The Embezzler Who Outsmarted the Law
A clever swindler uses a well-meaning student as a pawn to evade arrest, leading to a bungled sheriff's operation in Tacoma.
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.
Officials around the court house are not saying much about a little affair that happened yesterday. It seems that the sheriff had received notice from Sheriff McClarty of Olympia, asking him to arrest one Douglas, who is wanted for embezzling $500 from a woman in California. Two deputy sheriffs met the Olympia boat and arrested a man whom they thought answered the description. The man proved to be H. E. Ames, a student at a college in Tacoma, who had innocently agreed to help Douglas's wife reach the city. The sheriff's office in Tacoma had been given the wrong information, and in the confusion of arresting the wrong man, Douglas—who was likely waiting on the wharf—slipped away. Douglas is a rather smooth one and has kept the officers guessing for some time. After 'sweating' Ames and the woman, the Pierce county officers were convinced they had made a mistake and released them. In the meantime, Douglas had taken the tip and left the city.
“Douglas is a rather smooth one and has kept the officers guessing for some time.”
Police blunders involving mistaken identity and 'tips' continue to be a source of civic embarrassment. This story highlights the reliance on informal information-sharing between jurisdictions, a precursor to modern inter-agency law enforcement coordination.
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