A Deadly Struggle in Bremerton
A man attempted to murder a local youth, but in the ensuing struggle, his own weapon turned against him with lethal consequences.
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.
C. Swift, while attempting to shoot William Peterson, shot and instantly killed himself in Bremerton. Swift, a man of no regular occupation, had held a grudge against 16-year-old Peterson for a month. After forcing the boy to march toward a park at gunpoint, they were intercepted by a man named Hummel. When Hummel intervened and grasped Swift by the arms, Swift fired twice at the boy. In the struggle, Hummel pinioned Swift's arms, causing the next shot to strike Swift in the head, killing him instantly. Peterson escaped with only a minor powder burn.
“For the Lord's sake, save me! He is going to kill me!”
This event highlights the frequent, often lawless nature of violence in the bustling boomtowns of early 1900s Washington, where social disputes frequently escalated into lethal confrontations in public spaces.
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