The Burglar Who Stole From Himself
A clever thief in Seattle pulls off a double deception: stealing from a store and then framing a Chinese employee for the crime.
It turns out now that the burglary committed at Moore's Grocery, on Third Street, one night last week, was perpetrated by a burglar. The hatchet with which the window railing was cut away was found just inside the store near the counter. This was given to Officer Nelson, who subsequently discovered that it had been taken from his family, near by, by a Chinaman whom they had had in their employ, and this was conclusive proof that the Chinaman had committed the burglary. The Chinaman has disappeared, and has not been found since.
This 1877 account reveals how quickly anti-Chinese sentiment could be weaponized in the Pacific Northwest. Even when evidence pointed to a local white man (the officer's own family), the press and authorities readily accepted the narrative that a Chinese worker was the culprit, reflecting the systemic racism that would soon culminate in the 1885 Seattle riot and subsequent exclusion laws.
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