A Bowie-Knife Crime in Brooklyn? Impossible!

In the past couple of days I have reprinted four stories in which bowie-knife crimes were committed in the New York City area. Previously I have covered several other instances, such as this and this. Still, according to the following article published in the Brooklyn Eagle on September 5, 1896, New York City police detectives still would not entertain the possibility that local criminals would employ the bowie knife in the commission of their depradations.

Every effort has been made to capture the burglar who was shot last Thursday morning by Mr. George Schoeneck in the kitchen of his home on Avenue A, but without success, and the police have now almost given up hope of ever finding a trace of him. Captain Zimmerman is convinced that the robber was a stranger around Flatbush or else he would not have attempted to enter a house so close by the police station. It is believed that the burglar was a Western man. That is also the opinion of Detective Sergeant Kennedy of the Twenty-third precinct, who is working on the case. He said: “That fellow was too willing to commit murder for an Eastern crook. He heard some one coming downstairs and had plenty of time to escape through the open window. Instead of that he laid for Mr. Schoeneck with a knife. That weapon, by the way, is another proof that the robber came from the West. Why, it's a regular bowie knife. The whole affair was of the rough Western type, and if my experience counts for anything, there was no New York or Brooklyn man concerned in it.”