Pages

Friday, August 20, 2021

Knoxville Rioters Unable to Lynch Frank Martin, Many Injured, Some Seriously, Aug. 20, 1921

Three Hours of Rioting Leaves Many Wounded. . . Knoxville Scene of Blood Clash Between Officers and Mob. . . Two Score Men and Women Suffer Gunshot Wounds

Knoxville, Tenn., Aug. 20—With at least two score men and women suffering from gunshot wounds, 26 of whom were treated at local hospitals before midnight, Knoxville today is quiet after three hours of rioting at the Knox County jail last night, when efforts were made to reach Frank Martin, negro, accused of assaulting a white woman school teacher. The rioting resulted in the exchange of shots between the mob and the State militia, city and county deputies, on guard at the jail.

Men of the cavalry troops and machine gun detachment of the State militia were still on duty at the jail this morning. Machine guns stationed at vantage points about the structure, commanding two of the approaches, were not used when the crowd swept from the Courthouse Square toward the jail last night.

Adjutant General Brummitt, Sheriff Cate of Knox County, and Captain Schneider of the machine gun company, in terse statement issued after midnight declared that the first firing came from the mob. The principal weapons used by the mobs were rocks and stones, which were hurled at the jail defenders without causing casualties.

Crowd Dispersed

The volley from the regularly constituted peace officials effectually dispersed the crowd and before 11 o’clock 18 injured had been treated at three hospitals, and later eight others were received, while it was frely predicted that 10 or 15 were carried to their homes painfully wounded.

At the jail, in addition to the negro, Martin, and numerous whites and blacks held for petty crimes, are four white men recently sentenced to the electric chair from Anderson County, charged with the murder of George Lewis; and Maurice Mays, negro, under life sentence for the murder of Mrs. Bertie Lindsey in 1919, and the objective of a similar outbreak of violence August 30, 1919, when the jail was practically demolished and 20 prisoners were liberated.

Precautions were taken at midnight Friday to properly guard the municipal powder house in South Knoxville and local hardware stores where guns and dynamite and blasting powder are handled.

List of Injured

The list of injured as reported form local hospitals included:

William Porter, shot through left shoulder.

Clarence Leak, shot through right side and left leg; considered serious.

Robert Underwood, shot in left leg.

Hall Vandergriff, bullet wound in mouth, condition must serious.

Ulrich Davis, shot in forehead, bullet still in frontal cavity; bullet woud in right arm.

Homer Oglesby, bullet wound left arm.

Al Lee, shout through left shoulder and right leg.

Kenneth Pless, bullet wounds all over and through arms.

Joe Ramsey, shot through left leg.

J.N. Thompson, shot through leg in two places.

R.W. Gleaves, Nashville, shot through both legs, left arm and back; condition serious.

Ernest Erwin, shout through abdomen, condition serious.

Thomas Julian, shot in leg.

Robert Jones, shot in leg.

Clifford Crowe, shot through shoulder.

Jess Childres, Elba, Ala., shot in hip and leg.

Charles S. Nuckols, shot in back and right arm; condition serious.

Mrs. Charles S. Kuckols, slightly wounded in back.

L.E. Hull, bone shattered, right arm.

W.M. Poore, Manring, Tenn., shot in right leg, serious.

Harry Burk, wounded in back.

Walter P. Hammet, vocational student, wounded in back and chest.

Walter Sellars, shot in face and hips.

Charles McCall, struck on head with pistol.

From the front page of The Charlotte News, Saturday, August 20, 1921

No comments:

Post a Comment