Talk:Albert Johnson (criminal)

Bio
I was watching an interview of Sgt H.F. Hersey on the Biography Channel. He was the person wounded by Albert Johnson during his last battle.

He was interviewed at age 98.

He stated that Albert Johnson was carrying multiple firearms including a sawed-off shotgun and his total gear weighed close to 150lbs! This makes the story of his flight even more amazing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.159.198.74 (talk) 21:13, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Bias
I don't think the tone of this article is unbiased. The term "petty criminal" appears to me to be a value judgement.

I guess the author assumes that he must have been a "petty criminal" otherwise the all mise mounties in their nascent Canadian police state wouldn't have been after him in the first place.

The fact remains, however, that he was never any evidence of a crime being committed up utill he fired on the mounties. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.226.172.189 (talk) 04:11, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Well as the author of the article in its original form, I simply have to say that no value judgement was implied. However the claim that there was never any evidence of a crime being committed up utill he fired on the mounties is obviously incorrect as Johnson was being investigated for tripping the traps. That IS a petty crime, and why I called him that.
 * If anyone is showing a bias it's the author of the comments above. Statements like "I guess the author assumes" and "nascent Canadian police state" show this fairly painfully. Luckily he didn't actually change the article.
 * Maury 22:57, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Rat River or Rat Creek?
Hi, I thought Albert Johnson's title was the Mad Trapper of Rat Creek not Rat River. Any objections to that being changed? Kimbalee1 19:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm quite sure it is Rat Creek, I went to school in the area that used to be called that... they have a community paper called "Rat Creek Press"...but someone has changed it back to Rat River... so I guess that is what this article will call it.-Kimbalee1 14:16, 17 September 2006
 * You are a little confused about the geography...about 2000 miles. Rat Creek is in the North Saskatchewan River water system while Rat River is not far from Fort McPherson in the MacKenzie Delta. ⋙–Berean–Hunter—►  ((⊕)) 23:58, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Search Warrant
The author makes the allegation twice that the search warrant for Johnson's cabin was illegal. Is there any evidence for this and if so what is it? It sounds like an opinion and not a fact. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by--64.233.226.119 19:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC) 64.233.226.119 (talk) 19:10, 11 March 2007 (UTC).

Assessment
I have assessed this as Start Class, as it contains more detail and organization than would be expected of a Stub, and of low importance as I do not feel that many people outside of Canada would be familiar with the subject of this article. Cheers, CP 15:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Redirect games
See: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard for the mess created by User:The-G-Unit-Boss. Handicapper (talk) 14:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Other information
I have also heard that Albert Johnson was not actually killed at the final battle, but had cornered one of the 9 police and shot the man in the face, and then when the police heard the gunshot, they found the body of the dead officer, but thinking it was albert johnson, and he had gotten away.

A couple years later a student of a teacher of mine then looked in the phonebook after a story for an "Albert Johnson" living in Naramata, British Columbia, canada. He asked the old man during the call if he had ever been in those mountains (whatever the range/valley was called, he used the proper words but I don't remember) and the man said "How do you know?"... this doesn't matter so much though, his name is not listed anymore in Naramata, he probabled died as this was in 1995.

Also, he said they found a jar of golden teeth in albert johnson's backpack he carried with him, do we havve any sources on this? 24.129.237.34 (talk) 02:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello 24 - What you are relating sounds quite a bit like the plot (ending) of the early 80s Charles Bronson movie Death Hunt,
 * which includes the fictionalized point about the man with the face shot off being mis-identified as an escaping Johnson. But it's a :movie - the gold teeth element is taken from an account of another "mad trapper" and Johnson's fate is well-established. I believe you :information than he/we had later, it is still a fine read - it also deals with the gold teeth rumor. Most importantly, however, it :includes a number of full face photos of Johnson, shot - NOT in the face - several times on the frozen Rat River. The pictures make :the body clearly identifiable as the man known as Johnson, which you can clearly see in the included photos of AJ when alive and substantiated as the same man by highly technical facial imaging analysis. The ongoing autopsy on the remains in Aklavik started last summer should also help to establish identity. As for the AJ in Naramata who had been in the Richardson Mountains - remember that thousands of people every year are still convinced that they've seen Elvis alive, too. Sensei48 (talk) 06:02, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Initial Clean-Up, 4/10/09
My compliments to the several recent editors whose work has substantially expanded and improved this article.

However, in the process of so doing, a number of fundamental Wikipedia principles have been violated, especially WP:NPOV, WP:ADVERT, WP:OR, and various grammatical rules and stylistic conventions.

My edits to day are designed to accomplish the following:

a) Correct misused semicolons and replace contractions, which are not acceptable in formal or encyclopedic style.

b) Conflate the "Notes" section with "In Popular Culture" since they were covering the same ground. All entries in both sections have been included.

c) Break up the monolithic section "Manhunt" into logical and more readable paragraphs.

d) Make the article internally consistent. The end of "Manhunt" states that Johnson's identity is still debated - which it is - but the identity section starts with a flat statement that Dick North has established AJ's identity. I spent a good amount of time with North in Dawson City YT in the summers of 1991 and 1992 and I admire him and his work. Until there is a positive DNA identification of AJ's remains (which may have been done and certainly could be in the manner that Anna Andersen was proven not to be Princess Anastasia Romanov by comparing the DNA of her son [I believe] with that of the Duke of Edinburgh, a relative of the Romanovs - this before the conclusive evidence of finding Anastasia's remains), North's theory may well be the best. But it is not the only credible one, as the two contributions following that paragraph indicate. Wiki policy is that when a controversy exists, all sides must be presented equally and dispassionately. Thus, while it may be appropriate to give North the lead here (and I point out that his The Mad Trapper of Rat River was published in 1972, 17 years before Trackdown), he cannot be said to have definitely proven AJ's identity when there exist two sourced competing theories.

e) Give prorper credit and perspective to the project sponsored by The Discovery Channel but remove promotional material including all caps designation and blatant advertisement for an upcoming program Please see WP:ADVERT.

More to be done here, and I am certain that other editors have more to add - but the neutrality and integrity of the article must be preserved. regards, Sensei48 (talk) 18:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Wop May
Wop May eventually became involved in the creation of Canadian Pacific Airlines, and has an entry already. Should be linked up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wop_May —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.109.109.244 (talk) 19:48, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Criminal
I'm not comfortable with the one word disambiguation of Albert Johnson (criminal). While obviously shooting police officers is not legal, the use of the word implies that in life, crime was what Johnson did. We have no evidence that he was a criminal in any such sense. Indeed, his actions look more like those of a rather paranoid and antisocial survivalist. Albert Johnson (trapper) perhaps? 200.121.18.57 (talk) 15:16, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Another "Albert Johnson"
It's a bit of a long-shot, but I was just reading about the case of Frank McCullough, who in 1918 shot and killed a Toronto police officer in 1918. He was associating with a "petty criminal" named "Albert Johnson," who fled after the shooting and, from what I have read, was never found. Kscheffler (talk) 18:11, 20 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Is this a proposal to add a note about that?
 * Thanks, Dwightol102 (talk) 16:27, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090522032026/http://www.wassigvaldthemadtrapper.com/booknews to http://www.wassigvaldthemadtrapper.com/booknews
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150512163509/http://www.wopmay.com/adventures/madTrapper.htm to http://www.wopmay.com/adventures/madTrapper.htm

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Additional sources for further cleanup: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1932/02/17/105781439.html (contemporary account of the aerial search) https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1932/02/01/109771789.html?pageNumber=38 (contemporary account of the final shootout in NYT)

Criticism
One part of this story that is missing & is important enough to be included, is the subsequent notoriety of this incident. People with sketchy backgrounds get in conflict with the law frequently enough that this would not meet WP's criteria for notability alone. But it's clear from all of the books listed -- which are not at all used in this article -- that Albert Johnson & his clash with the RCMP made the news of the time & provoked continued curiosity into his birth name & prior life. None of which are covered in this article; "Albert Johnson in Popular Culture" needs to be part of this article. -- llywrch (talk) 16:38, 17 April 2023 (UTC)