Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-03-08
AN OHIO LYNCHING
Eaters Springfield Jail Door
 to Get Negro Murderer.
POLICE OFFICER SHOT IN COLD BLOOD
Crowd of Fifteen Hundred Takes Prisoner From Jail, Riddles Him
 With Bullets and Hangs Body to a Te1eUraph Pole.

Prisoner From Jail, Riddles Him
 With Bullets and Hangs Body
 to a Telegraph Pole.
 SPRINGFIELD, O., March S.-At Il o'clock last night the negro Richard Dixon was taken from the jail and shot to death in the jailyard here, and the body was taken from there to tue cor ner of Main street and Fountain ave- nue and hung to 8 telegraph pole. where the mob spent the next half hour rid ding the body with bullets from sev- eral hundred revolvers.
 The mob forced an entrance to the jail by putting in the east doors with 8 railroad iron. At 10:5O the mob melt ed rapidly, and it was the general opin- ion that no more attempts would be made to force an entrance.
 At 1O:45 the police were satisfied that there was nothing more to fear, and they, with other officials and newspa- per men, passed freely in andAout of the jail. Shortly before II o'clock a di- version was made by small crowd moving from the east doors around to the south entrance.
 The police followed, and a bluff was made at jostling them off the steps leading up to the south entrance. The while yells of Hold the policev' Smash the doorsv' Lynch the nig- ger!' were made, interspersed with re. volver shots.
 All this time the party with the heavy iron railing was beating at the east door, which shortly yielded to the battering ram, as did the inner lattice iron doors. The mob then surged through the east door, overpowered the sheriff, turnkey and handful of deputies and began the assault on the iron turnstile leading to the cells.
 The police from the south were called inside to help keep the mob from the cells, and in five minutes the south door had shared the fate of the east one.
 In an incredibly short time the jail was filled by mad mob of 25O men, with all the entrances and yard gates blocked by fully 1,bO0 men, thus mak- ing it impossible for the militia to have prevented access to the negro had it been on the scene. The heavy iron par tition leading to the cells resisted the mob effectua1ly until cold chisels and sledge hammers arrived, which were only two or three minutes later in ar irving.
 The paddock to the turnstile was broken, and the mob soon filled the corridors leading to the cells. Seeing that further resistance was useless and to avoid the killing of innocent prisoners, the authorities consented to the demand of the mob for the right man. He was dragged from the cell to the jail door and thence down the stone steps to the paved court in the jail yard. Fearing an attempt on the part of the police to rescue him, the leaders formed a hollow square. Some one knocked the negro to the ground, and those near to him fell back four or five feet.
 Nine shots were fired into his pros trate body, and, satisfied that he was dead, dozen men grabbed the lifeless body, and with triumphant cheer the mob surged into Columbia street and marched to Fountain avenue, one of the principal thoroughfares in the town, where the body was hung up and riddled with bullets.
 Collis was shot by Dixon while the latter was in his room in a hotel here removing his baggage He had decid- ed to quit the place, and, fearing trou- ble with Anna COrbin a woman with whom he was acquainted, Dixon asked Collis to go to the hotel with him. While in his room Dixon and Miss Corbin quarreled, and Dixon is said to have shot her in the breast. The po- liceman then attempted to arrest Dix on, when the latter fired into the off, cer's body, infiicting fatal wounds.