A Jackson Street Attack, and the Laundryman Who Would Not Let It Go
A repeat offender punched three Chinese men outside a laundry; a booking error let him off lightly, until one victim pressed his own assault charge.
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.
George McMullen, an old acquaintance of the police, was arrested yesterday morning by Captain Frank K. Sims on a charge of assaulting a Chinese man named Ah Hing on August 22. On that evening McMullen was arrested by Officer Michael Powers for disorderly conduct, but by a mistake was booked for drunkenness. He was looking for trouble, and chased a disabled Native man across Jackson Street, near the New Zealand House. He turned and came back to Lee Lee’s laundry, where three Chinese men were sitting on the railing talking. McMullen walked up to them and, before they knew what was going on, punched each one. Officer Powers saw the affair and arrested him, but he got off with a light sentence on account of the mistake in the charge preferred. Ah Hing, one of the Chinese men, brooded over the insult until he had McMullen arrested for assault and battery.
“Ah Hing, one of the Chinese men, brooded over the insult until he had McMullen arrested for assault and battery.”
Anti-Chinese violence was not an isolated crime in 1890s Seattle; it was part of a wider campaign that culminated in the 1885–86 expulsions and drove Chinese residents from many Western towns. Ah Hing’s insistence on a warrant is a small act of resistance—one that shows how racist violence was contested through the courts even when the law itself was stacked against the victims.
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