SECRET SERVICE INFORMATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 29 July 1932, Page 5

SECRET SERVICE INFORMATION

ATTACK PLANNED BY COMMUNISTS (Received 29th July, 12.5 p.m.) WASHINGTON, 28th July. White House officials said information had come to them from secret service agents that veterans who led the attack upon policemen were entirely a Communist group. The statement was made without amplification by one of the President’s secretaries. Troops arrived in the troubled area at 4.45 p.m. with orders to clear away the veterans. A veteran received a bullet through the heart when the police opened fire upon veterans who were advancing towards them. A group of comrades took the man to hospital in a patrol waggon, accompanied by two policemen, but he was dead when they reached there. He had no marks of identification. Another marcher is in a serious condition with bullet wounds in the neck and lower abdomen,' and his recovery is doubtful. Several other marchers were treated for lesser injuries. Colonel Patrick Hurley, Secretary for War, ordered the cavalry from Fort Myer to be rushed into the city at a fast pace, saying that he had been informed by the President that the civil governor of the district of Columbia had reported to him that it was unable to maintain law and order.

After hearing a report from an officer, who said that he fired the first shot, Mr Pelham D. Glassford, police chief, said that the shooting which killed was justified.

Several police were injured, one private, Scott, being reported as having died from a blow by a flying brick. This report, which could not be verified, immediately aroused the police to anger in the minutes before the rioting that led to the shooting. All prisoners will be turned over to the civil authorities, Colonel Hurley saying, “This brushes aside the question of martial law.”