By CLINTON H. JOHNSON December 19, 1936

So far as Patrolman "Mike" Malinofski was concerned it had been a pretty quiet Halloween.

For that matter, not much of anything ever did happen out there on his post in Howard Park, so this 1935 Halloween wasn't unusual. Sometimes he'd grumble about it around the Northwestern District station; mutter that the boys, in closer to town got all the action while he spent his nights trying well-locked doors.

When he would come home after his all-night tour of duty, his wife Mrs. Gladys Malinofski would try to find out what had happened. What had he seen ? Had there been any accidents? Any fires? Any burglars to chase?

He used to chuckle at her persistence, assure her that she hadn't missed anything by not being with him during those long, cold hours between midnight and dawn, riding the deserted streets of Howard Park in his little roadster.

So Halloween hadn't been any different from the other nights. Maybe he felt the loneliness a little more because, when he went on duty at midnight, he'd just come from a happy family party at his brother's home. As he left someone called a parting warning: "Take care of yourself " He remembered that some five hours later as he pulled his car up beside a row of stores at Gwynn Oak and Maine avenues and jumped out to try the doors.

Take care of himself ? Huh., What did they think, anyway? All he had to worry about out here in the sticks was getting enough action to keep warm. Mechanically he switched on his flashlight, turned down beside the row of store fronts, rattled their door handles with brisk efficiency, rounded the corner and started for the back doors.

He was sprawled in the street when the milkman found him. One outstretched hand gripped his flashlight. It was still lighted. The beam frightened the milkman's horse.

The faint light of a distant street lamp glinted dully on the still figure's black puttees.

The milkman looked once, then ran toward an all-night filling station in the next block. A police radio car had just pulled in for some air when the milkman pounded up. The car swung out again. The milkman jumped aboard.

Patrolmen Charles Heims and Louis Mohr lost no time when they got to “Mike" his real name was Arthur Malinofski, no one seems to know who started calling him "Mike." Heims took him to the West Baltimore General Hospital.

Mohr stayed to question anybody he could find.

Heims wild ride to the hospital was in vain, Mike, the doctor said, probably had died instantly. He had been shot in the side and through the heart.

A half dozen residents had heard the shots. Five, everybody agreed; two, then a pause, then three more. Some thought they had heard running footsteps, heard a car door slam, heard a car drive off.

5 Empty Shells

Near the slain policeman's car the police found five empty shells from a .32 caliber automatic. One of them was on the running board, one was under the car, the rest nearby.

Malinofski's gun holster hadn't even been unsnapped when they found him. Out there in the sticks, where nothing ever happened, Death had leaped at him out of the darkness so quickly he couldn't make a move to defend himself.

The Malinfoski murder is on the “open” files at Police Headquarters. That meant they haven’t found who killed him. But it does mean they won’t.

For if there’s one thing the police hate to do, it’s admit defeat on a case where one of their own men is involved.

The Malinofski case, however, is a tough one. Detectives Jim Manning, Bill Feehley, Mike Cooney and George Mintiens, who still have charge of it, admit that readily.

There are three kinds of murder cases, those where you know the killer and can prove it; those where you know the killer, and can't prove it, and those where you simply don't know who did it or why. "Mike" Malinofski's murder comes in the latter class.

There were suspects questioned, but none held more than a, day or two. There were all sorts promising "angles" but they all collapsed on investigation.

Even within the last few weeks Detectives Manning and Feehley worked out a "hot" tip until it turned stone cold on them.

But they're ready to work the next, when it comes. They're determined to get the man who got "Mike" Malinofski.

They’ll take him peaceably, of course, if they can. But. They rather hope he'll try to fight:.

By: CLINTON H. JOHNSON January 2,1937

The thing they all remembered about him afterward was his queer, twisted, sinister smile.

He smiled at the first detective who came to question him smiled while he dressed to go to headquarters for more questioning, smiled as he made his last desperate bid for freedom under the street light in front of the Police Building, was still smiling faintly some 40 hours later when he breathed his last in Mercy Hospital.

They never determined who he was, never established which of a half-dozen aliases was his real name. He had been known, the records showed, as Henry Peterson, John Peterson, Kay Jensen, John Sperling and O. Anderson.

Whatever his name, he was a killer. He had tried to kill one policeman in New York, almost succeeded.

He tried to kill four Baltimore detectives, there in front of the Police Building that night of November 19, 1928, succeeded in killing one and wounding two more before the fourth got him with three bullets neatly placed in a line down his spinal column.

The detective he killed was Sergeant Joseph Carroll. Like many a policeman before him, Carroll plunged into battle, without knowing what it was all about, died before he found out.

One minute he was sitting in the police garage swapping stones with Detective John Marts his partner on the night emergency squad. The next minute he was lying sprawled in the Fallsway, his smoking pistol still clenched in his hand, while over his prostrate form the brief, bitter battle raged.

The whole thing started when the night clerk of a small East Baltimore Street hotel telephoned Detective headquarters that a new guest there, registered as O. Anderson answered a description put out by the detectives a few day's earlier as that of a man wanted for trying to kill a New York policeman.

Over to the hotel went Detective Frederick Carroll--no relation to Joseph--to see if the description really fitted. He found the suspect in his underwear, reading a magazine in room.

Anderson denied he had been in New York, said his name was Pearson, exhibited a Bible to prove it. Always that queer smile lurked on his lips.

Carroll was half persuaded, retired to the lobby to think it over, decided not to give up so easily and returned to the room.

At his request the man dressed, started with him for headquarters. He carried his overcoat on his arm when they left the room, stopped to put it on in the lobby. Back at headquarters Detective Sergeant Elmer O'Grady, time heavy on his hands, watched idly out the Fayette street windows to see whether Carroll would walk his prisoner over. He saw them round the Baltimore street corner, watched their progress to Fayette street. Something made him keep his eye on them as they crossed to the north side of the street.

O'Grady was watching, when the prisoner, with an amazingly quick gesture, whipped a gun from his overcoat pocket, whirled on Carroll and jammed the pistol into the detective's stomach.

O'Grady saw Carroll's hands start up in submission, then swing into action, saw the two men grapple.

Rush To Aid

O'Grady went into action himself. He jabbed the alarm button on his desk and when Joe Carroll answered from the basement emergency room phone O'Grady yelled: "Holdup Right in front of the building."

Then O'Grady snatching his own gun up, was off down the stairs, three at a jump. He hit the street from the Fayette door as Marts and Joe Carroll in a police car skidded into the Fallsway from the Lexington side. O'Grady jumped behind the prisoner, jammed his gun in the ,man's back and commanded: "Stick 'em up Police."

But. the prisoner didn't stick 'em up. Instead he jumped sideways and started shooting. He had already creased Fred Carroll's skull, with one bullet. Now he flung a shot at O'Grady, dropped him with a bullet in the leg, whirled to meet the challenge from the occupants of the police car.

Marts was driving, Joe Carroll consequently was the first out. He charged into the scene, his gun blazing. The cornered gunman fired point-blank, Carroll dropped.

Marts remembered later that the car was still rolling when he fell, recalled that he had to jam on the brakes to keep from driving over his partner’s body.

An instant later it was all over, John Marts is a crack shot and he doesn't like to waste ammunition. The gunman turned back to deal with O'Grady and Fred Carroll.

Marts squirmed out from under the wheel, halted on the running board for a split-second aim, then pounded the gunman down with three bullets as fast as he could pull the trigger.

Uniformed police were pouring out of the building by that time. They got the two Carrolls and O'Grady into machines, grudgingly picked up the fallen killer and took him along.

Joe Carroll died in an hour. Fred Carroll and O'Grady recovered. The gunman lived 40 hours, long enough to dictate a statement admitting he shot deliberately, knowing he was fighting the law, knowing his only chance depended on his gun. The last thing he said was:

"The only thing is, I am willing to take what's coming to me." He said that when he was dying, when there wasn't any choice. Under the circumstances it wasn't as brave as it sounded.

But how about Joe Carroll? He probably never bothered to think of it that way, but he had said just about the same thing in different words when he took the oath as a policeman.

Stanton Suggests $21,500 Surplus Salary Account Be Used For This

February 28, 1939

Commissioner Robert F. Stanton wrote the Board of' Estimates today, asking that 21,500 surplus in the Police Department's salary account be applied toward replacement of seventy-two police automobiles.

All the seventy-two cars were bought between 1929 and 1935, and are showing their age, the commissioner said. Some of the older ones, he added, are very much the worse for wear and tear.

Forty-three of the machines are being used for patrol work in the suburban sections and twenty-eight are being used in the radio patrol. Old No. 72 is the Southern district patrol wagon, which has gone more than 200,000 miles in its day.

According to Commissioner Stanton, the present police budget appropriates only $100,000 for the maintenance and replacement of equipment. Last year $85,000 was expended for maintenance alone. Since the police rolling stock is no a better this year than last, that same sum or more probably will be required for maintenance, leaving only $15,000 of the $100,000 item for new purchases, the commissioner said.

If the salary surplus is applied to new equipment purchases, continued the commissioner, it should work a saving in maintenance costs.

Commissioner Stanton explained that the $21,500 excess in the salary account represents an accumulation of several years. It was piled up, he said, through the salary difference that results when a veteran patrolman who gets with bonus, about $46 a week, is replaced by a probationer who gets only $35, and also through temporary vacancies in the officers ranks of the force.

Bids on the department's old cars already have been asked and, received from various automotive firms in the city, Commissioner Stanton said. They have offered bids on seventy-one cars, as a whole and on smaller lots. As yet, however, no bid has been put in for the superannuated Black Maria.

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