Officer Lowell Pew was shot and killed in the railroad yard by one of three tramps he caught breaking into a freight car. At about 1:00 am Officer Pew was called to the K Line Depot as an attempt was being made to rob the depot. Officer Pew and a railroad agent found three men armed with picks near the depot and as they attempted to arrest them the robbers fired. Officer Pew was struck in the neck severing his windpipe killing him instantly. All three suspects, Edward Burns, Richard Logan, and Edward Weaver were captured two months later.

On September 27, 1900, two of the suspects escaped from the Bowling Green Jail by tunneling out of their cell into a sewer which led to the outside. On October 7, 1900, they shot and mortally wounded Officer Raphael A. Girard of the Hannibal, Missouri, Police Department.

Officer Pew joined the police department on August 14, 1899. He was interred at St. Joseph Cemetery in Louisiana, Missouri.