Sergeant Richard Rivers was shot and killed by members of the Brady Gang.

   The four-member gang had robbed a jewelry store in Lima, Ohio earlier that day in which one of the members was shot in the leg. After fleeing to Indiana, they stopped at a doctor's office to have their companion's wounds treated but the bullet was not removed.

   When one member returned to the doctor's office four hours later, his wife called police without knowing two members were hiding outside their home. Three officers responded and upon their arrival, Sergeant Rivers was killed when they were met with gunfire.

   The men fled the scene but were later apprehended. A 26-year-old suspect, who was wounded in the Ohio robbery, was extradited and sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison.

   The three remaining suspects escaped from the Hancock County Jail while awaiting trial and were involved in a shootout with police in Bangor, Maine over a year later. Al Brady, 26, who killed Sergeant Rivers and Clarence Lee Shaffer Jr., 20, were killed.

   James Dalhover, 29, was convicted of bank robbery and the murder of Trooper Paul Minneman of the Indiana State Police on May 27, 1937, under federal law and sentenced to death. On November 18, 1938, he was executed by electrocution at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.

   Although never proven, the Brady Gang was also suspected of killing Officer Frank Levy of the Anderson Police Department on November 25, 1935.

   Sergeant Rivers was survived by his wife, son and stepdaughter.

The responsibilities of the Indianapolis Police Department (1854–2006) are now under the jurisdiction of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.