P.C. Bert Merritt – King’s Police Medal (1922)
A rash of break-ins to drug and hardware stores in Hamilton came to an abrupt end at 2:30 a.m. on September 28th,1920, when17 year old Frank Carroll gunned down Constable Bert Merritt at the comer of King Street and East Avenue. The thirty-one year old officer would have been well aware of the unsolved crimes as he approached Howell's Drug Store at 483 King Street East (recently occupied by Super Jay's Variety)...
…while on his way to Central Police Station. When he saw two young men detach themselves from the shadows of the drugstore doorway and head towards East Avenue, Bert followed calling on them to stop. When he reached them it dawned on him that he’d spoken to one of them some hours earlier so, as the youth tried to talk his way out of his predicament, Bert frisked him. Almost immediately he found a .32 caliber revolver tucked into a hip pocket.
As he arrested the man, the other one, Frank Carroll of 221 McNab Street North, pulled a gun and fired three times from point-blank range. One bullet struck Bert above the left breast however, its momentum was slowed by his cigarette package and notebook causing only a slight flesh wound; another was deflected by a rib but one punctured his abdomen. Bert released his prisoner and lashed out at Carroll with the revolver he held in his hand. The weapon caught Carroll on the side of the head knocking him senseless.
Then, as now, there were plenty of good Samaritans willing to help. People like Mrs. Durling whose apartment was above 457 King Street East. She heard the shots and called the police when Bert cried out: “Help! I am shot!” or Miss Leah Coxhead of 3 East Avenue South who crossed King Street, to help Bert handcuff his prisoner; and local physician, Dr. Archibald Steinberg of 1 Emerald Street South, who ran to the scene and helped until reinforcements arrived, then operated on the wounded officer at the General Hospital.
Although it had been 12 years since a police constable had been shot in the line of duty feelings ran high, for Bert was a popular officer. The community’s outrage was echoed by Mayor Charles G. Booker when he told a Herald reporter:
“…(Constable Merritt) showed wonderful control in not shooting that man dead last night. Had he done so he would have had my hearty approval… When I come across a case like this there are moments when I feel that I am in favour of lynch law…”
The day after the shooting, Frank Carroll pleaded guilty to several counts of break and enter and, on November 2nd,1920, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of “…shooting with intent to disable and do grievous bodily harm … and also to prevent the lawful apprehension of himself and another, unknown, by wounding and doing bodily harm-” Carroll’s counsel, M.J. O’Reilly, K.C., pleaded for leniency citing “cigarettes, bad books and bad company” as being responsible in large part for his client’s downfall. That the judge thought little of the argument was clearly reflected in the 15 year sentence he imposed.
In 1922, Bert was mentioned in the King’s New Year’s Honours list as the recipient of the King’s Police Medal for bravery; an award that was doubly gratifying as he was the first local officer to receive it.
Carroll’s companion escaped and was never identified.
Information courtesy of Special Collections, Hamilton Public Library.
950625
The Way We Were… By Bob Rankin