidewalk begging for someone to kill him.

While the citizens of Fargo-Moorhead were outraged by the death of one officer and the injury of another, no one gave Liggett the death he wished for. Instead, he was taken to the hospital. He later recovered and was held in the Clay County Jail on murder charges.

According to Peihl, at Christmas, he and other inmates listened to a sermon from Trinity Lutheran Church pastor Rev. S.T. Sorenson and carols from the Trinity choir. They also dined on a turkey dinner.

Locals were still outraged over what happened, but Pastor Sorenson urged showing Liggett grace.

"Every man's hand is now raised against him. No man says a kind word for him. Let us remember that he needs pity. Pity because he knew not better than to use his nerve in this manner of life," Sorenson said.

It seems some in the community took the pastor's advice. Liggett received a handful of Christmas presents including cigarettes from a deputy and roses from a Fargo woman named "Mrs. M."

While some in the city chose to forgive Liggett, it wasn't easy. After all, Larson was the

first officer to be killed in the line of duty since 1888.

Roy Larson, who was just 28 when he was killed, was remembered by Chief Malvey as "absolutely fearless and one of the best men he ever had on the force."

Others described him as affable and good-natured and "always had a smile for everyone he met."

In 2013, Larson was remembered again when a

new headstone commemorating his death in the line of duty was placed on his burial plot at Riverside Cemetery in Moorhead.

Cass County Deputy Sheriff Peter MacArthur recovered, eventually undergoing surgery to save the sight in his right eye.

Peihl said after leaving the sheriff's department, he worked for years as a manager of the Fargo Eagle's Club. He died in 1977.

The inmate trustee, Bud Davis, who helped MacArthur that day was awarded his freedom for his bravery that day. Cass County States Attorney John C. Pollock praised Davis and said not only would he free him but he would be "willing to buy him a railroad ticket to go wherever he wishes to go." Davis chose Iowa where his wife was waiting.

The two grocery store clerks were uninjured. Robert Sundt eventually served in World War II and had a long life, dying at age 83. So far, records on clerk Oscar Schumacher following 1930 have been difficult to find.

Liggett lived to be an old man. Following his murder conviction, he was sentenced to life at hard labor at the state penitentiary at Stillwater, Minnesota. However, he stayed just three years. In 1933 he was transferred to the State Hospital at St. Peter, Minnesota. He was paroled in 1969 at the age of 68. It appears he stayed in Minnesota upon his release.

He died at the age of 84 on Jan. 31, 1986, outliving nearly everyone else involved in the shootout that day.