Holding the infamous distinction of being the single deadliest day for American Policemen until September 11, 2001, on this day a black powder bomb went off at the Milwaukee Central Police Station at Oneida and Broadway.
It had not been placed there by the perpetrators, but rather taken there by Sam Mazzone, janitor for an evangelical church in Milwaukee's third ward after it had been discovered next to the church by a social worker. The social worker had taken it inside the church's basement and the janitor, finding it suspicious, took it to the police. Prior to it being inspected police were informally observing it when it went off, killing nine policemen and a female civilian.
Anarchists were suspected in the blast and apparently correctly as many years later Galleanists bombmaker Mario Buda was implicated in interviews of surviving Galleanists. There had been tensions between the police, the church, and anarchists prior to the bomb being placed. No arrests were ever made for the bombing, however. It did cast a specter over the trial of Italian anarchists who werent to trail shortly thereafter on unrelated charges, resulting ultimately in many of their convictions being overturned as tainted.
The nine police deaths in a single terrorist event remained the single most deadly day for American policemen due to a single event until the Al Queda strike on New York two decades ago.
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