Age: 41
Served: 1 yr
1943 to October 21, 1944

Elmore Pressley, born in Conneaut, Ashtabula County, Ohio, was a laborer until 1941, at which time he lost his first wife, Maggie, to Tuberculosis.  By the end of 1941 he was a Special Policeman with an unknown agency and married a widow and minister, Ellie Willie Lee.  During 1943, he was appointed as a Hamilton County Special Deputy and living at 933 West Seventh Street in Cincinnati. 

On October 18, 1944, Deputy Pressley was assigned to Valley Homes, an unincorporated Lockland subdivision and now a part of Lincoln Heights.  That night, he was responded to 9885 Douglas Walk to assist two 11- and 14-year-old boys locked out of their home.  While assisting them, a man was loudly whistling from across the street.  Deputy Pressley asked him to stop and the man replied, “I will whistle if I want and no one will stop me!”  Deputy Pressley warned him that he would be over to talk with him when he was finished assisting the boys.  Deputy Pressley could not get the boys into their home, so he walked to the Valley Homes office and retrieved a duplicate key and unlocked the door.  The disorderly man was gone.

Having completed his task, he continued his foot patrol, going south on Douglas Walk.  At the intersection of North Leggett, at 10:05 p.m., the disorderly man suddenly burst forth with a .22 caliber rifle and yelled, “Throw up your hands, God damn you, for I am going to shoot you!”  Instead, Deputy Pressley pulled his sidearm.  The man shot and the bullet entered Deputy Pressley just above the navel and exited his back, traversing his liver and a kidney.  Deputy Pressley returned fire at the running man, but one shot misfired and he did not believe the other four took effect.    

Houston & Sons, a Lockland ambulance service, transported Deputy Pressley to Good Samaritan Hospital.  Almost immediately, at 11:19 p.m., he was transferred to General Hospital.  During a subsequent surgery, the liver and kidney were repaired, but he died three days later at 3 p.m. on October 21, 1944, from peritonitis of the upper abdomen.

Special Deputy Pressley left a wife, Ellie, and was buried in a single grave, without a marker, in the Union Baptist Cemetery. 

The ensuing investigation found that the shooter first ran to 9887 Douglas Walk and, using the name James Shaw, tried to force his way into the home.  Later, investigators found the rifle at a pawn shop and that it had been pawned by Curless Ammons of 1133 Jackson Street, also in Valley Homes.  Ammons told police that Clarence Griffin, also known as John Dudley, came to his home on the night of the shooting and told him that he had just shot a police officer.  Griffin left the rifle outside Ammons’ home.  Investigators determined that the rifle fired the bullet taken from Deputy Pressley’s abdomen. 

Five months later, on March 19, 1945, Gary, Indiana Police attempted to arrest a man who was later tentatively identified as Clarence Griffin.  The man resisted and the officers were forced to shoot him.  A few days later, Griffin’s wife and mother and Special Deputy Sim Thompson traveled to Gary to identify Griffin.  On April 3, 1945, his body was exhumed and identified and the Pressley homicide case was closed.

Ellie never remarried.  She died in Drake Hospital on January 16, 1988, at the age of 76 and was buried in Vine Street Cemetery.

During April 2010, Greater Cincinnati Police Museum Registrar, Phil Lind, found newspaper articles written at the time of the original incident, thus starting our research and Deputy Pressley’s due recognition.  Most of the rest of the research was completed by Steve Barnett, Communications Director for the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office.  On October 4, 2010, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office submitted an application to the National Law Enforcement Officer Memorial to have Deputy Pressley’s name added to the Memorial Wall.  The Greater Cincinnati Police Museum found no living relatives and arranged with Schott Monument Company for a headstone at no cost.  On May 4, 2011, at 1 p.m. Deputy Pressley’s grave and new monument will be rededicated at a ceremony attended by Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis and Interim Cincinnati Police Chief Michael Cureton.  On May 13, 2011, Deputy Pressley’s name was added to the National Law Enforcement Memorial. 

If you know anything about Deputy Elmore Pressley, please contact the Museum Director at Director@GCPHS.com.