AMAZING RIOTS

Taranaki Daily News, 12 May 1930, Page 9

AMAZING RIOTS

TEXAN MOBS RUN AMOK *. ■ •’ BURN GAOL TO LYNCH NEGRO VIOLENT- REIGN OF TERROR THREE CITY BLOCKS BLAZE By Telegraph—Press Assn —Copyright. Rec. 6.20 p.m. New York, May 10. Despite national guardsmen's aid the Texas Rangers were unable to prevent a mob at Sherman, Texas, burning the courthouse and gaol in which a negro was held for attacking a white woman. The. rangers repelled the rioters three times with gas bombs but the mob entered and poured petrol and set .fire to the structure, from which all escaped. The negro was cremated in a steel vault where he had been placed for protection.

Firemen battled furiously to quench the flames, but the mob slashed the hose lines. Local authorities stated they would make wholesale arrests. Violence broke out anew when one pari of the mob of several thousand' persons battled with . national guardsmen in the main square of the town while the other group stormed the gaol, tearing down and dynamiting the walls to ascertain if the negro was burned, as the officers claimed. Two men were shot and r Captain Dunlap, commanding the guardsmen, was badly injured. The negro quarter of the city has been deserted. Authorities, fear further trouble there as the mob is showing uncontrollable and - apparently increasing fury. '

Fifteen of the alleged leaders of the mob, which early this morning cut open the vault with acetylene torches to drag out the negro who had suffocated there during the fire and hung his body to a tree, were apprehended by the. national guard. Eleven, however, were quickly discharged. The officials have decided to request ■the governor to put the city under military law. The mob, which for twelve hours rushed through the city doing violence to property and seeking negroes upon whom to wreak vengeance. end n 'l its reign of terror only after it had burned three blocks of buildings in the negro section early this morning. Heavy rain caused the mob to disperse. With the coming of daylight the city was left in control of the State police and

troops. Not in recent years has an American city lived through such scenes of awful rioting and uncontrolled mob passions as Sherman has during this lynching.