Wednesday, 22 January 2020 03:17

Officer Thomas J. O'Neill

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Police Officer Thomas J. O'Neill 

On this day in Baltimore Police History 1949 we lost our brother Police Officer Thomas J. O'Neill based on the following:

Officer O'Neill suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage after escorting an emergency Polio patient to Sydenham hospital at approx. 10PM. Officer’s O'Neill, Kemmerzell, and Newman, leapfrogged their motors from intersection, to intersection in order to get the patient to the hospital as quickly as possible without interruption. The escorted ambulance carrying the Polio patient to the hospital made it their safely, and in record time without incident. After the ambulance arrived at the hospital, the officers left to return to their posts. Officer O'Neill had trouble starting his bike (in 1949 they didn’t have electric starters, he had to kick-start his bike), he managed to catch up to the others and told them about his bike troubles and then made his way back over to his post near Lake Montebello. There can be a lot of stress in police work, often causing high blood pressure, and heart trouble from the fast paced lifestyle we as police have to live. In O'Neill case his body was found face down in the parking lot by a doctor, who realized he had an emergency medical condition so he rushed him to the ER where doctors determine that his medical condition was more serious than they were equipped to handle so they arranged for him to be escorted from Sydenham to Mercy Hospital.

A combination of factors, including the stress of the escort and the effort made to restart his motorcycle, induced a fatal cerebral hemorrhage. Doctors worked for hours to save the Officer O’Neill’s life, but at 6:45 AM on October the 16th 1949 Officer O'Neill died. Investigation reviled his death was duty related, and so his wife Helen was awarded his LOD pension.

As his brothers and sisters of the Baltimore Police Department we will not let him be forgotten, His service Honored the City of Baltimore, and the Baltimore Police Department may he rest in peace, and may God bless him.

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Again please contact Ret. Det. Kenny Driscoll if you have pictures of you, your family, or other members of the Baltimore Police Department and wish to see them remembered here on this tribute site. We are anxious to honor the fine men and women who have served this fine police department. Ret. Det. Kenny Driscoll can be reached at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - Like us on Facebook, or contact us for a mailing address 

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More details

NameDescription
End of Watch 16 October, 1949
City, St. Baltimore, Md
Panel Number 14-W: 26
Cause of Death Heart Attack
District Worked Motors
Read 6960 times Last modified on Wednesday, 22 January 2020 04:57
Baltimore Police Historical Soicety

The Baltimore Police Historical Society put this and other articles on this website together using research from old newspapers, old books, photos, and artifacts.

We rely more heavily on books written at or near the time of the incident we are researching or writing about. We do not put too much weight on the more recently written history books, or books that have been written with a biased opinion or agenda.

We try not to tell our readers what to think about our past as much as we tell a story with hopes of our readers forming their own opinions. That said, ever so often we come across a story that to us is so exciting that we might express that in our writings. but we hope our readers will form their own opinions based on the information written at the time, not information that was added years later using a filtered history that has been twisted and pulled in the direction of various storytellers that may or may not have had their own agendas.