Walter H. Auble

Walter H. Auble (November 26, 1862 – September 9, 1908) was the police chief in Los Angeles, California, on a one-year appointment from November 1905 to 1906.

Biography He was born in 1862 in Illinois and was killed in a shooting on September 9, 1908. He was only the third Los Angeles Police Department officer killed in the line of duty — the highest-ranking officer and the only former police chief. At the time of his death he was the longest-serving officer on the LAPD.

According to his obituary in the Los Angeles Herald of the next day, Auble was born in Illinois in 1861 and at the age of 25 was appointed a special officer and "worked at one of the prominent theaters of that day." On January 1, 1887, he was made a regular patrolman and became a detective three years later. He was appointed captain of police July 21, 1903.

He was married in 1888 to Florence Andrews. They had three children, Julia, Gladys and Earl. Auble was a member of the Westgate Masonic Lodge, a Scottish Rite Mason, 32nd degree, and belonged to Temple Al Malaikah Shrine. He was also a member of the Maccabees, tent No. 2 of Los Angeles.