Sergeant Archie B. Wood

Archie B. Wood

Sergeant Archie Wood was shot and killed by two of four boys he had just arrested in a stolen automobile.

He hopped on the running board and instructed the driver to drive to the police station. As they pulled up to the station, two of the suspects shot Sergeant Wood with .44 caliber revolvers.

The two killers, both 17, were convicted of murder and sentenced to 21 years. The first few years would be in a reformatory school, and then the remaining years would be in prison. One escaped from the reformatory school two years later and was captured in Memphis a year later. He was returned to the Tennessee Penitentiary.

The other suspect escaped from prison on December 11, 1934. On August 28, 1936, he was captured in Clinton, Louisiana, and returned to Tennessee. On July 20, 1937, he was pardoned by Governor Gordon Browning for saving the lives of two men in 1935. He was working for Bell Telephone in Louisiana with two co-workers, working beside a freight train when a load of logs suddenly broke loose from a flat car. The workers, in a prone position, were grabbed by the suspect by their ankles and pulled to safety just as the logs crashed, saving them from a certain death. Several newspapers reported his heroic act, which eventually led to his capture.

The other two suspects in the car, 15 and 16, were convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 5 years each in a reformatory school.

Sergeant Wood had served with the Nashville City Police Department for 12 years. He was survived by his wife, three children, two sisters, and a granddaughter.