CRIME: The End of Bad Boy Collins

Anybody in Exmore, Va. would have known that Melvin (“Bad Boy”) Collins was a colored man who might try to blow your head off. He was 38 years old and had been in the big house twice for shooting scrapes. He had cut his own brother with a knife. But Bad Boy had left Virginia last month. He had headed north, and in the Negro district of Chester, Pa., nobody knew his reputation.

One morning last week Bad Boy leaned out the window of the second-story furnished room where he had holed up in Chester. A knot of men were standing below. Bad Boy began acting silly. He dropped a dime and called down, “Call the cops.” One of the men picked up the dime, said: “This will get me a cup of coffee.” Bad Boy got crazy mad. He reached back, got a .22 rifle, aimed it out the open window, killed one of the men below him.

A detective named Elery Purnsley was across the street; he ran a few steps, pulled out his revolver and fired. Bad Boy shot back and killed him, too. Then Bad Boy started shooting at everybody in sight—at people leaning out windows, at people on the street. He was a good shot—he killed six more and wounded three.

In a few minutes the cops came—78 city, county and state policemen. They started shooting revolvers, shotguns, Tommy guns and tear-gas shells into Bad Boy’s window. After they had shot in 20 gas shells, they ran across the street and up the stairs of the rooming house. Bad Boy turned his .22 around and shot himself through the roof of the mouth. He was dead when the cops broke down his door.