The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-09-29
SHOOTS UP TR0LLEYCAR Drink Crazed Man Tries to
 Kill Conductor and
 Passengers. TnTD OHnTcs ElTD Tn
FOUR SHOTS FIRED
 AND NO ONE HIT

dJaImaT JOnnSon. craZeQ Dy l1QuOr, shot up a Middletown trolley car at | 7:05 o'clock last evening in front of l City Hall. in Hartford, and it was only
 a miracle that among the twenty-five l or thirty passengers that were seated l in the closed car no one was hurt. Johnson first fired two shots at the | conductor. John Dunbar. and then
 turned his revolver toward the panic
 stricken passengers and fired twice
 more. Oliver D. Cornell of No. IS Gar
 den street was sitting two seats away from the doorway where the shooting occurred. and arose just in time to see Johnson turn his revolver into the crowd that was rushing wildly out the front door of the car. AS he rose, Johnson deliberately pointed the re-
 volver at him and fired his remaining | two shots but MT. Cornell had taken After he had emptied the revolver. Johnson with a yell made a dash into 1 the car. but tripped over the thresh- hold and fell headlong. By that time the car. and he jumped over John sons body and made his escape l through the rear door.
 Policeman J. P. Hennessey. who was off duty for the day, was standing on the curbstone, in front of City Hall and heard the shooting. He saw the panic on the car and got inside just
 as Johnson had regained his feet and had picked up his revolver. He tried to point it again at the policeman. but Hennessey jumped on him and they | went down on the floor together. fight | ing for the possession of the revolver l which the policeman did not know had been emptied., But four shots had been fired. and he believed that there | was a fifth cartridge in it. Policeman | Harry Bacon. on his way home. had heard the shooting and got into the car and helped overcome the maniac and disarm him.
 l The bullets had buried themselves l in the woodwork, miraculously escap- | ing hitting the passengers at whom | they were aimed. Had any gone out of the windows into crowded Main street some one would have updoubt- | ed1y been hit. The shooting and the | madman's yells attracted a. big crowd after the shooting had stopped and it
 had become certain that the police | men had secured the shooter. He was | walked to police headquarters at Kins- | ley and Market streets, crowd fol- | lowing that blocked the streets on | both sides of the station.
 Johnson continued fighting and had 1 to be thrown to the floor and held while he was being searched. and sin | spite of the handling he received. he
 was landed in a cell. Liquor could be | smelled on his breath, and it is be- | lieved that it was that that caused his | insanity. He thrashed around his cell trying to bite the steel bars and strik- ing them with his fists After he had quieted down he said he had a friend
 named Johnson living at No. 83 Ward street, but asked the officers not to tell him that he was arrested. 'for he | bane a good friend of mine,' he said.
 Then, grinding his teeth, he added:
 -If I only had my gun would clean
 out the whole crowd of you," and he
 raised his right hand and went through the motions of shooting through the bars at those around his cell door. Conductor Dunbar and MT. Cornell
 were the two lucky ones. Two bullets were fired directly at them, and neither
 was hit. although. Johnson was only few feet away from them. The trou- ble started when Johnson boarded the
 car, intoxicated, and insisted on stand
 ing on the rear platform in the way
 of the other passengers. Conductor Dunbar told him to go inside, and
 Johnson began to shout:
 |. You leave me alone, say"
 He kept shouting this, although the
 conductor had only spoken to him. He was then told by the conductor that
 unless he kept quiet and went inside
 he would have to get off the car. He kept on shouting, and the conductor
 moved toward him. With that John-
 son whipped out the revolver from his coat pocket and took deliberate aim
 at the conductor. Dunbar jumped
 from the platform to the street, and
 began to dodge as the Swede opened
 fire on him. He fired two bullets down
 ward to the street, and they landed on the asphalt, but hit no one. He then turned the revolver on MT. Cornell, and it was his quick lodging that saved his life.
 Johnson formerly lived in Middle town, but recently went to Hartford to work for the Whitlock Coil Pipe Company in Elmwood. When he was asked what he drank, he said:
 Beer, whiskey and everything else" He is held on two counts of assault with intent to kill.
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