Police Officer Knifed While Investigating Flower Thief
A Seattle patrolman was critically wounded after stalking a mysterious woman suspected of plundering a garden.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Officer A. F. Holloway was seriously stabbed in the back about midnight last night near Tenth Avenue and Columbia Street by an unknown man who struck from behind. There had been numerous complaints of flower thieves on his beat, and the officer determined to do some detective work. Captain Samuel Jackson, living at Fifth Avenue and Virginia Street, had suffered especially in this respect and offered a reward for the arrest of the thieves. About 11 o'clock the officer noticed a woman enter Jackson's yard. She espied the officer and walked away. He followed her for several blocks. Suddenly, a man sprang from behind a house and struck savagely with a knife at the officer's back. The blow went through a heavy mackintosh, a coat, and a vest, deep into the flesh. As the assailant struck, he cried out, "You will play detective, will you?" Holloway caught a second blow across the left hand before the man disappeared. Officer Jaycox later discovered the wounded officer. Holloway was taken to a physician and later to his room at Second and Marion Streets. At 3 o'clock this morning, his condition was becoming critical.
“You will play detective, will you?”
While flower theft seems like a quaint motive, the hostility toward law enforcement and the use of 'detective' work to police private gardens reflects an era where Seattle's urban geography was still settling. The specific intersection mentioned, Tenth and Columbia, places this incident in the rapidly changing First Hill area.
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