Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
FOIA release cover sheet reading Subject: Charles Pretty Boy Floyd, Kansas City Massacre, File 62-28915, Section 1, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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Kansas City Massacre, FBI file 62-28915 (FBI Vault, 93 parts)

The FBI Vault's file on the 17 June 1933 shooting at Union Station, Kansas City, file 62-28915, released in 93 parts. Section 1's cover names the subject as Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Kansas City Massacre. A copy of that cover is stored here.

Date
1933
Kind
finding-aid
Source
FBI Records: The Vault
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
A record of the Federal Bureau of Investigation released under FOIA in the FBI Vault. A United States government work, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The stored image is a grayscale render of the Vault viewer's page scan.

The Vault lists the Kansas City Massacre file in parts 01 to 93 (Final), with Part 24 split into pages 1 to 249 and 250 to 282. The cover of Part 01, stored here, reads: “Subject: Charles ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, Kansas City Massacre, File: 62-28915, Section 1.”

The viewer’s text layer for Parts 01 and 02 is mostly unreadable. Readable passages in Part 01 include a June 19, 1933 memorandum in the Frank Nash case recording that Special Agent in Charge Vetterli had sent two agents to Joplin, Missouri, and a page stating that Floyd was wanted in connection with the murders of Otto Reed, chief of police of McAlester, Oklahoma, William J. Grooms and others. Parts 03 to 93 were not opened for this archive. Three Bureau letters from the file’s first days are filed separately in the Weapons and evidence section.

itemKansas City Massacre and "Pretty Boy" Floyd (FBI history page)The FBI's history essay on the June 17, 1933 shooting in front of Union Station, Kansas City, Missouri, in which four officers and their prisoner Frank Nash were killed. It places the car directly in front of the station's east entrance.itemLetter from R. H. Colvin, Oklahoma City, to J. Edgar Hoover, 25 June 1933, asking for a submachine gun, rifles and pistolsEight days after the Kansas City Union Station shootings, the Oklahoma City agent in charge writes that agents have "only the small light pistols furnished by the Bureau" and asks for a Thompson submachine gun, rifles, .45 Colt automatics and ammunition.itemLetter from J. Edgar Hoover to R. H. Colvin, 27 June 1933: steps being taken to equip field offices with firearmsThe Director replies to the Oklahoma City request of 25 June: "steps are being taken to properly equip all field offices with appropriate fire arms." The letter also declines a proposed private reward fund.itemLetter from Acting SAC M. C. Spear, Kansas City, 27 June 1933, asking for a slug and shell for ballistic comparisonKansas City asks Oklahoma City for a slug and shell reportedly fired from the gun of "Pretty Boy" Floyd in a bank robbery, "so that they might be compared by the ballistic expert, here, with shells and slugs on hand here."itemCharles "Pretty Boy" Floyd Summary (FBI Vault, Part 01, Final)A 17-page FBI summary file on Charles Arthur Floyd: a cover, a letter to the Director setting out his criminal record from a 1925 highway-robbery arrest, and a later "case write-up" on the Kansas City Massacre. A copy of the cover is stored here.