William Erwin Walker, also known as Erwin M. Walker and Machine Gun Walker (born Erwin Mathias Walker; October 6, 1917− October 7, 2008), was an American police employee and United States Army World War II veteran, known for having committed several thefts, burglaries, and shootouts with police in Los Angeles County, California, in 1945 and 1946, one of which resulted in a fatality."Crazy Like A Fox", Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1947."Man Continues to Fight Police Despite Wounds", Los Angeles Times, December 21, 1946. The film He Walked by Night (1948) was loosely based on Walker's 1946 crime spree.
Early life Little is known about Walker's early life. He was born Erwin Mathias Walker in 1917 to Weston and Irene Walker, and was raised in Glendale, California. He lived with his parents and a sister. Weston Walker was a Los Angeles County flood control engineer, and his uncle Herbert V. Walker was a prominent Los Angeles lawyer and Chief Deputy District Attorney who became a Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge. Herbert Walker's most notable action as a Superior Court Judge was to sign the ninth and final death warrant for Caryl Chessman, the "Red Light Bandit."
Although nearsighted, Walker was a good athlete. He would later be described as "gentle, affectionate, considerate above the ordinary for the welfare of others, and [giving] no trouble in any way."People v. Walker, 33 Cal.2d 250, Crim. No. 4833 (December 29, 1948) Walker graduated from the Hoover School and attended the California Institute of Technology for one year, excelling in electronics and radio engineering.Brayton, Tim, Cop Killer, February 8, 2009; retrieved April 30, 2011.
Police and military service After he dropped out of Caltech, Walker worked as a radio operator and police dispatcher for the Glendale Police Department. During World War II, he was conscripted by Selective Service despite his poor eyesight because of his radio and electronics skills. Walker was stationed in Brisbane, Australia, where he attended the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) U.S. Army Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Camp Columbia, Wacol.South West Pacific Area OCS, st.net.au; accessed July 4, 2017. In 1944, Walker graduated from OCS and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.
In June 1944, Walker received his first duty assignment. In November, he received orders transferring him to Leyte Island in the Philippines, where he was placed in charge of a Signal Corps radar detachment with 85 men.Brayton, Tim, Cop Killer, February 8, 2009; retrieved April 30, 2011. Walker was apparently well liked by the soldiers who worked with him, and he was reputed to be more than usually considerate of them.
In later testimony, Walker related that upon arrival at Leyte, he and another officer, a close friend, selected the emplacement for the radar and took routine security measures but did not post a day guard because of standing orders. Walker was ordered to return to his ship. When he returned to the radar site the next day, he learned that elements of an elite Japanese Army paratroop unit had attacked the radar site at sunrise. He learned that John Brake of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, his closest friend, who was also his commanding officer and fellow Signal Corps OCS graduate, had been bayoneted in the neck and disemboweled in the initial assault. Brake survived, and after years of hospital care, managed to live a productive life, despite being paralyzed from the neck down, until his death in 1989. All other members of the unit who had remained at the initial site were killed and horribly mutilated by their attackers, including disembowelment and amputation while they were still alive. It is likely that Walker's experiences witnessing the aftermath of the attack affected him deeply.Signal Corps OCS records and personal interviews with John Brake.
Although Walker and his men were not combat infantrymen, his unit was not reinforced after the initial assault, and the small detachment endured three days and nights of continuous battle with fanatical Japanese paratroopers, who inflicted many casualties. While a subsequent investigation found no dereliction of duty on the part of any of the officers in the detachment, Walker later testified that he felt responsible for what had happened. After the encounter on Leyte, Walker informed his commanding officer that he could not continue to serve and asked to return to the United States. He was released from active duty in the South Pacific in December 1944, but was promoted to first lieutenant in July 1945, three months after his arrival in the United States.
According to his own later statements and those of his family, Walker returned from overseas duty deeply disturbed and convinced that he was responsible for the death of soldiers in his unit by not preparing defenses for his position. He later described his guilt over his best friend's death, which he believed might have been prevented if he had ordered his men to dig foxholes. Walker would later claim his guilt was intensified by the anger of the soldiers who had served with him but shunned him thereafter. He never again lived with his family, instead renting an apartment and living alone. His family said that he was morose, melancholy, taciturn, brooding, rough with small children, secretive, and difficult. He took several jobs but always quit them after a short time. Walker turned down an offer from the Glendale Police Department to return to his old job, reportedly because of the low pay. He was reportedly often seen brandishing a machine gun.
Initial crime spree Early in 1945, still on active duty as an Army First Lieutenant, Walker burglarized an auto repair garage, taking a set of tools, voltmeter, and radio tuner. In August 1945, he entered an Army Ordnance warehouse at night and stole seven 45-caliber Thompson submachine guns, twelve .45-caliber pistols, six .38-caliber revolvers, ammunition, holsters, and magazines.Man Continues to Fight Police Despite Wounds, Los Angeles Times, 21 December 1946: Police found one Thompson in a car Walker had abandoned at a crime scene, and six more stored in his apartment and in other cars at the time of his arrest. Walker was discharged from the Army in November 1945. During his first week of terminal leave, he stole an automobile, changed its license plates, and used it to transfer some of the stolen goods. He next broke into a clothing store and took several pieces of men's clothing. Walker next targeted the warehouses and offices of record and film companies, taking amplifiers, electronic equipment, records, movie projectors, recording turntables, cameras, and other equipment. He rented a garage, fitting it out as an experimental workshop.
Using the garage as his base of operations, Walker continued to commit burglaries to pay his living expenses and acquire electronic equipment. His criminal spree eventually totaled more than a dozen armed robberies, safecracking, and burglaries, netting him a sum of approximately $70,000.Coates, Paul, Suspect In Highway Patrolman's Killing Shot and Seized in Battle, latimes.com; retrieved April 30, 2011. Walker later explained that his crimes were motivated by a desire to gather funds and equipment to build an electronic radar gun (which, by shooting a beam, would disintegrate metal into powder) so that he could force the government to pass legislation raising soldiers' pay. That would, in turn, increase the cost of war to a point that it could not be waged profitably.Cop Killer, February 8, 2009; retrieved April 30, 2011.
Using the alias "Paul C. Norris", Walker contacted Willard W. Starr, a sound engineer who bought and sold motion picture and sound recording equipment out of his home, to sell him a collection of commercial motion-picture equipment. Starr immediately suspected that the motion-picture equipment had been stolen and alerted the police.
On April 25, 1946, LAPD Hollywood division detectives Lieutenant Colin C. Forbes, and his partner, Sergeant Stewart W. Johnson, staked out Starr's home to wait for the suspect's arrival. As Walker approached the house, the detectives emerged to confront him.In re Walker, 10 Cal. 3d 764, Crim. No. 16711, Supreme Court of California, February 14, 1974Some reports refer to the sergeant's last name in the April 1947 shootout as Johnson, others as Jones.Coates, Paul, Suspect In Highway Patrolman's Killing Shot and Seized in Battle; retrieved April 30, 2011. Walker opened fire, and Forbes was hit in the abdomen at pointblank range after his own pistol jammed. Johnson wounded Walker in the stomach and left leg with at least two bullets from his .38-caliber service revolver. Despite his wounds, Walker escaped on foot using the labyrinth of storm drains under the city.Meister, Dick, Too Crazy To Die: The Story of Erwin "Machine Gun" Walker, The San Francisco Chronicle, April 15, 1998; retrieved April 30, 2011. Forbes and Johnson were both rushed to a hospital, where Forbes was found to have a .45-caliber bullet lodged against his spine. He recovered although doctors were unable to remove the bullet and had to leave it in place.Webb, Jack, and James Ellroy. The badge: true and terrifying crime stories that could not be presented on TV, from the creator and star of Dragnet, New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, (2005) pg. 103; Forbes returned to work each day carrying Walker's .45-caliber slug next to his spine. However, after years of all-night stakeouts and violent encounters with the LAPD, his health continued to deteriorate, and he was eventually forced to retire at the age of 46 on a pension of $300 per month.
In May 1946, Walker committed another burglary by stealing rolls of safety-detonating fuse and priming cord. To open safes and break locks, Walker made his own explosive, nitroglycerine, by using fuming nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and glycerine. On June 5, 1946, Walker drove to a meat market at the corner of Los Feliz Boulevard and Brunswick Avenue in Glendale, California. According to Walker's court testimony, after severing the lock on the store with bolt cutters, he then put on his own padlock. Walker then hid the bolt cutters in an adjoining area, got into his car, and drove around the block to see if he had been observed. Not seeing anyone, he retrieved the bolt cutters and returned to his car, again driving around the block. Getting out of his car, Walker said he saw a person with a flashlight in the vicinity of where he had hidden the bolt cutters. He watched the person with the flashlight enter a car and drive it toward him.
As the car drew opposite him, Walker recognized the person as a policeman. California Highway Patrol Officer Loren Cornwell Roosevelt, the one-time police chief of Arcadia, California, called Walker to his car and asked what he was doing in the neighborhood. Walker responded that he was going to see a girlfriend. The officer, sitting behind the steering wheel with a flashlight in his left hand and his right hand on the butt of his gun, asked the defendant for his identification. Walker stated that he slowly eased a loaded .45 automatic pistol from under his belt and pointed it at Officer Roosevelt, who drew his own police service revolver in response. Walker testified that he shot Officer Roosevelt twice, ducked, and ran, abandoning his own car and again escaping via the storm drains.People v. Walker, 33 Cal.2d 250, Crim. No. 4833 (December 29, 1948) According to detectives who interviewed him, Walker told a slightly different version of what happened at the time of his arrest, declaring that Officer Roosevelt had shot at him first, which forced Walker to duck and return fire, hitting Roosevelt twice. Walker then elaborated that Roosevelt had asked him to call an ambulance, and Walker responded that he would do nothing for him.