10/2/2005:
On this date in 1914, police stormed the roof of a Grand Forks hotel, where a man named Oscar Albertson had been “defending himself valiantly with bricks and other missiles” for half an hour.
The story read, “Albertson, it appears, showed signs of violence the night before, but was finally pacified and persuaded to go to his room at the hotel. In the morning he had another attack and, after throwing a large part of the furniture from his room out of the window, he climbed out on to the roof of the kitchen. At first he contented himself with tearing off the shingles and throwing them down to the street but these proving too innocuous for his taste, he began to tear the bricks from the chimney, heaving them with cheerful impartiality at passersby...”
Source: Hansboro News. October 2, 1914.
Dakota Datebook written by Merry Helm