The age-herald., 1902-03-19

"iSoHe dpout the case. The witnesses In this case for the government were four negroes A negro likes to be a wit ness. He feels important and besides
  flrst officer to arrive He went in re- | sponse to telephone message. Soon af- terwards Policeman Jones arrived. He is MT. Walton's partner, but they had sep arated a few minutes before the killing.
 By Il o'clock there were between twen- ty and thirty policemen searching the surrounding houses, but the blood trail was so evident that they all gathered around the house. It would have been certain death to Webb to have tried to escape from the house, as every side was guarded by at least dozen men with pis- tols in their hands.
 cocHRAN'S STORY.
 i MT. E. c. Cochran gives the following account of the shooting and what lead up to it:
 "Jim Webb was standing in the door leading to the pool room in J. W. Riggs saloon on First avenue and Fourteenth street. He was drunk and Policeman | "dlIOn warned to go nome or A6 would arrest him. The negro went. | Shortly after that John Brown, a ne gro who lives near, ran into the saloon l and told Policeman Walton that Jim Webb was trying to kill him in house l down on Morris avenue. MT Walton | started down that way and I. went with him. When we were nearly to Eighth | to16 hNa fOl I would go with him as these were bad negroes and might hurt him. He replied: T guess not. am used to them and know how to manage them I replied well l will go with you just for com pany.'
 NEGRO OPENED FIRE.
 We went into the house and climbed the steps. The door of the room the ne- gro was said to be in was just in front of the steps. MT. Walton pushed 1t open and as he did so the negro shot at him. MT. Walton pushed 1t open and as he | The bullet passed over our shoulders for 1 was just behind the policeman. l was on the top step the landing being very small and Mir. Walton on that.
 MT Walton shot at the negro twice and l shot four times over Mir. Walton's shoulder. The negro shot several times and about the second shot struck MT. Walton in the left breast second bullet must have struck him right afterwards, l for he fell back on me and said, He has killed mel He has killed me! I laid him down on the steps where he is lying now.
 "The negro ran from the room through another room on the right, and from there to a front window. He climbed from there to the roof to the front porch and down a post. ran home and got my shot gun and have been searching all around here ever since"
 l A number of men working in the roll | ing mills near and some railroad men be- gan the search for the negro before the police arrived. They procured lamps and lanterns, and were going under all the houses.
 About II o'clock Chief Austin, Captain Weir and a number of policemen arrived at the house. They took charge of the search, and traced the negro step by step to the house under which he was found. Several times they lost the trail but each time it was found again and followed. BLOOD ON THE STEPS.
 On the front steps of Webb's house, which Is sos Morris avenue, was found pool of blood where he had leaned against the post as he passed He made an effort l to go into his house by the front door, but 1t was locked, and he went to the rear door, where another pool of blood was found He threw his pistol away, but it had not been found up to a late hour. Another large pool of blood was found | in the yard where Bynum Lewis lives The negro climbed the fence there and | must have been very weak, for fe evil dently rested against the fence for sev- eral minutes. He went all the way around the house and crawled through hole at the corner where he had climbed the fence.
 Bynum Lewis wife claims Webb knocked on her door twice, but that she would not let him in. All along one side of the house blood is smeared where the negro leaned as he walked. On a plank where he crawled under the house was another pool.
 WORE BADGE NO. 1.
 Policeman Walton wore badge No. 1 of the departm ent. He was born in Lincoln County, Georgia, in 1S46, making him 56 | years of age. He came to Birmingham over 15 years ago and was shortly after wards elected to the police force. He was commissioned June 14, 1884, and would have completed his fifteenth year in less l than three months. He was appointed warden of the city jail January 1, 1897, and served in that capacity for some | time.
 the church and considered one of the best men on the force professionally and morally. He was ranked among the best