Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 75 years ago

A failed pulp-fiction writer found himself on the criminal end of a real-life robbery caper in Spokane and ended up with a bullet wound and a jail term.

Writer-turned-thug Ralph Hunter, 27, walked into the Club Drugstore on Riverside and Bernard. He pulled a gun and ordered the druggist to empty the till. In a twist worthy of a pulp-fiction plot, off-duty Spokane cop James Manning chose that moment to walk into the store.

The startled Hunter turned and fired in panic. The bullet, said Manning, “went zing past my ear.”

Manning jumped behind a counter and drew his gun. They exchanged at least eight shots. One of Manning’s bullets hit Hunter in the leg and knocked him down.

“You’ve got me,” Hunter said.

After his arrest, Hunter said he had been trying to “go straight” by selling cops-and-robbers action stories to magazines, but he only had four accepted out of thousands submitted. He was “blue and disgusted” and decided to get some quick money.

When asked why he fired at Manning, he replied, “Were you ever scared to death?”

Manning, described as “Irish, stern-jawed but genial,” said, “I was lucky he missed me, and he was unlucky that I hit him.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1792: President George Washington signed an act creating the U.S. Post Office.