In 1935, the Spokane police regularly extorted sex, food, and money from
the reluctant hobos (many of them displaced farmers who had fled the
midwestern dust bowls), robbed dairies, and engaged in all manner of
nefarious crimes, including murder. This history was suppressed until
1989, when former logger, Vietnam vet, and Spokane cop Tony Bamonte
discovered a strange 1955 deathbed confession while researching a thesis
on local law enforcement history.
Bamonte began to probe what had every appearance of widespread police
crime and a massive cover-up whose highlight was the unsolved murder of
Town Marshall George Conff. The fact that many of those involved, now in
their 80s and 90s, were still alive made it imperative that Bamonte
unravel this mystery. The result is Breaking Blue, a white-knuckle
ride through institutional corruption and cover-up that vividly
documents Depression-era Spokane and an extraordinary case that few
believed would ever be brought to light.