Cops & Robbers: Officer Clare Davis / Gangster Morris Roisner
Two Prohibition-era men. One man was the law. The other man fought it. ​
Clare Reed Davis (1898–1990)
1928 Parker watch
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Clare was a career Highland Park, MI police officer who helped to capture three diamond thieves on April 3,1928. For his efforts, he was awarded with a $100 check and a 14k white gold Parker wristwatch, engraved with the names of the 3 robbers, “Captured - April 3 1928 - Al Bloom - Herman Zeidman - Louis Goldman - by Clare R Davis”​​​
Officer Davis was on a routine patrol on the afternoon of April 3, 1928, when he witnessed three armed robbers holding up a diamond wholesaler who had just left an upscale Highland Park jewelry store.
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​5The thieves – Al Bloom, Herman Zeidman, and Louis Goldman – forced New York diamond merchant Albert Ginzberg into their car and started to drive away with the victim and $100,00 worth of diamonds.
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Davis witnessed the holdup and flagged down two fellow officers in a patrol car. They captured the bandits, rescued Ginzberg unharmed, secured the diamonds, and prevented an angry crowd from beating the thugs.
Morris Roisner (1889-1952)
1941 Elgin Money Clip
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​Morris Roisner (1889-1952) was a notorious Twin Cities Prohibition Era bootlegger, kidnapper, and gangster who served three years at Leavenworth Prison for income tax evasion.
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​St. Paul and Minneapolis were almost in the same league as Chicago in terms of corruption and crime.​​
​John Dillinger, Alvin Karpis, Ma Barker, Baby Face Nelson were all part of the Twin Cities crime-and-corruption scene. “St. Paul in the late 1920s and early 1930s was known as a ‘crooks’ haven’ — a place for gangsters, bank robbers, and bootleggers from all over the Midwest to run their operations or to hide from the FBI.”
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Morris Roisner was a business partner of Louis Gleckman, who (in cooperation with the St. Paul police), ran a huge bootlegging and slot machine operation, with yearly profits of over $1 million.
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After his release from Leavenworth, Roisner joined a company that sold Wurlitzer juke boxes (and never reported the income...). In 1941, Wurlitzer presented Roisner with a custom 10k gold-filled Elgin money clip, embossed with the Wurlitzer logo; Morris Roisner’s was beautifully engraved for his own personal use.