In the heat of what is said to have been a family argument, Thomas Crawford, Negro porter, 819 Green street, shot and fatally wounded his father-in-law, Hampton D. Smart, 50-year-old Negro carpenter, 714 McRae street, shortly before 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon. Immediately following the shooting Crawford fled and up to an early hour this morning he had not been captured, although several parties of police and sheriff’s deputies were searching for him.
The shooting took place at the corner of Ninth and Fanning streets in the heart of Brooklyn and is said to have been witnessed by a number of persons. Few details of the encounter could be obtained from the police last night. On receipt of the report Lieut. Joe Lane, Sergeant W.T. Hansley and Tom Hall rushed to the scene and arranged for the removal of Smart to the hospital where he died a few minutes later. Shortly after 5 o’clock a telephone message from a yard office on Smith’s creek conveyed the information that Crawford had been seen near there and Lieutenant Lane, Hansley and Hall took up the chase, following the negro to the creek and tracking him through the marsh for some distance. As he went into deep water they lost the trail and after an inspection of the bank up and down the stream was made, they assumed that he had attempted to swim the creek.
Later Sheriff George C. Jackson, L.W. Tyndal and others from the sheriff’s office took up the chase and worked the farther shore of the creek, using a rowboat. Efforts to pick up the trail on that side of the stream were fruitless, and it was said to be the belief of some that the negro had drowned in his attempt to cross. The fact that he did not remove his clothing and that there could be found no marks which indicated he had left the stream supported this theory.
A report to the police from the hospital where Smart was taken after the shooting declared that he had died of his wounds on the operating table immediately after reaching there. Coroner A.S. Holden was notified and after viewing the body, he ordered it removed to an undertaking establishment where today it will be viewed by a coroner’s jury selected last night.
Coroner Holden’s jury is composed of E.Z. Milton, L.H. Partin, W.H. Register, Dwight McEwen, J.H. Huey, and A.F. Gibson. Monday morning at 10 o’clock this jury will sit at the inquest to be held in the grand jury room in the court house.
According to a statement last night by Coroner Holden, two bullets took effect in the body of Smart. One entered the left side of his neck, passed through the parathyroid, severed an artery and came out on the right side of the neck near the shoulders. Another bullet penetrated the abdomen on the left side tearing through the intestines.
A pistol, said to have been of .38 calibre, was used by Crawford, it was stated last night.
From the Wilmington Morning Star, Sunday, February 26, 1922
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