On March 17, 1954, at 9:40 p.m., 43 year old Louis Dulisse was riding as a Reserve Officer with Sgt. H. D. Williams – one of 35 sworn members of the department. The partners were sent to the Casa Blanca Hotel where two suspects were committing a robbery while a third waited in the getaway car. Williams entered the hotel leaving Dulisse to wait for backups. When additional officers arrived, Dulisse twice gave up his cover to warn them and to help Williams who had been taken hostage. The suspect who had Williams, began firing at Dulisse who could not return fire for fear he would hit his partner. Officer Dulisse was killed at the scene. The suspects were all taken into custody.
Archives: Fallen Officers
William R. “Willie” Peters
Francis “Jack” M. Rea
Officer Francis Rea died January 3, 1954. He was shot in the head during a running gun battle.
George E. Muriset, Jr.
Dennis Bradley
Richard Thomas
David L. Worcester
Officer David L. Worcester was appointed to the Oakland Police Department in February 1949. He was assigned to the Traffic Bureau as a motorcycle patrolman in June 1952.
Just prior to getting off duty on July 8, 1953, Worcester and three other motorcycle officers were assigned to assist at a fire scene. Worcester and Officer LeRoy Perry left City Hall and drove their motorcycles east. As they made the loop on the 12th Street Dam and onto E 14th Street, Worcester crossed over the centerline. He struck the left front of a westbound vehicle. His motorcycle spun around and Perry’s motorcycle struck him. Worcester was thrown 25 feet and struck his head on the pavement. He died shortly after arrival at Merritt Hospital of a fractured skull. Perry suffered from minor wounds and shock.
Worcester, 29, was survived by his wife and two children.
Thomas E. Millet
On June 16, 1953, Officer Millet was fatally injured at the police shooting range when another officer’s weapon accidentally discharged.
John W. Armatoski
Officer John W. Armatoski was on an enforcement stop eastbound on U.S. Highway 66 west of Needles. After he completed the traffic citation, Armatoski was approaching the violator’s car on the left side when an intoxicated motorist, driving a stolen station wagon, sideswiped the parked vehicle and struck Annatoski. The patrol officer was killed instantly. Armatoski had been a member of the CHP for five years.
Roland Barbeau
Sheriff’s Captain Roland Barbeau died from injuries he suffered when his patrol car’s tire blew out which caused the patrol car to go off the road 20 miles north of Mojave. The driver, Lt. Charles Dewey, and two other passengers, (prisoners) escaped injury.
Barbeau, 46, a veteran officer and chief of the Identification bureau, was thrown from the car as it rolled off US 6 near Red Rock Canyon. The two prisoners, suffering only cuts and bruises, administered first aid to the two officers, they stopped a passing motorist to get help.
A brain specialist was rushed from Fresno to Bakersfield for emergency surgery, but the deputy failed to respond.
Barbeau and Dewey were returning to Bakersfield from Ridgecrest and Inyokern with two prisoners. Dewey managed to keep the car on the road until after it had passed a strip bordered by steep ravines. The vehicle then overturned, throwing Barbeau from the car. The other remained inside until after the car came to a stop. The prisoners, both of Glendale, expressed great admiration for the excellent control Dewey had over the car. “Otherwise,” one prisoner said, “we would have all been at the bottom of the canyon.”
Dewey and the two prisoners were treated and released from Kern General Hospital less than four hours later.
Barbeau had been with the Sheriff’s Department for 18 years.