SHOT IN COURT

Southland Times, Issue 20495, 25 May 1928, Page 4

SHOT IN COURT

WOMEN ATTACK ACQUITTED CHIEF OF POLICE. H. F. Blake, Calera Chief of Police, was fired at and then stabbed by two women in the Circuit Court of California just after he had been acquitted of the murder of their relative. Miss Louise Monteabaro. Mrs Mabel Monteabaro, mother of the girl, fired a pistol from a distance of five feet as Blake was being congratulated by his friends. The shot went wild. Miss Cecil Tubbs, an aunt, of the girl, leaped at the police chief, drawing a knife as she flung herself towards him, and stabbed him in the neck. Blake fell, the blood streaming from the wounds. The courtroom was in a turmoil in a moment, and Charles C. McCall, State attorney, who had personally prosecuted Blake, fainted from the excitement. Physicians said they could not tell from their first examination whether Blake’s wound would be fatal. Mr McCall quickly recovered himself, and ordered the two women to be taken into custody. Both were frantic from the strain of the trial and their deed, and Mrs Monteabaro fought hysterically with Court officers before she was subdued. She still tried to get to Blake as the bailiffs pinioned her. Officers said the women had obtained the weapons from the box in which Miss Monteabaro’s clothing was kept during the trial. The pistol used in the shooting was one of those used by the State in expert testimony regarding the manner of the girl’s death. Louise Monteabaro, a sewing machine saleswoman was shot and killed shortly after Blake and W. D. Farmer, another policeman, had arrested her op the Montgomery Highway. They swore she killed herself after her arrest for speeding, and while they had momentarily left the car to examine a bottle which they said she had thrown from the machine when they hailed her. Blake’s trial had lasted a little over two weeks, and the case had gone to the jury. The verdict was returned shortly after Court was convened. . Farmer wes indicted with Blake, and his trial is pend ing.