Haze Burch and Early Arizona-First Phoenix Police Officer Killed in the Line of Duty

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By Michael Daly Hawkins

Arizona Attorney Magazine-June 2018 issue

Postscript: Officer Burch left behind two sons and an infant daughter.  One of his sons, Frank Haze Burch, five years old at the time, would become a prominent member of the Arizona legal community.  A founding partner of the Burch & Cracchiolo law firm, Haze was inducted into the Maricopa County Bar Association Hall of Fame, was a founder of the ASU Law Society, and created a foundation to aid families of fallen law enforcement officers.

It was just past midnight, five days into February 1925.  Phoenix Police Office Haze Burch was on night patrol in his Model A Ford.  In the past month, the city had suffered an unusual rash of burglaries and petty thefts.  The conventional wisdom, gathered at the barber shop in the Adams Hotel, was divided as to whether those responsible were local joyriders-"loafing specimens of the home product" as the local newspaper called them-or part of the stream of down-and-out passers through, on their way to California.  

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