Officer Censured for Beating a Citizen
A police commissioner’s inquiry reveals that an officer brutally beat an innocent Black man at Second and Union, raising questions about police conduct in early Seattle.
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.
The police commissioners met last night at police headquarters and, after a hearing, censured Officer Fawcett for unnecessary violence in making an arrest. The clerk read an affidavit from Nelson Vineyard, a Black man, stating that on April 12, at Second and Union streets, he was approached by Officer Fawcett, who asked him whether he was following disreputable women. On being told that it was not the officer's business and that he was going home, the affiant swears that the officer beat and arrested him. Vineyard was before the municipal court the next day and was acquitted of the charge of drunkenness. In testimony, Fawcett admitted he had struck the man two or three times. When Commissioner Holmes asked, 'Well, if you were arresting me, would you call me a white [expletive]?' Fawcett replied, 'It would depend on the amount of resistance you made.' Commissioner Wallingford moved to exonerate Fawcett, but Commissioner Holmes argued that the arrest was needlessly violent and thought the officer ought to be censured. This was moved and passed.
“Well, if you were arresting me, would you call me a white [expletive]?”
This 1893 incident at Second and Union—now in the heart of downtown—illustrates that issues of police accountability and the mistreatment of Black citizens have been a part of the city's civic fabric since its infancy. The tension between the commissioners regarding 'justifiable' arrests versus 'unnecessary violence' echoes the ongoing modern dialogue surrounding police reform in Seattle.
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