By JOHN F. MORRISON
SGT. JOHN A. Stevenson was tense and wary as he walked slowly up the stairs to the apartment where a man armed with a rifle, pistol and knife had been holding cops at bay for hours.
After a visit by the only cop the man, Charles Balster, 48, said he trusted, Detective Frank Flood, he had agreed to Flood’s suggestion that he provide coffee for the officers waiting below.
It was Stevenson’s job to go up the stairs and retrieve the coffee, which was set out on a tray outside the apartment door.
But Stevenson had something else on his mind besides coffee. How was he going to get this dangerous guy before he hurt someone? Balster had already fired several shots at officers.
Stevenson bent down and picked up the tray, the desperate man standing over him, holding his rifle, the pistol in his belt.
Then, Stevenson saw his opportunity. Balster looked away, just for an instant, and Stevenson dropped the tray and jumped him. The man managed to jam his rifle into the officer’s chest and pull the trigger, but it didn’t fire. A cartridge had become stuck in the chamber.
Other officers, including then-Capt. Frank Rizzo, thundered up the stairs and jumped on the gunman, disarming and handcuffing him.
The drama the night of Jan. 14, 1959, was featured on the TV show, “Lawbreakers,” hosted by Lee Marvin. But, oddly, the segment was never shown in Philadelphia.
John Stevenson, the epitome of the handsome, Irish cop, who came from a family of cops, a Navy veteran of World War II, and devoted father and grandfather, died Sunday. He was 87 and lived in South Philadelphia.
In a strange twist of fate, Stevenson, who had served many years with Rizzo on the force, including the highway patrol, collapsed and died outside the building on Walnut Street near 15th where Rizzo had collapsed and died while running for another term as mayor on July 16, 1991.
Stevenson looked like a cop, so much so that his picture, dressed in the boots and leather of the highway patrol, were used on police recruiting posters. No doubt many a young man signed up because they wanted to look like the dashing officer on the motorcycle.
During his 21-year police career, Stevenson was attacked by a knife-wielding thug who managed only to slice open his jacket, and a berserk man who burst into the police station at 20th and Federal streets and attacked officers with an axe handle. Stevenson received a fractured knee.
He retired as a lieutenant in 1971, having served as a detective in the West, East and Central Detective divisions, Major Crimes, and commanded an experimental tactical foot patrol in Center City in the mid-60s.
Stevenson was born in the Schuylkill section of South Philadelphia to John Stevenson, a cop who died of a heart attack on duty in 1930, and the former Sally McCann.
Stevenson’s formal education ended after the eighth grade at St. Anthony’s Parochial School, but he educated himself with extensive reading over his lifetime, especially books on history and biographies.
He joined the Navy shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack and served aboard the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga during some of the deadliest fighting in the South Pacific.
While on leave in 1945, he married Nan Falls.
Stevenson was proud of his Irish heritage.
“His grandfather told him, ‘Never forget the green,’ ” said one of his sons, Joseph, retired chief of the North Wildwood, N.J., police force.
Besides his wife and two sons, he is survived by four other grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
*Services*: Funeral Mass 10 a.m. Thursday at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, 3rd and Reed streets. Friends may call at 8:30 a.m. Burial will be in Ss. Peter and Paul Cemetery, Marple.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, 1404 S. 3rd St., Philadelphia, 19147.
Philadelphia Daily News (http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/)