A Bloody Midnight Encounter on Pearl Street
A patrolman's desperate shootout with two burglars leaves a helmet shattered and a trail of blood leading into the dark.
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.
A shooting affray between two desperate burglars and Policeman T.R. Carpenter, in which seven shots were fired and one of the thieves probably fatally wounded, occurred on Pearl Street, near Jackson, yesterday morning at 2:15 o'clock. Carpenter's helmet was pierced and almost torn open by one bullet, and though both burglars were injured, they ran away, and, the darkness aiding their escape, succeeded in eluding the pursuing officer. One of them was traced almost five blocks by his bloody tracks and it is believed that he has been fatally wounded. In the early hours of yesterday morning, Carpenter heard the smothered breaking of glass at the grocery store of Anderson Bros. The thieves recognized the officer and fled. Carpenter, a swift runner, overtook the heavier man, but the second burglar returned to his comrade's aid and fired at point-blank range, the bullet grazing Carpenter's head. Carpenter managed to empty his revolver at the pair as they escaped into the brush. A search party, including several detectives, later found a trail of blood leading across blocks toward the Rainier Avenue electric line, where it was lost.
“The man had placed a revolver to the policeman's head and fired, the bullet tearing open the helmet, grazing the top of the head and passing to the other side.”
This violent encounter on Pearl Street (now 12th Avenue South) captures a rougher era of Seattle policing. The 'brush' and 'vacant lots' mentioned reflect the city's rapid, uneven expansion, where major intersections were still wild enough to hide a bleeding fugitive in the dark.
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