Last Known Activity:
On October 5, 1975, Officer Louis D. Sebold was shot and killed after being told that a man with a gun was in a church on North 20th Street. As Officer Sebold approached the man, who was sitting on the church's front steps, the man produced a revolver and shot him twice in the chest at close range.
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Comments/Citation:
On October 5, 1975, Sunday Mass was being conducted at Saint Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church at 1407 North Twentieth Street. Unnoticed by th congregation, twenty-four year-old Lawrence Williams entered the rear of the Church wearing a hat and smoking a cigar. When a church usher went tto ask Williams to remove his hat and put out the cigar, he noticed a revolver in Williams' rear pocket.
Alarmed, the usher ran outside and told Officer Louis Sebold that a man was in the church with a gun. Sebold, assigned to the area due to recent robberies, walked toward the man who was now sitting on the church steps.
As Officer Sebold approached, Williams calmly removed the gun from his rear pocket and shot the Officer twice in the chest at close range. Officer Sebold fell to the ground and Williams fired two more shots. Williams began walking away, then hesitated, turned and removed the officer's gun before leaving the scene.
Upon learning Sebold had been shot on the church steps, Father Jerry Jakle went outside to offer aid. As the congregation prayed for Sebold's recovery, he was rushed to City Hospital #1 where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Immediately after Sebold was shot, Officer Daniel Crowe arrived at the scene. Crowe placed a description over the radio for the wanted man and began searching for him.
Crowe approached the area of the Vaughn Housing Project, located across the street from the church, where Williams was last seen. Williams walked toward Officer Crowe and fired at him with a gun in each hand. Crowe returned fire, first with his revolver and then with his shotgun. A shotgun blast struck Williams in the upper shoulder. Though wounded, Williams managed to escape into the housing projects. Captain Robert Scheetz, who later became Chief of Police, took command at the scene. Captain Scheetz ordered officers to conduct a floor by floor search of the apartment building.
Officers found Williams in a Sixt floor apartment, nude and bleeding from a shotgun wound to the shoulder. Guns, including Officer Sebold's revolver, were also found in the same apartment.
Officer Sebold had been on the Department since 1958. The slain officer's father, Louis E. Sebold had also served on the Department. The elder Sebold had retired before the death of his son.
For much of his career, Officer Sebold had worked in the Third District, though he was assigned to the Fourth District at the time of his death. Known as a dedicated officer always ready with a smile and a kind word, he was forty-five years-old at the time of his death. He left a widow and six children.
http://www.slmpd.org/memorial/memorial.html
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