On 27 February 1880, a man who had completed a prison sentence in Bocholt was escorted by a gendarme to the Dutch border near Aalten. Thanks to good cooperation between the Dutch and Prussian border police, he was duly received at the crossing by state constable Schaars Prins of Aalten, to be handed over to the Dutch authorities, who also had unfinished business with him.
The journey to Aalten was made by carriage. On arrival, the man was taken to the house of detention. Everything proceeded quietly and in good order until another man entered the prison; it later emerged that he had followed the carriage at a run.
When he was asked what he was doing there, a violent struggle suddenly broke out between the prisoner and his friend on one side, and Schaars Prins, municipal constable Heersink and municipal messenger Gerhard Rots, who happened to be present, on the other.
After a few truncheons had been shattered across the bodies of the attacking rogues, Rots dealt out several blows with a type of frying pan, which was bent completely out of shape as a result. In this fight, the constables sustained only a few scratches and bruises, but the stout-hearted Rots was actually bitten on his nose, his hand, and in a certain hind part of his body.
Schaars Prins, who a few years earlier had been decorated by the German Emperor following an encounter with criminals in Aalten – who, having escaped from the prison in Bocholt, were nabbed by that moustachioed officer – held his ground firmly once again, yet would have been cut down with his own sabre had it not been for Rots.
In the end, all turned out well – the audacious rescue attempt failed, and the friends were put under lock and key. They were transported to Zutphen to have their case heard there and, undoubtedly, to receive their just deserts.