Detective Lieutenant Donald A. Robertson
(EOW 3/9/72)

Two gunmen robbed the Hahn’s Shoe Store at Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road in Silver Spring shortly after 4 p.m. on Thursday, March 9, 1972, resulting in a patrol unit stopping a southbound suspect auto on Georgia Avenue near Wayne Avenue. The vehicle and its lone occupant were taken to the Silver Spring Station. Detective Lieutenant Donald Robertson, who had already worked the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift, voluntarily stayed over to help. At approximately 6:30 p.m., Lieutenant Robertson became suspicious that the second holdup man might be hiding in the trunk and went downstairs to search the car. As he began to take off the rear seat cushions, two shots rang out, and Lieutenant Robertson slumped in the seat. The gunman in the trunk, a 25-year-old heroin addict, was found dead a few minutes later from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Lieutenant Robertson died an hour later at the Washington Sanitarium in Takoma Park of a wound to the head. The 35-year-old Lieutenant had just completed 13 years in the department that same day.