The Sentinel=record., 1911-02-18
NEGRO ATTACKS
 A SCHOOL GIRL
HER CRIES BRIGHTEN BLACK BRUTE AWAY JUST AFTER
 LAYING HANDS ON HER.
Tom Bonner, Negro Suspect in the poe Case, Was Arrested Near Scene
 and Is Held as a Suspect.

! Callie Beatty was accustomed to use, large black negro yesterday morn ing tried to entice the little white child with him, and failing in that and might have dragged her away with him but for a spirited outcry which aroused the attention of others in the yicin4y and caused the negro tc desist from his purpose and scurry away
 Half an hour later Tom Bonner, a negro who had been in custody as a suspect in a former case in which a white child was ravished but a few yards from this same scene, was placed in custody by the police and
 held as a suspect.
 Taken before Callie Beatty, the ne- gro was not identified as the same negro who had attacked her on the
 path to school, but the little girl was so excited over the affair that the police did not urge the identification,
 preferring to hold Bonner until today,
 when he will again be taken before
 her.
 Louise Cooper, an older pupil of the Oaknwn school, leard the cry made
 by Callie Beatty when the negro laid
 hands on her, and watching, saw
 negro hurry from the scene. She de-
 scribed the negro she had seen and the description fitted that of Bonner,
 and later, when Bonner was taken be- fore her for identification, she de-
 clared that he was the negro she had seen.
 The negro was arrested at work in
 a field near the scene of the assault
 by Detective George Howell, who had
 been accompanied to the scene by
 Doe" Walz. He begged the officer to
 let him go, saying he would leave the
 city and never return and denied any
 knowledge of the crime with which
 he was accused.
 Taken to the police station, Bonner
 denied that he had spoken to any little
 white school girl or even seen one
 but he was locked up pending a com
 plete investigation of the case.
 Bonner is the negro who was arrest
 ed for similar act during the excite
 ment over the outrage of little white
 girl for which Harry Poe, a negro, was
 executed in this city Bonner, 1t was
 charged. tried to entice another little girl than the one Poe outraged, and when he failed to entice her witi pretty things and promises of sweets to eat, gave up and quit. The circumstance, however, was re ported, and Doe Walz, an officer al that time who was working on the Pot case. arrested Bonner and held hin for several days, but there was ns prosecution because of the notoriet, attendant on the case, and Bonner wa! ] released.
 The vicinity of the oalxlawn school south of the city, was the scene of thu | attack yesterday of Callie Beatty. Tn ; little girl resides west of the school not far distant, and her path to tn { school lies along through a clum 0 i wooded hillside for several hundre' { wards. While passing along this pat . a negro accosted her and asked he i some questions. and tried to entiee ne q from the path with a story of brett | gifts. but the child was enroute | ] school, had no time to spare, and pal i little attention to the brute. ,: The negro next stepped in front c j her, put is hands about her shoulder i and was about to pick her up whe ! she screamed Justify and noisily 1el | girl slipped from the ne@~o's grasi | he becoming excited when she mad f an outcry, and as she scrambled froi I his reach he broke through the wood | and nan away.
 i The police were notified from tn F school or what idu HdPHShNN NhN %'N !: ried to the scene, making the invest @ gation that located Bonner in fel v near where the assault took place. Bonner was strenuous in his deni'
 of the charge, but so perturbed tha 4 his actions excited even further sui ' picion than his presence. aud he wa ? arrested.
 A News of the attempted assau \ spread rapidly in the district and eS [ element ran high. There were man } who were anxious that the negro D } positively identified, and they antie \ pated that if he were the punA' would deal with him s'iTnriariiy wlu' ? ont waiting for courts to act e The crime of even attempted assani X is punishable by death in this state 7 and the police believe that in Bonne } they have the right man, though th A developments of today will estaohs whether lie can be positively ident ? fed by the child he is accused of q } sailing. or whether she stntes he mi tha negro