On the night of September 26, 1945, Det. Frank M. McGrath walked into the bar area of the Belvedere Hotel, still at 319 West 48th Street in the heart of Times Square, Manhattan. Almost instantly, a man named Bud Elmer Linderman, a brash, 25-year-old rodeo star from Red Lodge, Montana, got into a fracas with the Detective. Linderman was in town to compete at Madison Square Garden. He knocked McGrath to the floor, kicked the Detective, stole his service revolver, fired a shot into the ceiling, and then fled. McGrath was taken to Roosevelt Hospital on Ninth Avenue, where he died the next day, 12 hours after the fray at the hotel. He was 35 years old, married, and lived in Long Island City. For three years, he had been assigned to the Elizabeth Street Station (the 5th Squad at the 5th Precinct) in lower Manhattan, ordinarily servicing Chinatown, Little Italy, and the Bowery. Linderman, who hailed from a champion rodeo cowboy family, was leading in the standings as the national, all-around cowboy champion for 1945. He had surrendered himself to police at the Midtown North Stationhouse, still on West 54 Street, Manhattan, the day after the incident. He claimed McGrath was “the aggressor” who insulted his party of five. He remained at liberty with a minimal $7,500 bail. A tentative homicide charge was dismissed on October 29, 1945, when a Grand Jury refused to indict the cowboy star. Apparently, the fatal incident did not disrupt the 20th Annual World Championship Rodeo, which took place October 3rd to November 4th, 1945, at Madison Square Garden. Linderman was declared 1945’s bareback riding world champion. He also finished third in saddle bronc riding and third all-around rodeo champion of the nation. Linderman broke his neck when thrown from a horse in 1957, and in 1961, he died at age 39 of a lung hemorrhage brought about by pneumonia. When his short obituary appeared in the New York Times on March 14, 1961, they wrote, “He was as well known on the rodeo circuit for his fist fights as he was for his cowboy artistry.” There was no mention that he was responsible for the death of a New York City Police Detective. He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2016. Det. McGrath, who had served seven years with the NYPD and during the precarious WWII years, was buried by his family in New York.