Hero PC killed as crime wave grips town and car chase ends in tragic gunfight

The Sunday Post reported on a Scottish policeman being shot, on its front page of August 25, 1957.

“Ronald Pitt, a 35-yearold policeman from Scotland, was shot and wounded in a gun battle at Morrisburg, Ontario, yesterday,” read the paper.

“The battle was with two car thieves. He is being flown to Montreal by helicopter, in a bid to save his life. Pitt, a probationary constable in Canada only

a few months, was felled by a .38 bullet in his spine. Police are searching for the men who shot him.

“Police said Pitt had blocked attempts by the two men to steal a car. As they fled in their own car, he chased them in a police car. He closed in. The two men leapt from their car and opened fire. Pitt – a Glasgow man – returned the fire, but was hit. The men escaped in his car.

“A wave of anger swept through the

neighbourhood after the shooting. The town has a two-man police force. An elderly man declared: ‘They’ve come in here from every skid road in the country, with guns and crowbars and crazy ideas. Stop this violence.’”

Sadly, Pitt’s injuries proved fatal and he died two months after the shooting.

In 2015, the Ontario Provincial Police renamed a bridge in honour of the fallen policeman.