Re: Merrie Way web site

11/04/13 - posted by John Martini

Hi Judy. Yep, the Bureau of Prisons gave two Thompsons to the SFPD back in the 1950s. The police had no use for them, and when Alcatraz opened to the public in late 1973 they offered them back to the island. There was no paperwork to support the provenance, though. Just oral tradition.

Many years later I was doing research in the Alcatraz Penitentiary administrative records at the National Archives and found a 1940s inventory of firearms kept on the island. To my happy surprise, the serial numbers for two of the tommy guns on the list matched those that the SFPD would later donate to the Park Service.