The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1917-11-16
i TIMELY AND NEEDFUL EDlTo.
RIAL

l.
Tribune, which we reproduce with our
approval adm highest commentator.
1t is an indictment against the
state, and is entitled: Against the
State; A True Bill
"a seventeen-year-old boy was be-
| ing taken handcuffed to jail charged
with assault and battery. He leaped
suddenly from the automobile in
which he was being conveyed and
dashed off in an attempt to escape
He was captured and was being led
to the jail when he broke and ran
again. The officer cried Halt and
then fired several times, the last shot
piercing the back of the boy, coming
tout of the breast over the heart; and
the deputy and a negro man took the
body of the escaping criminal to the
jail, the handouts still on the dead
wrists.
"This. briefly, is the story told in
the st. Augustine Record of tragedy
in that city recently.
"The deputy sheriff is now formally
charged with murder.
Both the deputy sheriff and the
murdered seventeen-year-old lad are
the victims of condition and of laws
in this state that should not be allow
ed to stand for an instant.
There are several things wrong,
and they should be charged in gen.
eral indictment against the people of
Florida, its lawmakers and its bar of
justice heaven save the mark in this
instance.
First, no boy of seventeen years of
age, charged with assault and battery
we are told nothing of the merits of
the actual offense-should ever be
locked up in Jail, or be handcuffed
while being taken into custody, for
such an offense.
Second, the old exploded legal
clearing of responsibility of calling
halt to fleeing prisoner or culprit,
before shooting, should be SO changed
that the fact that an officer has a gun
and cries halt will not make him
think he has right to shoot at any
thing not obeying him from tod
ding baby to a red-handed murderer.
"a boy of seventeen charged with
assault and battery"-and any case
where he had a fight with a compan-
ion or any assailant can be legally
termed assault and battery thinks
of escaping as matter of course 1t
is his youthful impulse to get away
from the law, and let father or moth
er know about it, and shield him. That
he should be liable to be shot down by
any deputy sheriff just because he
failed to stop when ordered to halt
is damnable.
"But when there are laws on the
statute books of Florida that permit
the conviction of baby under eight
years old for stealing a horse and
buggy and send him until he is TWEEN
ty-One years old to a 'refOrmatory'-
in name only-in Gods name what
can be expected for our children if
they indulge in anything offensive to
the most "touchy?'
I'VE do not charge this deputy
with being murderous, or having COM
mitted murder. The boy of seventeen
may ave been vicious and may have
hurt severely the victim of his AS
sault and battery but we do charge
the state of Florida with barbarism
in keeping on its statute books laws
that will permit the falling and hand
cutting of tender childhood for offens-
es that are often nothing more than
an outburst of boyish anger and emo
ton; we charge the state with muir
der every time it permits an officer
to cry halt and then shoot down his
fleeing victim unless that victim has
first REDHANDEDLY been taken in
murder. arson. rape or intent to raw
ish womanhood of the state.
until man has been proven gull
ty before jury of his equals, he is to
be esteemed innocent, says the law,
and the judge tells the jurors that
he is to be given the benefit Of every
reasonable doubt in the evidence ad.
duced against him. Still, in the face
of all this, this Wanted protection of
the innocent and the boosted fair trial
of the one charged with guilt, an Off
Ger is permitted to draw and shoot to
kill any fleeing suspect or fancied cul.
prit regardless of age and regardless
OF offense before the victim has had
a chance to show that he Is being