Pursuit and Capture
On March 30, police arrested André Soudy at the English Channel coast, where he announced that he did not care whether he died of tuberculosis or by guillotine. Édouard Carouy was arrested April 3. Raymond Callemin was arrested April 7, and police had to prevent an angry mob from lynching him on the spot. Antoine Monnier was arrested in Paris on April 24. By the end of that month, police had arrested 28 gang members and supporters. Still, Bonnot, Octave Garnier and René Valet remained at large.
On April 24, three police officers surprised Bonnot in the apartment of a suspected fence. He shot at the officers, killing one and wounding another, and then fled over the rooftops. Part of the 100,000 francs reward was later given to the widow of the killed police officer, Jouin.
On April 28, police had tracked Bonnot to a converted garage in the Paris suburb of Choisy le Roi. The building had only one entrance so it was easy for Bonnot to keep the police at bay. They besieged the place with 500 armed police officers, soldiers, firefighters, military engineers and private gun-owners. By noon, after a sporadic firing from both sides, Paris Police Chief Louis Lépine sent three police officers to put a dynamite charge under the house. The explosion demolished the front of the building. Bonnot was hiding in the middle of a rolled mattress and tried to shoot back until Lépine shot him non-fatally in the head. Afterwards police again had to prevent the spectators from lynching Bonnot. They simply told the crowd that Bonnot was already dead and had been buried in a secret grave.
On the evening of May 14, Octave Garnier and Rene Valet were besieged in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne by a large force including 300 police officers and gendarmes and 800 soldiers. Sûreté Chief Xavier Guichard himself led the siege. The firing from both sides was intense, and at 2 AM, Guichard decided to blow the place up. Garnier died in the explosion, but Valet tried to keep firing despite his wounds.
Read more about this topic: Bonnot Gang
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