The Man Who Asked to Be Arrested: A Tacoma Town’s Battle for Its Soul
In a bizarre legal maneuver to force a court ruling on city limits, a resident of the newly excluded district deliberately broke water pipes and allowed himself to be taken into custody.
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.
TACOMA, Wash., March 30.—J. M. Bentley, a well-known citizen of this place, was asked by the city authorities to allow himself to be arrested, and by thus getting into court, allow the bringing up of the city boundary matter for final settlement. Consequently this forenoon he went across the river to his home and began to cut the water pipes, whereupon he was promptly arrested and the case to test the charter was begun. It is of the most intense interest in the people of the community, and as it will be watched by all the residents. Mr. Bentley lives in the portion of the town that has left out by the new charter, and his acts, therefore, may not come under the authority of the city. Messrs. Carter and Haley, attorneys, employed as special counsel for this action, at once got out the papers in a habeas corpus proceeding which will be brought up at once in the circuit court.
This 1906 incident in Tacoma mirrors modern disputes over municipal annexation and service boundaries. Just as Bentley used civil disobedience to force a legal resolution on who belonged to the city, today's residents often use zoning lawsuits or public pressure to challenge how local governments define their jurisdiction and resource allocation.
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