Patrolman George Claud Holt Pickett

George Claud Holt Pickett

Patrolman George Pickett was shot and killed while on night patrol in the downtown area after all of the businesses had closed.

He was shot in the face when he and two officers approached two suspicious men at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Pine Street. As both suspects, who were brothers, fought a pistol duel with the three, one shot Patrolman Pickett in the face. His killer escaped. The other suspect was apprehended in Little Rock the next day. On November 8, 1901, he was sentenced to four years for his part in the murder. On June 29, 1902, he was one of 11 inmates who escaped from the stockade at Doyleton. In June of 1915 officials discovered a few days earlier, he was killed in a sawmill accident in Clyde, Mississippi. At the same time the suspect's father was jailed on a charge of bigamy. He said his son, Patrolman Pickett's killer, was alive and well but refused to say where he was.

Patrolman Pickett was killed on his first day as a patrolman for the Pine Bluff Police Department. He was survived by his wife and three children.