This day in history: Spooked by ostriches, Spokane’s Manito Park zoo kangaroo was recovering in 2 casts

From 1976: Five members of an alleged drug-running scheme called the “Pasco Connection” were on trial in a Spokane federal court, and the jury was beginning deliberations.

“These five thrived for many years in dealing misery to addicts in the Pasco area,” the federal prosecuting attorney said.

The five were accused of shipping “hard narcotics” – heroin and cocaine – from Los Angeles to Pasco.

“Don’t paint everyone with the same brush, even through you are an all-white jury trying five Black defendants,” said one of the defense attorneys, Edward Critchlow.

Carl Maxey, another attorney for the defense, said, “The government is guilty of indiscriminate discrimination. The indiscriminate piling up of innocent with the guilty – that’s discrimination. I know. I’m subject to it.”

From 1926: Bob Fitzsimmons, the 6-month-old kangaroo at the Manito Park zoo was recuperating at the home of Dr. B. Johnson after he broke bones in each of his two hind legs.

The kangaroo, which also was described as an “Australian wallaby” by the Spokane Daily Chronicle, had been at the zoo for two months. He broke one leg when he became entangled in a wire fence after he was spooked by the ostriches. He broke another bone when “park employees were endeavoring to corral him.”

Johnson told the newspaper that Bob Fitzsimmons was recuperating fast. His picture on the front page showed him in two plaster casts.

In other news, Isadore “Izzy” Edelstein walked into the Spokane County Courthouse and “is again in his old cell, ‘office No. 2,’ in the county jail,” the Chronicle reported.

“I’ve come home to jail, where I will be safe from the blame of committing every robbery in the country,” Edelstein told the jailer.

Edelstein, a master safecracker, had already been convicted of the sensational Paulsen Building heist but had been released on bail pending a second trial as a “habitual criminal.”

Edelstein had been arrested again, two weeks prior, in Springfield, Illinois, accused of burglarizing two more safes. This had raised questions about whether Edelstein would return to Spokane for trial. Yet he would have forfeited his $30,000 bond if he hadn’t come back.

Edelstein told reporters that he was falsely accused of the Springfield theft and that “the only place I am free from suspicion is St. Louis, where they know me best.”

“I’ve still got my old smile and am happy,” he told a Spokane deputy. “I want my friends to know I came back to see this affair settled definitely.”

Editor’s note: This article was changed on May 14, 2026, to correct information about Bob Fitzsimmons’ broken legs. He broke bones in each of his hind legs.