SA Rufus C. Coulter served as an FBI Agent from 1928 to 1945, and was born in Tennessee in 1903.  He was an orphan at a young age. He was a graduate of Arkansas University, having attended night classes. After being assigned to several Bureau offices, he served as Special Agent In Charge of the Phoenix office.

When he resigned, he served as Chief Of Police in Phoenix and was later employed by Motorola, Inc.  Coulter died in 1975 and had served as Chairman of the Phoenix Chapter, Society Of Former Agents.

SA Rosser "Rusty" Nalls was born in WDC and joined the Bureau in 1929.  He retired in 1956 and died in 1983 at the age of 82.

Both Nalls and Coulter (who later played a role in the Brady shootout) were in St. Paul, Minn. on March 31, 1934 assisting in the Dillinger case under the direction of SAC William Rorer.

On that day, in checking out a lead from an apartment manager, Nalls and Coulter attempted to resolve the identity of 2 suspicious men, and one woman, reported by the manager.

The resulting incident is a classic case of how everything seemingly routine can "go to hell" at a moment's notice and how, especially Coulter, both nearly lost their lives running into Dillinger, Homer Van Meter and Evelyn Frechette under aliases.  We've all run into these situational breakdowns in our careers.

Personally, I think a re-creation of the events of that day, putting the various players in respective positions, would make an excellent training scenario for even current day  police/FBI personnel on resolving the identities of unsubs who very well may be dangerous fugitives.  It's also an excellent item to "critique."

This is an approximate 10 page or so memo done by ADIC Harold Nathan in a review of the facts of the shootout and some monday morning quarterbacking that admittedly, he states is easy to do.

A copy of the St. Paul shootout memorandum by Nathan is here.