A Nighttime Murder in Tacoma
A popular patrolman is stabbed to death by strangers while off-duty, sparking a vigilante threat in the streets.
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.
Patrolman Minor Cudihee, aged 24, was stabbed in the back and killed while off-duty and in plain clothes in Tacoma. Cudihee and fellow officer Jack Kenna were walking on South 36th Street when they encountered two men lounging on the sidewalk. When Cudihee questioned them, a confrontation ensued. The larger assailant plunged a knife into Cudihee’s side, killing him within minutes. Kenna was also attacked but managed to survive. The suspects, later identified as a Texan named Seale and an Arkansan named Borders, were captured in a cabin across the hill later that night. The incident sparked intense community outrage, with many locals discussing lynching the suspects, forcing the police chief to increase security at the city prison.
“A majority who have learned the particulars are talking of lynching the assassin.”
Public reaction to police violence in the 1890s often veered toward mob rule and calls for extrajudicial 'justice.' Today’s debates surrounding police legitimacy and community safety are a long-standing evolution of these volatile 19th-century tensions.
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