Lieutenant Robert J. Staab - Bal Harbour Police Dept. FL - True Life Hero

Robert J. Staab
- Oct. 31, 1957 -

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Bal Harbor Police Dept. Patch

Resided:	FL, USA
Born:	Oct. 17, 1925
Fallen:	Oct. 31, 1957
Race/Sex:	Caucasian Male / 32 yrs. of age
	Agency
Dept:	Bal Harbour Police Dept. FL 9700 Collins Avenue 280 Bal Harbour, FL 33154 USA (305)866-5000
County:	Dade
Dept. Type:	Municipal/Police
Hero's Rank:	Lieutenant
Sworn Date:	3/1952
FBI Class:	Homicide - Gun
Weapon Class:	Firearm
Agency URL:	Click Here
On The Job:	5 years

Bio: Robert J. Staab was born on Oct. 17, 1925 in Pittsburgh, PA. He was the second of five children born to Edward and Mary Daschbach Staab. He grew up in Pittsburgh where he graduated from Peabody High School in 1943. Robert was a H.S. football star and was offered a football scholarship to U.C.L.A. However, he turned down U.C.L.A. and, instead of enrolling in college in the fall of 1953, joined the U.S. Marines on Sept. 14, 1943, at the age of 18.

Staab was a machine gun crewman in the Marines and served in the Pacific. He saw combat action at Okinawa and the Ryukus Islands from April 1, 1945, to June 21, 1945. After the war he was a member of the U.S. occupation force in China from Oct. 16, 1945, to Feb. 25, 1946. He was discharged as a Corporal on April 6, 1946, at the Marine Separation Center in Great Lakes, IL.

After his discharge from the Army, Staab located in Miami where he worked for Armour & Co. from 1946-1951. He joined the North Miami Police Dept. in Aug. of 1951 where he served until Jan. of 1952. He then worked as a police officer in El Portal for two months in early 1952 before becoming a police officer in Bal Harbour Village in March of 1952. Lt. Staab was a 5 & 1/2 year veteran of the Bal Harbour Police Dept. at the time of his death.

Bal Harbour Police Chief Gerard Parkes said of Staab that "I've never had a complaint on him. He was one of the best liked men on the force, so nice even the cophaters like him." The Chief also said that Staab's respect for human life and civil rights contributed to his death in that Staab did not pull his weapon before he began to question the hotel prowler.

Robert Staab married (his second wife) Germaine D. Brodeur in Miami, FL, on Sept. 15, 1955. He had three boys from a former marriage. Lt. Staab was survived by his wife, Germaine, 35; three children, Robert, 10, Gary, 7, and Larry, 4; and a stepson, Dennis Brodeur, 15. Larry lived with his mother in Pittsburgh while Robert, Gary and Dennis lived with the Staabs in their Hallandale home. In addition, Germaine was expecting another child in Feb. Gregory was born three months after his father's death.

Robert Staab was also survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Staab of Miami; three sisters, Carol Staab and Mrs. Russell Hlaven of Miami and Sister M. Celesta Staab of a Pittsburgh convent; and a brother, Edward Staab of Miami.

Fortunately, the Tuesday before his death, Lt. Staab had "bowed to the suggestions of Chief Parkes and signed for a $5,000 insurance policy" with a double indemnity clause. The policy also "provided for payment of the first mortgage on the home and payment of the mortgage on the car, as well as a paid-up life insurance policy on his widow and children in the event of his death." The insurance company later notified Staab's widow that it would not pay as the policy was not in effect because the Lt. did not take his required physical examination. Staab had an appointment to take the exam on Nov. 1st, the day after he was killed.

Survived by:

Germaine D. Brodeur Staab - Wife

three children, Robert, 10, Gary, 7, and Larry, 4; and a stepson, Dennis Brodeur, 15. Larry lived with his mother in Pittsburgh while Robert, Gary and Dennis lived with the Staabs in their Hallandale home. In addition, Germaine was expecting another child in Feb. Gregory was born three months after his father's death.

Fatal Incident Summary

Offender:	Norman J. Mackiewicz

Location:	FL USA Thu. Oct. 31, 1957
Summary:	At 2:50AM on Thursday, Oct. 31, 1957. Lt. Staab, a 5 & 12 year veteran of the Bal Harbour Police Dept., and Bal lHarbour Sgt. Joe Stahmer had been assigned to the Americana Hotel in Bal Harbour in plainclothes on that Wednesday evening (Oct. 30) during the convention of the National Wholesale Druggists Association. The convention had "attracted extra guests to both the Balmoral and the Americana Hotel next door. While Sgt. Stahmer and Lt. Staab were checking the pool area of the Balmoral Hotel at 9801 Collins Ave. they noticed a man peering out of a first-floor "fire escape door on the North wing, the easternmost door." They then watched as he "flitted from door to door on the first floor." Lt. Staab said, "Lets check him." The two officers separated with Staab going towards the door where the man was last seen while Sgt. Stahmer went towards the center fire door of the North wing. Stahmer later gave the following account: Upon entering the hall I turned towards the end of the hall where the man was last seen and when I had covered approximately half the distance to the corner, a man approached me from the direction of the fire door the man was seen at. As I neared the man I pulled out my badge and said "I'm a police officer. What are you doing?" At this time the man reached into his right hip pocket and pulled out a gun, which I recognized to be a .32 caliber automatic. The man pointed the gun at me and said "Alright." As I followed him back in the direction from which he came and we neared a fire well going upstairs. The man then said "in here." I opened the door and went in, the man following. Once we were in there the man became careless and let the gun leave my body, when this happened I grabbed his arm and we wrestled. While we wrestled the man fired one shot hitting the floor. As we continued to wrestle, I pushed the man up against the door leading back into the hall and we fell through the door back into the hall. The man going backwards through the door tripped and fell. As he fell I lost my grip and while the man lay on the floor trying to bring the gun to bear on me again I jumped on him with both feet, my right foot landing in his stomach and my left landing on his gun arm which was across his body. The man rolled and I pitched forward. As I tried to regain my footing the man said "Don't try it" and I looked around and saw that he was half way to his feet and the gun was beginning to bear on me and at the same time I tripped and rolled over coming to rest on my back and the man was standing over me with the gun pointed at me. I said "Alright, don't shoot." At this time Lt. Staab came around the corner, gun in hand. The man saw him and started to turn. I yelled "Get him, Bob!" The man continued to turn and shot. Lt. Staab firing just after. I could see that Lt. Staab had been hit and I kicked the man on the gun arm and he fired again. I then started to get to my feet and the man turned towards me and fired, and started to run down the hall. I drew my gun and fired as the man turned the corner. I followed and he went out another fire door into the lot on the North side of the hotel. As I went out the door I saw the man across the lot and fired as he ran and continued to fire four times in all outside. When the last shot was fired the man was nearly to the front of the hotel where he jumped through the hedge into the Sea View lot. I went back to see how Lt. Staab was and found him dying on the floor with a bullet hole in the right temple. I ran to the desk in the lobby and phoned the dispatcher. I asked for an ambulance and told her to have car 113 start a search for the man. I gave the description as being a white male, 5'8" to 5'9", 150 to 160 lbs., brown hair, wearing grey pants and light jacket and armed with a .32 caliber automatic. I then went back to Lt. Staab and stood by until the ambulance arrived. In the mean time I used a phone and again called the dispatcher and told her to inform the C.B.I. and Chief Parkes. The ambulance arrived shortly and a couple of minutes later Chief Parkes and the C.B.I. They took over. (Memo from Sgt. Stahmer to Bal Harbour Police Chief Parkes) After the fugitive eluded Sgt. Stahmer by jumping the hedge and entering the grounds of the Sea View Hotel (which was closed for the summer) next door, he "made his way on foot to a residential neighborhood a half-mile inland and stole a rental car parked on the street." He then fled north in the stolen car toward Hollywood. Sgt. Stahmer was fortunate to have Lt. Staab come to his rescue as the gunman held a revolver just three feet from his head and appeared ready to shoot him as he lay flat on his back "at this fellow's mercy". Stahmer was also fortunate that the gunman apparently panicked and fled though Staab had fallen to the corridor and he "had the drop" on Stahmer. Once the gunman fled, Sgt. Stahmer was able to pull his gun and fire at the fleeing gunman. Lt. Staab was rushed to St. Francis Hospital where he was admitted at 3:15AM. A "tracheotomy was done and X-rays of the head showed fracture and bullet." Robert Staab never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at 4:02 AM. The cause of death was "gunshot wound of head with laceration of brain." A massive manhunt began soon after Sgt. Stahmer called in the shooting. Fourteen police departments and county agencies were involved in the search for the fleeing cop-killer. "Roadblocks were set up in a wide circle around Bal Harbour" and police in Dade and Broward Counties and throughout the state were alerted with a description of the fugitive and his car. Two hours after the shooting, Hollywood Patrolman George Lewis stopped a car near Hallandale Beach Blvd. and U.S. A1A that fit the description of the fugitive and car being sought according to a radio description he had received a few minutes earlier. He forced the car to the side of the road. The driver, Norman J. Mackiewicz, 32, offered no resistance and told the officer that he had been stopped twice before but that he wasn't the man the police were looking for. Mackiewicz was placed under arrest. Officer Lewis found a .32 caliber automatic on Mackiewicz and then called for assistance. Four shots had been fired from the gun--the same number of shots fired by the gunman at the scene of the Staab murder. Mackiewicz still insisted he was innocent and made no effort to prevent his car from being searched. Mackiewicz was taken to the Dade County jail for further questioning. He continued to claim that the police had the wrong man but conceded that he had "served a total of seven and one half years in California and New York prisons for armed robbery." Later police investigation indicated that Mackiewicz was the armed robber who escaped from the Fountainbleau Hotel the previous Saturday night after robbing two Fountainbleau guests in a fifth floor corridor. He then forced the two guests and a hotel security officer into a closet at gunpoint and fled. Police ballistics tests were able to match the slugs found in the Balmoral corridor and in Staab's body to the .32 caliber revolver found on Mackiewicz when he was arrested. A bullet fired at the scene of the Fountainbleau robbery also was proven to be fired from Mackiewicz' gun. Mackiewicz was charged with first degree murder and armed burglary and with second degree robbery (for the Fountainbleau robbery). The murder of Lt. Staab also forced state prosecutors to drop charges against "bigtime gambler Howie Irving Engel," a "one-time S & G Syndicate figure" who was charged with attempted bribery after a vice investigation. Lt. Staab was scheduled to be the star witness in Engel's trial.
Disposition:	Mackiewicz was executed at Raiford on August 7, 1961 (3 years after the Staab murder). He read a brief speech before his execution condemning capital punishment as no deterrent to crime. "During his three years on death row he had written each of FL's 133 legislators by hand urging that electrocution be suspended or abolished."
Source:	Book Excerpted in part or in whole from Dr. Wilbanks book- FORGOTTEN HEROES: POLICE OFFICERS KILLED IN DADE COUNTY, FL, 1895-1995 by William Wilbanks Louisville: Turner Publications 1996

Last Updated: May. 29, 2019