The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-25

had already .congregated at the place l where the negro was caught
 1 'I had thought the man in front of me l was MT. Courson though, of course, l
 could not tell for sure, it being night The negro was not handcuffed when he passed
 me, but when I came up to the crowd he
 had the cuffs on him. I looked about for
 MT. Courson, but did not see him. Then
 l went back to the sheriff's office for tho buggy and found that MT. Courson had
 not left the court house during the shoot ing. I can't imagine who the man was
 that fired the last shot. I unlocked the
 cuffs from the negro after the ambulance
 was sent for
 Higdon Discusses Matter. l Sheriff Higdon, in speaking of the mat ter yesterday afternoon, displayed an ugly looking knife, which, he stated, had been turned over to him by the janitor yester- day morning, the janitor stating that he
 had picked it up at the corner of the court house in the yard near the Twenty
 first street entrance. It IS the sheriffs supposition that it was this knife which
 the negro drew on Deputy Robinson
 Continuing, Sheriff Higdon said: "It is
 my opinion that the negro was shot by
 some citizen who joined in the chase.
 Dean cannot be blamed for firing in the court house, as he pointed his revolver
 down the stairway to the basement. Rob-
 inson was also not only doing his duty, but apparently acting in defense of his
 own life.'
 Chief Deputy Lucen Brown character ized previous accounts of the shooting as
 being totally wrong in his opinion, finish
 ing this statement with sentence to the
 effect that James Williams was gun-shy.
 The chief deputy declined, however, to correct any wrong statements which might possibly have been made or to
 make any statement in reference to the
 shooting, other than the above. The chief deputy, it is said, was not In the vicinity of the court house during the shooting. Williams Account of Shooting. .The bullet whistled by my head" said
 MT. Williams, and Dean was pointing his revolver directly down the corridor
 when he fired the first shot.
 '.The first I knew of the affair was when the negro rushed by my desk in the
 rotunda. I glanced up quickly and saw Dean rush out of the sheriff's office. fol-
 lowed closely by several of the negroes who stay around the sheriff's office Just after coming into the corridor Dean aimed
 his revolver directly down it and fired.
 He did not shoot down the basement
 stairs. for the bullet came within very few inches of my head
 rloG Gt sh ot again when near the entrance. A
 few seconds afterward l heard another shot which seemed to come from the
 direction of Twenty-first street near
 Third avenue.
 "Dean returned to the sheriT's office
 shortly afterward and l asked him what he meant by shooting in the court house. He replied that he was
 only shooting in the air, and l told
 him he was wrong, that the bullet had
 passed close to me-"
 Warden Joseph OKelly was in the
 office of the jail during the shooting,
 and said he knew nothing of the
 shooting. Last night he stated that
 he had gone out to the jail stoop after the first two shots were fired in the court house, reaching 1t just in time to see the negro dash madly down Twenty first street past the jail alley. Spectator's View of Case. U. D. Lathem of the Monarch Livery company, which is located on Fourth avenue, saw the finish of the chase. Flo does not think that the negro was
 handcuffed at the time stating that-the