A Grocery Clerk Stole a Streetcar and Made a Run for Puyallup
James M. Tankisley took a Tacoma Railway & Power repair car out of the company barns at midnight and got as far as the Puyallup road before the law caught up. By the next afternoon he had pleaded guilty, and by night he was in the county prison waiting for the March jury.
James M. Tankisley, the young grocery clerk who stole a repair car from the Tacoma Railway & Power company barns late Wednesday night, and was captured after a mad dash toward Puyallup, entered a plea of guilty when arraigned before Judge Arntson of the police court yesterday afternoon and was bound over to the superior court under $500 bonds.
The charge which was finally lodged against Tankisley was that of trespassing upon railroad property. He was taken to the county prison last night and will remain there until the March jury is called in the superior court.
“He was taken to the county prison last night and will remain there until the March jury is called in the superior court.”
A twenty-something clerk with no money for a lawyer sat in the county jail not because he was dangerous, but because he could not raise $500 — a sum far beyond a grocery wage in 1909. The pretrial detention of poor defendants on bail they cannot pay is still one of the most ordinary injustices in American courthouses, and Pierce County's jail is still deciding who waits and who goes home.
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