John Jack Ellis

John Jack Ellis helped to rescue Thomas T. Sass and Kenneth J. Bennett from a homicidal attack, Toledo, Ohio, January 7, 1960. Resisting arrest after having fatally wounded an aged minister without provocation, a crazed man also wounded Sass, 41, and Bennett, 29, police patrolman, who fell to the ground 17 feet from each other. Ellis, 43, ambulance service owner, and Joseph J. Greenwade, who had arrived with their ambulance, witnessed the shooting of the two patrolmen and saw the man with an automatic shotgun standing outside the door to a building 20 feet from the wounded men. Ellis and Greenwade, neither of whom was armed, took a stretcher from the ambulance and ran 16 feet to Sass. At a warning shout from a police lieutenant who had noticed the man raising the shotgun to fire, Ellis and Greenwade threw themselves to the ground. Seeing the assailant lower the shotgun and work with it as though it were jammed, Ellis and Greenwade quickly rose to their feet, carried Sass to the ambulance, and placed him inside. Despite warnings from the lieutenant, they then ran 30 feet to Bennett while the officer covered them with his revolver. Seeing the revolver pointed at him, the man entered the building. Ellis and Greenwade carried Bennett to the ambulance and put him inside. The assailant went to an upstairs window and pointed the shotgun at other policemen who had been summoned. They shot and killed him. Sass and Bennett were hospitalized and recovered.