Boston, Dec. 1—Cornelius Moriarty, known in Boston’s South End district, the police said, as “Conny, the Rat,” was booked at police headquarters shortly before midnight tonight on a warrant charging him with assault with a dangerous weapon on a police officer in performance of his duties, in connection with the shooting last Saturday night of Patrolmen Thomas K. McCabe and Joseph F. Condon. Both officers are still on the danger list in a hospital here as a result of bullet wounds received following a holdup in the Back Bay district.
Picked up in the police dragnet after several witnesses had said that pictures of him resembled the man who shot down the two officers and then forced a taxi driver at gun point to drive hint away. Moriarty tonight denied any connection with the crime.
“I didn’t shoot those cops,” he told the Inspector who arrested him, and a moment later said, the detective asserted, “If I’d known you were out to get me it would be you and I all over the street and it would be you going to the station house.”
Several of the witnesses called expressed the opinion that Moriarty was the man they saw on the scene of the shooting Saturday night. Moriarty, however, asserted that he had been released a little more than a week ago after serving a 16 months’ sentence for larceny of an automobile. He said he had been drinking at Thanksgiving, that he was drunk in his room on Saturday night and all day Sunday.
Boston police, seeking to round up members of two gangs believed to have been concerned in the shooting, carried their revolvers in their outside coat pockets tonight with orders to shoot to kill.
Daily Kennebec Journal, Augusta, ME, December 2, 1924