Frank Edwards, Officer

Tahlequah Police Department

Shortly after 4 A.M. on Sunday, September 17, 1932, Officer Edwards was part of a four member posse formed by Muskogee County Deputy Sheriff Webster Reece in an attempt to apprehend three men wanted for the murder of a women earlier in the month near Braggs. The posse set up a roadblock in a curve of a rural highway near Standing Rock on the Illinois River about 20 miles south of Tahlequah. A police car was placed across the road with Deputy Reece behind it to signal the other officers, who were concealed beside the road, with a flashlight. A car came into the curve faster than expected and skidded to a stop blowing out one of the tires. Deputy Reece signaled with the flashlight and was immediately shot and killed by the occupants of the car. The other officers opened fire on the car. Officer Edwards was wounded in the neck. When the shooting stopped the officers approached the car and found one of the men dead and the other two had escaped. Officer Edwards was taken to the Tahlequah Hospital. The other two men who escaped were cornered the next day and killed but not before killing two more officers. Officer Edwards recovered well enough to be released from the hospital a couple weeks later. Over the next three weeks Officer Edwards went down town a couple times. Still weak he caught pneumonia and was taken to the hospital on Tuesday, October 25th and died at 1:20 P.M. that afternoon. Officer Edwards left behind his wife Blanche.