The Horror of the Seattle Police Dungeon
A man held for seven days without charges in a 'black hole' recounts the squalor, lice, and mental torture inflicted by the local department.
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.
John Lyle, who was held seven days in the dungeon and was not registered until four days had elapsed, was taken into the municipal court and told that he could go provided he would leave town. Lyle told a reporter he preferred to live under the British flag if the stars and stripes permitted such treatment. He described a seven-by-five-foot cell with little light, extreme temperature swings from steam pipes, and rampant lice. He claimed he was given only one blanket and fed poorly. Lyle stated he was arrested by a detective at the corner of Yesler Avenue and South Second Street who simply told him to walk to the police station. Lyle, a Chicago native and railroad clerk, denied ever being arrested for burglary and noted he was released alongside other men who had been held without formal charges.
“I never had such an experience in my life, and I firmly believe that if some other poor devils had not been thrown in to suffer with me I would have gone mad.”
This 1893 account exposes the brutal, extralegal practices of the early Seattle Police Department, where 'vagrants' were routinely disappeared into jail basements. It mirrors contemporary scrutiny of Seattle’s carceral system and the historical lack of accountability for police treatment of unhoused or transient populations.
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