A Logger's Desperate Night in Jail
After his arrest for drunkenness, a logger named William Kirk suffered a mental health crisis while in custody.
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.
William Kirk, a logger, who was arrested Thursday by Officer Mefford on the charge of being drunk, but who gave signs of being insane when locked up, tried to beat his brains out against the bolts in the door of his cell yesterday morning at the city jail. When discovered by Jailer Noble, Kirk's head was covered with blood, as were the walls of the apartment. On the floor was a pool of blood. The patrol wagon was gotten ready to take Kirk to the county jail, where better quarters could be had for him, but he resisted in a violent manner every effort on the part of the jailer, and it was not until Jailer Sheehan arrived to assist that the removal was effected. At the county prison, Kirk wanted to finish his life, and said to Jailer Munroe: 'I have done all I can to end my existence. Why can't you finish the job?' Munroe tried to get the idea of self-destruction out of his head, but unsuccessfully. When asked what was troubling him, he replied, 'Whisky, whisky.' Two of the strongest men in the jail were in constant attendance until the middle of the afternoon, when Kirk was taken to the hospital.
“I have done all I can to end my existence. Why can't you finish the job?”
This account reflects a period when jails were the primary 'mental health' facilities for the city's poor and laboring class. Today, the conversation around the intersection of addiction, homelessness, and incarceration remains one of Seattle's most fraught and ongoing civic challenges.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.