A Night of Harassment on South Third and Main
A local man is arrested after accosting and physically assaulting women on their way home from a Salvation Army meeting.
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 trial of Fred Oes in the police court for hugging a couple of women on the street against their will was postponed yesterday until today. On Sunday night as Alice Cook, a girl about 14 years of age, and her mother were coming from the Salvation Army meeting and were about to pass Oes, who was standing on South Third and Main streets in an intoxicated condition, he threw his arms around the girl and hugged her. The child's mother pulled her away from him at once, and they passed on. Immediately afterward a man named Woods and his wife came along, and Oes hugged her also, but she broke away from him, and also passed on with her husband, who notified Lieut. Huff, and the arrest soon followed.
“The child's mother pulled her away from him at once, and they passed on.”
This incident of public harassment in Pioneer Square highlights the persistent issue of safety for women and girls in downtown Seattle. More than a century later, the tension between maintaining vibrant public spaces and ensuring the security of those passing through remains a central point of civic concern.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.