Matt Hader Knihy

In 1990 and 1991, a criminal dubbed “the Bearded Bandit” went on a bank-robbing crime spree. The man who was arrested for the crimes was a former police officer. He and his wife were alleged to have robbed eight banks in the Chicago area. On the sixth day of the accused criminal’s federal trial, he slipped his restraints, battered a US marshal and grabbed her weapon, and murdered another federal marshal as he attempted to escape. He also murdered a retired Chicago Police Department detective named Harry Belluomini, but as he was dying, Belluomini managed to fatally wound his killer. Two movies were made about the Bearded Bandit and his wife, as if they were a latter-day Bonnie and Clyde. No one had much to say about the man who did what no rational person would ordinarily do—who moved toward the sound of gunfire, who put himself between an armed killer and the public. Like countless police officers before him and since, Harry Belluomini selflessly faced lethal danger on behalf of others. While the alleged bank robber and murderer was glamorized on screen, the man who stopped him, a dedicated family man who was building his dream home in northern Wisconsin has largely been ignored. Protector sets that record straight.