Patrolman George Pettit Thomas

George Pettit Thomas

Patrolman Thomas succumbed to gunshot wounds received 11 days earlier when he encountered a drunk man on Norfolk Avenue. When he instructed the man to go home the suspect produced a handgun and shot Patrolman Thomas, critically wounding him. Patrolman Thomas, shot in the abdomen, was improving well in the hospital and his condition was upgraded from critical to good. Eleven days after he was shot, he was in good spirits, and the pain was almost gone when he suddenly died.

After the shooting, the suspect was apprehended three days later hiding a vacant building not far from the scene of the shooting. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to several years. On October 28, 1946, he died from tuberculosis at the state prison farm in Goochland County Virginia.

Patrolman Thomas was survived by his wife.