Boy Shot for Defending Mother, July 8, 1924

Boy Is Shot for Defending Mother. . . Negro Shoots Boy for Interfering with Him While He Was Beating His Wife

Love for his mother and his defense of her against the attack of his step-father almost cost the life of Boyd Ross, 16-year-old colored boy of Dravo, Cherokee county South Carolina, on Monday. The body of the boy was punctured in nine or 10 places by bird shot from a single barrel shot gun in the hands of his stepfather Heywood Ross, who became infuriated at the boy for striking him while he was beating his wife, who was the boy’s mother. The boy was brought here for medical attention and the story he told was an unusual one.

Hit Ross with Shovel

“He had my mother down on the floor beating her with his fist and when I couldn’t make him stop, I picked up the fire shovel and cracked him over the head. When I hit him he started after me with the shotgun and shot me as I was running away. He kept running after me and I saw him coming on once or twice before they picked me up and brought me here,” the negro youth related as the blood trickled from the small holes over his head and body made by the bird shot. The young negro kept running and was enroute, he said, to the home of his grand mother in this county, when several men in a car overtook him and brought him to Shelby, where he was treated by Dr. E.B. Lattimore. The physician said nine or 10 shot had hit the boy and were scattered from his head to his heels.

None of the punctures were serious, but they bled quite a bit and the white shirt the boy wore had turned a shade of red when he reached town. From the boy’s statement and the manner in which the shot were scattered, Ross was evidently 400 or 500 feet from the boy when he pulled the trigger.

The boy did not seem to know how the affair started further than that he “got tired of seeing him beat her” and brought the shovel into play. The little negro was badly frightened and believed that his step-father would have killed him if he had not out-distanced him. People along the road thought the little negro was crazy from his actions and the way he looked back as he ran.

Local officers, McBride, Poston, Jerry Runyans, H.G. Ware, and Nelson Lattimore, arrested Ross several hours after the shooting after he had been chased over the state line. As the shooting occurred in South Carolina, he was turned over to Gaffney officers. The negro, who formerly lived in this county, had a bad reputation here and had been in court a number of times. The act of the little negro in defending his mother against Ross, who is termed a “bad nigger,” was commended by local people who heard the unusual story, and considered the boy lucky for escaping with his life.

From the front page of the Cleveland Star, Shelby, N.C., Tuesday, July 8, 1924