Grand Jury is Called to Fix Responsibility for Hanging of Men.
Type of event: Lynchings
Location: Duluth; St. Louis County; Minnesota; United States
Document date:
Document type: Newspaper(s)
Documents: Grand Jury is Called to Fix Responsibility for Hanging of Men.
Citation:
Duluth Herald, June 16, 1920, page 1, 14.
“Grand Jury is Called to Fix Responsibility for Hanging of Men”
Image text
Grand Jury Is Called To Fix Responsibility For Hanging Of Men
Mob Seeking Vengeance for Assault
on Girl
Accomplishes Its Aim
Thousand Watch Exciting Scenes
From Early
Evening Until Midnight
Judges of District Court Issue
Order Calling
for Investigation
The lives of three human beings were snuffed out, several policemen
injured and police headquarters wrecked as the result of action by a mob which
sought vengeance for the assault made on a West Duluth young woman by Negro
employes of the circus which exhibited here on Monday evening. Thousands filled
Superior street near the police station all evening, culminating in an attack on
headquarters and seizing of the three Negroes who were taken to the corner of
East First street and Second avenue and there strung up to an electric light
pole.
Grand Jury Called
Immediate Investigation of last night’s lynching and rioting to the
and rioting to the end that responsibility may be fixed against those who threw
law and order to the winds and took the administration of justice into their own
hands will be instituted by county authorities at once.
Four judges of the
district court this morning signed and order convening a special grand jury at
the courthouse tomorrow morning at 11 o’clock to “inquire as to
grave public offenses recently committed in this county.”
Two of the
judges, Judges W. A. Cant and Bert Fesier, witnessed the gathering of the mob
last night in front of police headquarters, but neither saw the
lynchings.
County Attorney Warren E. Greene stated this morning that his
office would do everything within its power to bring the offenders who had
incited the rioting and lynching to justice.
“The original crime was
one of the most atrocious ever committed in this county, but neither this nor
any other crime justifies the resorting to mob
(Continued on page 14, first column.)
THREE NEGROES LYNCHED IN DULUTH
(Continued from page
1.)
law,” said Mr. Greene. “A special grand jury has been ordered
and a thorough investigation will be made of both the original assault and the
subsequent rioting and lynching.
“In all fairness it should be said
that all of the Negroes implicated in the crime were from out of the city and
that none of our local Negroes were in the slighted manner involved in the
matter.”
Complaints were ordered issued this morning by County
Attorney Greene for the arrest of the thirteen remaining Negroes of the original
sixteen alleged to have been implicated in the affair of Monday night. All are
charged with the crime of rape.
The sheriff’s office today will
subpoena the members of the special grand jury. The order convening the special
jury reads as follows:
Order Issued.
“It appearing satisfactorily to the court that there is now an entire
absence of grand jurors by reason of the discharge by the court of the grand
jurors regularly summoned for the May, 1920, general term of this court, and
that the public interests require that a special grand jury be summoned and
impaneled at once to inquire as to rave public offenses recently committed in
this county, it is
Ordered. That a special venire issue to the sheriff of
the above named county forthwith commanding him to summon from the county at
large twenty-three competent persons, to be drawn, according to law, to attend
at the courthouse at Duluth, Minn., on Thursday, June 17, 1920, at 11
o’clock a.m., and on such subsequent days as may be required to complete
their labors.
“Dated June 16, 1920.
“By the
court:
“J. D. ENSIGN,
“W. A. CANT,
“H. A.
DANCER,
“BERT FESLER,
“Judges of the District
Court.”