End of Watch:
Sunday, September 29, 1935
Cause:
Gunfire
On September 29, 1935, at approximately 9:30 a.m., Deputy Ernest Loll was dispatched to a wooded area near SW 35th Avenue and SW Arnold Street to investigate a report of illegal bird poaching. When Deputy Loll arrived, he located one man and began speaking with him. While Deputy Loll began to order the man up to the street, a second subject, who had been hiding in the bushes, shot Deputy Loll several times with a shotgun. The men took Deputy Loll’s shotgun and fled in a vehicle.
Two residents came upon Deputy Loll’s body in the middle of the road shortly after he was shot. Deputy Loll was still breathing when the couple found him, but he passed away a few minutes later before medical aid arrived. They remembered seeing a vehicle with two men and a dog driving past them quickly just before they came upon Deputy Loll. Using the detailed description provided by the couple and criminal arrest records, police identified the two men as George Fiedler and Ferdinand Weston, both of Portland. Both men had previous convictions for carrying concealed weapons and were known by local law enforcement as “cop haters”.
On October 2, 1935, Fiedler and Weston were arrested by MCSO deputies and Oregon State Police troopers in Grays Harbor County, Washington, on the outskirts of the Quinault Indian Reservation. The men were located inside a home belonging to a relative of Weston. Fiedler admitted to discharging his shotgun twice at Deputy Loll as Loll exited his patrol car. Weston admitted to hiding in the brush when he saw Deputy Loll’s vehicle pulling up to their location. After seeing Fiedler shoot Deputy Loll, both men ran up to the roadway and saw that Deputy Loll was still alive. Weston then shot Deputy Loll once in the head before the men left in their vehicle.
In January of 1936, Weston was convicted of Manslaughter and was sentenced to life in prison at the Oregon State Penitentiary. Later that month, Fiedler was convicted of Second Degree Murder and was sentenced to 15 years in prison at the Oregon State Penitentiary.
Deputy Loll had been employed by MCSO for 12 years at the time of his death. He was a U.S. Army veteran of World War I. He left behind a wife and two small children.
By the end of 1936, the Sheriff’s Office, and citizens from the community that Deputy Loll served, erected a stone memorial at the location where Deputy Loll was murdered. That memorial still stands today, and every May members of the MCSO Honor Guard place a wreath and observe a moment of silence in honor of Deputy Loll.