Public Safety Commissioner J.E. Huneycutt and Dick Young, city hall reporter for The Charlotte News, furnished a lively aftermath to the meeting of the City Commissioners Friday morning when Commissioner Huneycutt made an attack upon The News reporter.
Three blows had been passed when Mayor Walker, Public Works Commissioner Stancil and others rushed from the council chamber and separated the combatants.
According to witnesses, Huneycutt landed twice on Young, while the reporter, who was taken unawares, is said to have hit the commissioner once.
The mayor and his aides hurried Young into the council chamber while others took the commissioner to his office, farther down the corridor.
Immediately afterwards Young went to Magistrate Alexander’s office and swore out a warrant for Huneycutt.
During the afternoon the commissioner went before ‘Squire W.S. Huggins in the Law Building and forestalled the service of the warrant from ‘Squire Alexander’s court by submitting to an indictment for a simple assault. The hearing was set for 4 o’clock.
Colonel T.L. Kirkpatrick and Frank H. Kennedy have been retained to appear for the reporter.
Commissioner Huneycutt, who is said to have taken exception to a story written by Young in Thursday’s News, followed the reporter from the council chamber and struck him without warning, according to the reporter’s version.
“I was leaving the commissioners’ meeting for The News office to write my story,” said Young, “when Mr. Huneycut told me he wanted to say something to me. “He followed me into the city hall lobby and we stopped. Pulling from his pocket the clipping of the story of yesterday’s meeting of the commissioners he asked if I wrote it.”
“’Yes, I did,’” I replied.
“Do you think it fair?” he asked.
Mr. Huneycutt handed me the clipping and before I could reply, he struck me.
“I was caught off my guard. I hit back, but don’t know whether I landed or not. However, my thumb hurts now. Mr. Huneycutt evidently struck me a second time, for the mayor, who parted us, says one blow struck me just as we were separated.”
Mr. Young, who was wearing glasses, was struck on the right jaw. His glasses fell to the floor. Mr. Huneycutt also was wearing glasses. He was hit in the face also, it was said.
The story to which Mr.Huneycutt took offense concerned the appearance before the commissioners Thursday of Judge Wade H. Williams of the Juvenile Court and Lucius Ranson, county superintendent of welfare, and which resulted in the discharging of Jim Phifer, negro probation officer.
Mr. Hunneycutt was reported as taking exception to the entrance of Judge Williams and Ranson into the affair, and a heated discussion ensued, a detailed account of which was written by Young, who attended, and was printed in late editions of The News.
Mr.Ranson said this afternoon that The News story was “fair and correct in every particular.”
Judge Williams declined to comment in view of his judicial position, but stated that that part of the story relating to the law in the case was correctly stated.
An effort was made to get Honeycutt’s version of the first fight, but the commissioner who left city hall soon after he made the attack, could not be located, either at his office or at his residence.
It was indicated, however, at the city hall that the commissioner of public safety took exception not to what appeared in the story contentions he made at the meeting in connection with charges against the negro Phifer not being counted expedient for publication of essential to be included in a fair and legitimate recital of the commissioners’ meeting. It was the understanding that the commissioner felt that, in the absence of a detailed portrayal of these matters, the story did him an injustice.
From the front page of The Charlotte News, July 7, 1922
No comments:
Post a Comment