A City Councilman Fights Back After Late-Night Arrest
Alderman Dr. J. Eugene Jordan demands that his colleagues condemn the ‘un-American’ manner of his recent police apprehension.
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Following an attempt to connect him with the Yesler estate will case, Alderman Dr. J. Eugene Jordan appeared before the Seattle city council to protest his arrest. Jordan called his arrest, occurring at an unseemly hour, an ‘outrage,’ and characterized the man who aided the police as a ‘penitentiary bird.’ Claiming that the arrest was a hit aimed at the city government through him, he demanded official condemnation from the board of aldermen. His colleagues subsequently passed a resolution condemning the ‘manner and method’ of his arrest and affirming their confidence in his integrity.
“Resolved, That we thoroughly condemn and deprecate such outrageous and anti-American proceeding as was perpetrated on a representative of the city government of the city of Seattle.”
The volatile relationship between the Seattle City Council and the police department has deep roots. Jordan’s public demand for an official rebuke of his own arrest serves as a period-specific precursor to contemporary tensions regarding police power and municipal political autonomy.
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