The Yank Brothers' Violent Arrest
A courtroom drama unfolds in Thomas as brothers are fined for a brutal arrest of a man.
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.
The trial of William and George Yank, of Thomas, for assaulting William Brown with a deadly weapon near Thomas last Tuesday took place before Justice V. A. Bigelow today. The evidence showed that when the defendants went to the cookhouse to arrest Brown they carried a Winchester rifle, a revolver and a butcher knife; that each took an arm of their prisoner, while George Yank, father of the boys, followed along in the rear, occasionally giving the prisoner a vicious kick and cuff. It was a jury trial and the Yank boys were fined $15 each and costs, amounting, it is said, to nearly $100. The defendants immediately gave notice of appeal.
“Each took an arm of their prisoner, while George Yank, father of the boys, followed along in the rear, occasionally giving the prisoner a vicious kick and cuff.”
The aggressive and vigilante-style policing described here highlights the lack of formal, professional law enforcement in rural Washington in the 1890s, forcing communities to deal with the overreach of local figures.
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