HONEY GROVE, TEXAS
HONEY GROVE, TEXASThe following article is from the Fort Worth Record, August 18, 1909
POLICEMAN CAMPBELL ASSASSINATEDOfficer Campbell Shot Down While Walking His Beat
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FIRED FROM WINDOW
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Assassin Disappears, But Hot Gun Is Found
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CRIME SHOCKS WHOLE CITY
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Campbell Praised By Fellow Policemen as Best Officer Who Ever Served in
Acre District
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Patrolman W.A. Campbell was shot to death at 9:30 o
=clock last night while walking his beat in the Acre . The shot was fired from the second story window of the Jockey Club Saloon, corner of Thirteenth and Rusk streets, from a double-barrel shotgun. It consisted of fifteen buckshot and all excepting one shot entered the shoulders of the officer near the nape of the neck, producing instant death.Officer Campbell, with his partner, Officer Tom Jones, was walking his beat at the time and, while he had been repeatedly threatened, he was chatting with Jones and had no idea that death was so near.
The assassin escaped. There is no clew as to his identity, but the police are sanguine that the
Acre will not be able to cover this crime as it has covered so many crimes. It is also felt that the enormity of the offense will bring to light its perpetrator.Last night, there was a strained stillness over the affair. It seems that it was not wholly unexpected. Campbell had been a thorn in the flesh of the law breaker and the evil doer in the
Aacre@. He had upheld the law without fear and without favor. He had obeyed orders and no criminal had a pull with him. Standing for government and the law, he was feared by the criminal who detests the law and hates its minions. The Aacre@ had felt the hand of this man and it feared him. Fearing, it asserted itself in true Aacre@ fashion. Cringing cowards that they are, endowed with all the cunning of the jungle beast that, with stealthy tread, slips up on its prey, the Aacre@ set about the undoing of Campbell. To find a hand to hold the weapon was not a hard matter, if those who know the Aacre@ are to be believed. To wreak vengeance in the case of crime is dear to those who live by crime and suffer through the law. And so it came about that the acre asserted itself and let it be known that when the Acre asserts itself, the good suffer and the law is defiled. It asserted itself last night and when the echo of that shot died away, one impediment had been removed from the path of evil and another life had been snuffed out.But here is where evil erred as evil ever errs. The death of Campbell, his martyrdom to duty, will let loose upon the
Acre the wrath of those who will not longer tolerate the rampant, flagrant machinations of confirmed and hardened criminals who have there their habitat. There is a straw which may break even the back of such a Gibraltar of crime, such a moral and leprous cesspool of iniquity as this spot which lies like a blistering sore almost in the heart of the city.The
Aacre@ is not more calloused in crime than it is brazen in its original impertinence. It has felt the lash of public execration aforetimes- and it has survived it. It has trembled under the club of public opinion, whipped and cowed by the wrath of an outraged people and has slunk into the shadow until that wrath has lulled. Then it has skulked forth to again ply its trade and that trade is crime and moral degeneracy.The death of Officer Campbell, victim as he is of the
Acre system more than the Acre individual, may be depended upon to so quicken the public conscious of conditions there as to make even the hardened and desperate murderers, thug, thieves, and moral degenerates fly as from the wrath to come.The ominous silence which was abroad last night indicated that the last bid of the
Acre for criminal notoriety will be successful. It will get it. And when it does it will be found that Officer Campbell has not died in vain.THE CRIME
Officer Campbell and Tom I. Jones his partner, were walking their beat and chatting together, and had just passed along the north side of Thirteenth street between Rusk and Calhoun, when the shot which killed Campbell was fired. With but a single groan, Campbell crumbled up and fell on his left side, after taking one step, while Jones, deafened and confused by the discharge of the gun within a few feet of his head, drew his revolver and looked in vain for the assassin who had coolly planned, with the cunning of a coward, and who had as coolly carried out his plan, after lying in wait possibly several hours. This was proven to be the case by the number of burned matches and cigarette stubs found near the southeast window over the saloon from which the shot had been fired. A bottle of whiskey, half empty, and a large beer schooner, partially filled with water, were also found by Detective Williams a few moments after the tragedy, when he entered the room, and found the shotgun still hot, hidden under a dirty mattress lying on the floor. A black worsted coat, dirty, frayed and torn, was also found under the mattress. The garment was tailor made with silk, and had once belonged to a man with fastidious taste, and although it is believed by the officers and detectives to have been left behind for a blind, it may afford a clew to the man who fired the shot that killed Campbell, and forever ridded the
Acre of the man who had earned the enmity of the thief, the thug, the prostitute and the murderer, because of his devotion to duty and efforts to enforce the law.But One Shot Fired
But one barrel of the double-barrel gun had been discharged, but that did its work well, the shot having entered the officers shoulder almost at the nape of the neck, causing instant death. There is little doubt that Campbell was dead before he fell to the pavement, as he uttered but a single groan, short and low, and never moved after falling on his left side with his arm doubled under the body. The other barrel of the gun was loaded with a cartridge similar to the one which had been used. The empty shell was also in the breech of the gun, but both the loaded shell and the empty one were carefully locked up at police headquarters and may someday forge a link in the fetters then, will enmesh the murderer and break his neck when he comes into the tolls of the law, which he is almost bound to do. Every mounted man was called into police headquarters almost before the echo of the shot had died away and under direction of Night Captain Hills and assistant Chief Parsley made many arrests, while other officers were rushed to different places throughout the city to watch all roads, railroad tracks and possible means by which the murderer might escape/ All night long suspects were picked up and taken in the city central station, while the officers on duty at the north side station were instructed to maintain a steady watch for persons making their way into that section of the city
Where Shot Came From
The shot was fired from a distance of about fifteen feet from Campbell and practically the entire charge took effect, as a buck shell carried but fifteen shot. One of the shot was found imbedded in a telephone pole about a yard from the spot where the officer fell, about two or three inches above the ground. A search was made for the wad that preceded the shot but was not found and was probably trampled upon and imbedded in the mud of the gutter by the thousands of people who visited the scene of the shooting. They came from all parts of the city and included lawyers, businessmen, and men from all walks of life, each and all incensed at the cowardly deed and in the right mood to wreak summary vengeance upon the assassin should he be caught.
There were practically no eyewitnesses to the shooting, at least none to be found by the police in their first hurried search, The proprietor of a small fruit and cold drink stand in front of whose establishment the officer fell to the walk and died, said that it was such a horrific nature that he didn't think it came from a gun, but that it was a blast set off in the sewer excavation. He was one of the first to reach Campbell after he feel, but the officer was dead before he could make a couple of steps to reach his side.
Jones= Narrow Escape
Patrolman Jones, the dead mans partner, was the first to reach the body, as he was within a few inches of him when he was shot, and his escape from being also wounded is nothing short of miraculous. After drawing his revolver and looking to see from which direction the shot had been fired, he turned his attention to the man on the ground, but in turning him over, noted that he was dead. Many people came running to the scene, and before the smoke had been wafted away by the wind, a score or more were surrounding the body. Jones turned to the crowd and asked that someone telephone police headquarters. He then all but broke down as he gazed on the dead body of his friend and brother officer but was himself again when seen at the station probably an hour after the shooting when he made the following statement "Campbell and I answered roll call together at 9 o
=clock and when we went down to our beat in the Acre, we were accompanied by City Judge Hunter Lane and Prosecuting Attorney John Baskin. Officer Cogedeil was also along and went straight down Tenth street to Rusk and then to Eleventh street on Rusk. We turned down Eleventh street to Calhoun and went from Calhoun and Eleventh streets to Calhoun and Fourteenth, down on the west side of the street. At that place, the judge and Mr. Baskin and Officer Cogedeil left us and went across the street. Campbell and I turned and went back to the corner of Twelfth and Calhoun streets, then back to Eleventh street and down that street to Rusk street. We walked down to Twelfth and Rusk and walked into Peacocks Saloon and got a drink of water. We came out of the saloon and walked to the corner of Thirteenth and Rusk and turned east on fourteenth. We had gone just a few feet past the rear of the Jockey Club Saloon when I was almost deafened and knocked from my feet by an explosion. I was on the inside of the walk and right even with Campbell, within a foot of him when the shot was fired. He crumpled up, tottered a step or two forward, and fell on his left side. So great was the concussion, that I was all but knocked down and deafened in the right ear. Campbell never uttered a word; he just crumpled up like a fallen wall. With the flash and report of the gun. I drew my six-shooter. I was confused and did not know where the shot had come from. I whirled and looked back but could see no one. I whirled around and looked in every direction. People were running from every direction and I turned my attention to Campbell. I turned him over from his left side and shuddered when I saw he was dead. I asked the crowd to phone police headquarters and tell them what had happened. Within a minute, several mounted officers rushed to the scene. I could do no more so I guarded the body until Justice Bratton arrived and then reported back to headquarters."Lair Of Assassins
The room in which the assassin lay in wait and drank his whiskey and smoked cigarettes to nerve himself up to the dastardly deed in the southeast room over the Jockey Club Saloon, it is probably sixty feet from the corner of Rusk street, on the north side of the street. Save fro the dirty mattress lying on the floor and a tumble-down closet loaded with rubbish in the northeast corner, it was empty with the exception of the beer goblet standing on the floor underneath the window from which the shot was fired. A small pool of water was on the floor, several feet from the glass, and the officers unable to account for it unless it was caused by the shower of the afternoon entering through the windows. There are four other rooms on the floor, all on the street side of the building. On the north there is a hall that leads to both a stairway in the front and rear, the front stairway heading to Rusk street, and the one in the back is a yard enclosed by a high board fence. It is highly probable that the assassin calmly walked down the front stairway and either made his escape or mingled with the crowd running from every direction, or that he went down the back way and climbed the fence into the yard of the Texas Junk company, which is between the Jockey Club Saloon and the Standard Theater.
Escape of Assassins
The officers are inclined to the belief that he went the front way as he would have been compelled to have passed within a yard of his victim in coming down the back way, although there would have been a fence between them. He, however, would have been exposed to the fire of the revolver of Officer Jones, and as no footprints, other than those of a woman, could be found in the mud at the foot of the back stairs where the ground was examined with a search light, their belief that he went the front way is further strengthened.
In the confusion following the murder, it was an easy matter for the perpetrator of the crime to lose himself in the mob if idly curious among the habitants of the
Acre and in the incensed citizen who was drawn as by a magnet to the scene of the crime.News At Station
How Police Got After Assassins After The Shooting
Upon the receipt of the news of the shooting at the police station, which was telephoned in immediately, W.J. Williams, one of the city detectives, and a number of officers hurried to the scene. Upon their arrival, Detective Williams says, there were a number of other officers, who had been attracted by the shooting, already on the scene.
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When I arrived," said Detective Williams, "the body of Campbell was still lying on the sidewalk. I opened his shirt to see where he was shot. There were two or three small holes in the region of the heart, and death must have been almost instantaneous.""
I saw at a glance Campbell was beyond any assistance we could render and I immediately went to work in an effort to get the party or parties who were responsible for his death. I ordered the officers to surround the house from which the shot was supposed to have been fired, with instructions to take everyone we found in it."Finding The Gun
"In the room on the second floor from where the shot was evidently fired, I found the gun used by whoever fired the shot. There was nothing at all in the room, which is in the rear of the house, the south east corner, except an old mattress on the floor in the center of the room. The gun, a double-barrel 12 gauge shotgun, was lying under the mattress and was still warm when I picked it up. One barrel had been fired and in the other was a cartridge loaded with No. 7 buckshot."
Detective Williams took the gun to police headquarters and the fact that the shell in the gun was loaded with shot, the same size as those fired into the back of Officer Campbell, and the barrel of the gun still warm when found, leaves no doubt about it being the weapon used in the dastardly assassination.
As insignificant as the leaving of the cartridge which was not fired in the gun may appear it is never the less considered an important clew by the officers. The cartridge has every appearance of being a brand new shell and inasmuch as the sale of shells loaded with no. 7 buckshot is a very unusual occurrence, the authorities expect to locate the party who sold the shells and learn to whom they were sold. While it is only a small clew among a number, it is not overlooked by any means.
Held As Witness
Dressed in a loose house gown with her hair hanging over her shoulders and suffering from the effects of a recent operation to such an extent that she could only walk with great difficulty, Grace Hastings, a young white woman who occupied one of the rooms in the house from which the fatal shot was fired, presented a pitiful spectacle when brought to police headquarters last night, where she will be held pending a thorough investigation as to what she knows regarding the killing.
While the Hastings woman did not break down under the trying ordeal and held up under rigid examination as to what she knows of the killing when not being questioned she would sit with her face buried in her hands and from all appearances seemed to be suffering greatly from her illness. She denied any knowledge whatever of the shooting, and her statement so far is of little benefit to the officers. However, it was with difficulty that she was induced to talk at all and when approached by a representative of
"The Record", she declined to answer any questions however, except as to a general denial of any knowledge of the affair.I know absolutely nothing about it she said.
"Yes, I occupied a room in the same building and was brought down here after the shooting, but I don't know what they want from me."At the time of the woman
=s arrest, she was in her room in a separate part of the house and on the lower floor. She was docketed on a charge of vagrancy and will be held on this charge pending the investigation. However she is only one of a number habitants of that immediate locality who have been taken up in connection with the investigations being made. While she is ill, her illness is not considered serious.Campbell's Record
His Police Career Was Brief, But He Was Esteemed Highly
W.A. Campbell was a single man, 33 years of age, and had been connected with the police department only comparatively a short time, beginning his first duties as a patrolman the latter part of April.
In speaking of Mr. Campbell as an officer last night, Night Captain Bills said he had a good work record, and was a man who was always attentive to his duties. Other members of the police department also had a high opinion of Campbell as a peace officer and a citizen.
While Campbell had only been on the force a few months, he had been a resident of Fort Worth for about three years. Prior to his going on the force he was a rail road man, a member of the Brotherhood Railroad Trainmen. He was a Kentuckian by birth, but was reared in Fannin County where he resided almost continually up to the time he came to the city.
His mother and father are both dead. A brother at Honey Grove and two sisters residing in Dodd City survive him. His brother was notified of his death last night about 11:30 o'clock, but up to an early hour this morning, no reply had been received to the message. However, an answer is expected this morning. In the meantime, the body is being held by the Fort Worth Undertaking company pending advice from his relatives. It is very likely the body will be shipped to Honey Grove, his old home, for internment.
Officer Campbell was engaged to be married and the wedding was to have taken place September 14.
Campbell Without Fear
He Well Knew The Threats Which Had Been Made Against His Life
Officer Campbell well knew that his life was in danger but he was devoid of fear, and never faltered for a single moment when advised six weeks ago that an
Acre gang was framing to kill him. The heads of the department, however, thought more of the threats than he, and for several nights Captain Blanton picked officers lay in wait in an alley near where the Thursday night tragedy occurred with Winchester cocked and ready for instant action, while others were constantly less than a block behind Campbell and Patrolman Lively who at that time was his partner. On another occasion, Assistant Chief Parsley and the night captain went into the district and were informed by some men armed with Winchester were behind boxes in the alley feared, and that they were armed to the teeth. A raid was made on the place, and while enough was found to justify the belief in the minds of the captain and chief that the men had really been there, they had been warned in time and made their escape.Shooting At Hammond
Out of the alleged threats grew the shooting Saturday night, July 10, in which Patrolman Campbell fired three times at Bob Hammond, proprietor of the Red Light Saloon, one of which entered Hammond
=s side just above the hip and emerged through his opposite hi, after traversing a course in a downward direction. According to a version of the affair as told by Campbell a few minutes after the shooting, Hammond had attempted to draw a gun from his shirt front, and it was then that the policeman put his automatic revolver into action. Hammond later denied this in a signed statement printed in "The Record" after he was able to leave the college hospital, where he was taken at the time of the shooting. No indictment was returned by the grand jury against Campbell for his part in the affair, but on the contrary, they unofficially sent a letter to Commissioner Mulkey commending Campbell for his efforts to rid Acre of the criminals and undesirables who infest it.Probably an hour after the shooting Thursday night, Hammond went to the police station and said he had just heard of it and, although he didn
't even know where it had occurred, he supposed that on account of the other affair, he would be wanted and he had come down to give himself up. He was locked in the calaboose cell but was later transferred to the county jail.Stokes Clark, a young man who about a year ago killed a ranger and Weatherford, TX, but who has not yet been tried on that charge, was later picked up by the police and taken to headquarters, where, after being in the presence of the assistant chief for probably half an hour, he was also taken to the county jail. Probably 10 other were held for investigation and were subjected to a taste of the third degree. Practically all night long, night Captain Bills, assistant Chief Parsley and County Attorney Virgil Parker were engaged in the examinations, but what, if anything, they were able to learn was closely guarded.
Hunting For Evidence
County Attorney Bruce Young and Parker were notified of the killing within a few moments after it happened and each immediately started to gather whatever evidence was obtainable, cooperating with the police department in their work. Justice Bratton was also busy in connection with the tragedy, working to secure evidence to be introduced at the inquest to be held in his court room at 9:00 o
=clock this morning. Sergeant Almeras telephoned for him immediately upon being advised by the phone of the murder. He was immediately taken to the scene of the crime and, after viewing the body, ordered it removed to an undertaking establishment, Sergeant Almeras had previously notified the Fort Worth Undertaking company to assume charge of the remains.They were ready when the justice had viewed the remains, and taking them to their parlors within 100 feet of the police station that Campbell had quitted but a short hour before alive, prepared them for the funeral, which is to be later decided upon.
It is certain, however, that the body will be laid away with all the honors the police department can give, and that every officer in uniform, and wearing mourning will act as a guard of honor when the funeral starts to the cemetery.
Chief Polk, of the department, was ill at home when advised of the loss of one of his force. He was deeply moved and grieved by the occurrence and ordered that every available man should be put to work on the case and that no effort should be spared to effect the arrest of the guilty party or parties.
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