The Detective and the Sheriff
A brutal confrontation in a Tacoma hotel lobby leaves a well-known detective dead from a heart failure.
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.
M. C. Sullivan, western manager and one of the three partners in Thiel's detective service, was stone dead at 10 o'clock tonight, an hour after Sheriff Matthews choked him, spat in his face, and called him a 'dirty son of a b—.' Deputy Sheriff Yiant, who was with Matthews, led Sullivan to his room at the Tacoma Hotel after the men were pulled apart. Sullivan said he had had a hemorrhage and coughed painfully, throwing off a little blood. He called for a doctor, but when Dr. Tuttle arrived, Sullivan was beyond struggling with death. Matthews had been heard to take Sullivan's name in vain earlier in the evening and appeared to have been drinking. The two met in the lobby, where Matthews grabbed Sullivan by the throat and insulted him. Sullivan had reportedly been suffering from heart trouble and had been in a state of distress following the altercation. A prominent figure in local affairs, Sullivan was known for his work in running down criminals, suppressing strikes, and for his controversial role in the kidnapping of labor figures in years past.
“I had never met Sullivan before, and was not looking for him, but he insulted me and my family, and my family is dearer to me than my life.”
This event captures the volatile culture of law enforcement and private security firms in the 1890s Pacific Northwest, where personal feuds between 'detectives' and elected sheriffs played out in public hotels. Today, the site of the Tacoma Hotel remains a landmark of the city's early high-society life, now long gone, echoing the era of rugged, unchecked frontier justice.
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