Offbeat Oregon: Prohibition sting ended with a deadly gunfight in Grand Ronde

If you look up Prohibition Agent Glenn H. Price on the “Fallen Agents” page at www.atf.gov, you’ll get a very brief account of his death:

“Prohibition Agents Glenn H. Price and Grover Todd were attempting to arrest a bootlegger named Phillip Warren in Grand Ronde, Ore. Warren escaped, obtained a rifle, and killed both agents. Warren was later taken into custody and charged with murder under state law.”

All of which is true … in the same way that “Using dynamite on a beached whale in 1970 led to success in removing it from the beach” is true. It just … leaves out a few things, that’s all.

The shootout that killed agents Price and Todd happened at a dance in Grand Ronde on Sept. 2, 1922. It was just a couple years after nationwide Prohibition had gone into effect, and the U.S. Treasury Department had created a special-police force of Prohibition Agents to stamp out alcohol use. The demand for a large force of “dry agents” led the department to lower its professional standards to fill its ranks … a decision that would play a significant part in the events of that day.

The government’s official story of the shooting in Grand Ronde was essentially what was splashed over the front pages of Oregon newspapers the next day. According to authorities, agents Price and Todd were in town with two other Prohibition agents. Also traveling with the agents were an off-duty Tillamook County Sheriff’s deputy named E.W. Holden who was apparently moonlighting with the agents for some extra income, and a man named Jasper Perry who had just been busted for running a moonshine still in Tillamook County and was cooperating with authorities in hopes of a lighter sentence.

In Grand Ronde, moonshiner Perry introduced agents Price and Todd to two local men, Phillip Warren and his friend Henry Petite — both members of one of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde — and asked if the two of them could find some liquor for them. When they furnished a pint of white lightning and received $2 for it, agent Price tried to arrest them. The two men resisted — Petite ran for it, and Warren tried to follow suit but Price clubbed him with the butt of his gun, opening a wound over his eye and dazing him.

Apparently thinking he was unconscious, Price left him with moonshiner Perry and went off to do something else, probably to chase down Petite.

But Warren quickly recovered, overpowered moonshiner Perry and ran home to get his Winchester .25-35 deer rifle. Back at the scene, he threatened the agents’ chauffeur, who was eating in a restaurant — demanding to know where Price was. Then he made his way back to the car, where he found Price and Todd and shot both of them. Meanwhile, the other agent got his automatic pistol out and opened up on Warren with it. He got four shots off, including one that hit Warren in the hip, before the gun jammed.

Warren then limped home with his rifle to seek medical attention.

Warren’s family talked him down, and got the Polk County Sheriff to take him into custody. He did not resist.

And, well, that was the story going into the trial. To every Oregon newspaper reader following the case, it looked pretty open-and-shut.

But it turned out to be missing a few critical details, which came out when witnesses started testifying in court.

First of all, the jurors learned that the Prohibition agents had actually brought their own liquor with them to Grand Ronde to sort of “prime the pump.” Price, in particular, had had rather a lot to drink, and was quite tipsy. One local testified that the agents had been drinking freely from moonshiner Perry’s confiscated supply for a week or more.

They also learned that when moonshiner Perry approached Warren and Petite, he (Perry) had supplied a bottle of booze which all of them had passed around.

“You needn’t be afraid of us,” Perry assured them. “I’m a moonshiner and bootlegger, too.” But he’d run low on liquor that night, he added; did they know someone who might get them a little more booze to keep the party going?

Warren asked around, and finally found someone willing to sell him a pint of homemade blue ruin. This he brought back and sold to agent Price for $2.

Only then — after having had six or seven drinks with Warren and Petite — did agent Price make the arrest. But, according to Warren and Petite, agent Price never actually identified himself as a federal agent. He just pulled his gun and ordered Warren and Petite to get in the car.

Thinking they were being kidnapped by gangsters or something, Warren and Petite panicked. Petite broke first, leaping over the car and diving off into the night. Warren took advantage of the distraction to sock Price in the jaw. Price responded by pistol-whipping Warren, stunning him and covering his face with blood.

When he recovered, Warren thought he’d been shot in the head. Moonshiner Perry was unable to detain him in the car, but, obviously seeing he was boiling mad and eager for revenge on agent Price, warned him to be careful — Price, he said, would not hesitate to shoot him.

Warren went straight home, retrieved his .25-35, and stormed back to the car. He later testified, in court, that he had no intention of murdering anyone; but he got the rifle for protection, since agent Price was armed, and he wanted to have a talk with him.

On the way, he stepped into the restaurant where one of the out-of-towners — the agents’ chauffeur — was tucking into a late-evening supper. Pointing the rifle in his general direction, he demanded to know where Price was.

“What’s the matter, someone run over you?” the stranger said.

“They’ll find out,” growled Warren, and moved on toward the car.

At the car, agent Price tried to ambush him, grabbing the barrel of the rifle and bringing his pistol up into Warren’s face. Warren heard a click. Backstepping and tearing his rifle loose from the other’s grip, he gave him two doses — the second one fatal.

One of the other agents now got his pistol out and started firing on Warren. He got four shots off before the gun jammed, including one that hit Warren in the hip. Apparently not knowing where the gunshots were coming from, Warren then shot agent Todd, who was crawling around the car either to get away from Warren or to ambush him.

Then he went home.

Multiple witnesses before and after the shooting — including Polk County Sheriff John Orr — testified that they smelled liquor on the Prohibition agents’ breath, and that agent Price and bootlegger Perry both were at least tipsy.

One other detail seemed to stick in the jurors’ craws. After agents Price and Todd were shot, neighbors rushed to the scene to try to save their lives if they could. The men — not yet dead, but dying — were carried to a nearby garage and those with some medical training did what they could.

While they were doing that, neighbor Inongus Bonouch testified, E.W. Holden, the off-duty deputy, got out a bottle and started passing it around. Gus Winslow, one of the neighbors who was carrying the fallen agents and trying to stop the bleeding, testified that deputy Holden actually tried to offer him a bottle while he was working on the patient.

In light of these revelations, the jury struggled to figure out what to do. Two men were dead — but could they really call it murder? It seemed more like a gun fight that had been started by the losing party. Warren testified that if he’d known the four men were federal agents, he would have submitted to arrest; but they never told him, so he fought for his life.

In the end, the verdict was Not Guilty in the murder of agent Grover Todd. And, when the government tried again with a whole new trial for the shooting of agent Price, that charge didn’t stick either.

The editorial board of the Salem Capitol Journal spoke for most observers of the case in an editorial published after the verdict:

“The system followed by the slain officers was that customarily used by special dry officers seeking victims in order to make a record of arrests,” the newspaper wrote. “Coercion, intimidation, and corruption were the methods employed, and as no booze was handy, the officers supplied it. For the ensuing shooting affray, they were as much to blame as anyone.

“It does not serve the law’s end to enter into conspiracies to induce others to become lawbreakers,” the editorial continued. “It is no part of a prohibition enforcement officer’s duty to get drunk with his victim and consume the evidence … The purpose of Prohibition is to stop the manufacture and sale of liquor, not merely to fill jails — a fact frequently lost sight of.”

(Sources: Oregon Moonshine: Bootleggers, Busts & Brawls, a book by Bruce Haney published in 2023 by The History Press; archives of the Salem Capital Journal, Sept.–Dec. 1922; www.atf.gov)

Finn J.D.’s most recent book, “Bad Ideas and Horrible People of Old Oregon,” was published by Ouragan House last year. To contact him or suggest a topic: finn@offbeatoregon.com or 541-357-2222.