On October 01, 1922, Detective Donohue was shot by a rookie in the Police Department training school. The Rookie (the perp) was firing shots into a crowd of people on West 135 near 5th Avenue. Donohue heard the shots, went over there with 2 other policemen (1 Detective and 1 Patrolman). Donohue leaped to seize the perps gun and the perp shouted “I’m a Policeman” and fired again. The perp was brought down by the Patrolman. The perp died 2 days later.

It was not known how the perp got a hold of the gun since rookies who were in police training were not supposed to have guns yet. The perp was believed to have been crazed by bad whiskey.

Detective Donohue died on February 16, 1923 as a result of the wounds. He lived in the Bronx and has 7 children, some of whom were already grown. He’d been with the Police Department since 1904.