The Mena weekly star., 1921-08-25
26 ARE WOUNDED
 IN RUSH ON JAIL
Tennessee Officers Fire Upon Mob ln- tent on Seizing Negro-Sheriff Opens Fire When Crowd
 Ignores Warning.

Knoxville, Tenn, Aug. 20.-Twenty- six persons were wounded, two seri- ously, last night when deputies guard ing the Knox county jail fired on a crowd which had crossed a "dead line" in approaching the jail with the avow- ed purpose of demanding Frank Mar tin, negro held as a suspect in an attack upon country school teacher Thursday.
 All the wounded are white. Two are women. Most of the wounded were curiosity seekers, who were at one side upon the courthouse lawn, which Is elevated 90 feet above the street level at the corner where the jail stands.
 The machine gun company 117th Infantry, Tennessee National Guard, was on duty at the jail. Half dozen soldiers joined in the firing with their revolvers. The machine guns were not put into operation.
 Black Is Identified.
 Following reports that the school teacher had positively identified Mar tin as her assailant, large crowds be- gan gathering in the vicinity of the jail before dusk. The jail had been under heavy guard of deputies, police and National Guardsmen all last night, but crowds then were smaller and more easily handled.
 Several times, beginning at s down the hill on Main street leading to the jail. It was turned back twice by police. Efforts were made to hold it a block away.
 Gradually some of the bolder ones edged down the street. There were probably 200 men and boys in the crowd gradually approaching the jail. Several hundred other persons, many of them women, were in the court house yard looking down upon the scene.
 within 100 feet Sheriff Cate stepped under an arc light and demanded that it disperse. He gave warning that an imaginary line between two tele- phone poles should not be crossed.
 Sheriff Gates stated tonight that the first shot came from the court house lawn, almost simultaneously with which rocks were thrown from that hill, one of them striking Deputy Sheriff Charels Lewis, whereupon he fired over the heads of the crowd. His statement was substantiated by Ad- jutant General F. T. Brummit, who hurried here from Nashville, arriv- ing tonight and by Captain J. J. Schneider of the machine gun com pany.
 Firing Is Begun.
 As dozen men passed these poles the sheriff picked up shot gun and fired over the heads of the crowd into the air. Four deputies who were with him then fired two volleys. Two men in the court house yard and two or three in the street fired revolvers in reply.
 The shooting then became general, deputies firing as rapidly as they could pump their repeating shot guns.
 Many of the loads of buckshot fired by the officers, and intended to go above the heads of the crowd in the street, went among spectators in the court house yard. One or more of the officers at the jail opened fire with rifles and revolvers also, as some of the wounded are suffering from bullets of large caliber.
 Women screamed and men cursed. In the court house yard scores threw themselves to the ground to escape the hail of bullets coming in that di- rection. The crowd in the street ran backward panic stricken, and the deputies charged, now firing over the heads of the crowd, and driving all of them back to Gay street, block from the jail.
 On August 30, 1919, the Knox county jail was stormed and dynamit- ed by mob searching for Maurice Mays, a negro accused of murdering a white woman. Mays had been re- moved during the afternoon, but the mob released many prisoners, six of whom were charged with murder. Following that attack there was a general race riot over. the city and two men killed and 20 wounded be- fore troops gained control of the sit uation. Incidentally, Mays is in the county jail tonight, where he is held pending appeal from his second con- vietion on the charge of murdering Mrs. Birdie Lindsay, the first con- viction having been reversed by the Supreme court.
 QUICK JUSTICE AT ENID, OK. Pair Who Robbed Bank Saturday Is