The Deadly Cost of Intervening in a Street Brawl
A Gilman man dies after a shooting during an altercation outside the Davis house, sparking a murder charge.
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.
Coroner Horton yesterday held an inquest at Gilman over the body of Nicholas Strassner, who died from a wound received last Tuesday night. Witnesses were examined, and the jury gave the verdict that the deceased came to his death from a shot fired by J. C. Brackle. George K. Burrows, an eyewitness, testified that Brackle and John Sutti attacked John Dobson and John Gibson. Strassner, who was with the Suttis, was thrown down and beaten. Brackle, seeing this, stepped in to help. In the ensuing confusion, a revolver was fired. Dr. F. W. Harrell confirmed the wound was fatal. Marshal McQuade later retrieved the gun from Brackle, who was still on the scene. The coroner noted it was remarkable that Strassner lived from Tuesday until Friday given the wound's nature. Brackle has been charged with second-degree murder and will face a preliminary hearing next Wednesday.
“The row had attracted the attention of one, who went to the polls where the votes were being counted and cried out that a man was being murdered at the Davis house.”
Street violence involving intervention often spirals into tragedy, a theme as present in today's urban safety debates as it was in 1892. While Gilman (now part of Issaquah) was then a rough-and-tumble mining camp, the legal fallout of a 'good Samaritan' gone wrong remains a perennial civic burden.
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