Sworn to before me this 1st day of September, 1900.
GEO. P. HAMMOND, JR., Notary Public (164), N. Y. County.
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_City and County of New York, ss._:
William E. Johnson, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
I reside at 332 West 37th Street. On Wednesday, August 15th, 1900,
fearing that there might be trouble over the killing of Officer
Thorpe, I remained in the house all day and did not go out until about
eleven P. M., when I went across the street to get my mail
from 331 West 37th Street, where I have a letter box, because where
I live at present the letter boxes are easily rifled, and this box
is more secure. Upon returning to the house, which I did about five
or ten minutes after leaving it, I found a police officer standing
in the front of the house, ordering the tenants who were sitting on
the front stoop to go inside, and saying that if he found them there
when he came back he would club every one of them that he found there.
The people then jumped up and ran inside, and the officer immediately
followed them, striking at them, and struck one woman across the face.
As the people got inside the vestibule door the said door closed, and
I, thinking that the officer would not go inside, opened the door and
stepped inside, whereupon the officer rushed into the hall, and struck
me a blow on the head, felling me to my knees. I said, "Officer, I have
done nothing; why do you strike me?" The officer said nothing, but
jumped over me, chasing some of the tenants who had not succeeded in
getting upstairs. While he was doing that I went out into the street,
holding my head, which had been cut open by the blow, when the officer
came out of the house and, grabbing me, pushed me into the street and
commenced to club me again. I ran across the street to the tailor shop
of I. Cohn, at 337 West 37th Street, and into the back room of his
place, and fell on the sofa, where the officer, who had followed me in,
renewed the clubbing and dragged me out into the street and to the 37th
Street station house; and on the corner of 9th Avenue and 37th Street
they met an officer who was in citizen's clothes. The said officer drew
his billy from his pocket, and struck me a blow across the neck, and
put his billy back into his pocket. When I reached the station house I
did not answer any questions, and the sergeant who was behind the desk
knew my last name and entered it on the blotter as Albert Johnson, not
knowing my first name. I was put in a cell, and after I was put in a
cell two more were put in with me, and once or twice while I was there
an officer came through, and going to each cell called the occupant to
the door, asked them their names, etc., and would then take his billy
and push it through the bars into their faces. In one case he struck
one man in the face, knocking out two of his front teeth; this man was
sent to the island the next day, and I believe is now there. On the
Tuesday following Acting Captain Cooney called and brought me down to
the station house, and asked me who the officer was that assaulted
me. Deponent then described the officer to him, and after consulting
the blotter he handed me a slip of paper whereon was written the name
"Herman Ohm" saying that was the name of the officer who had assaulted
me. Captain Cooney expressed surprise that any of the officers should
have beaten me, as I was known to a great many of them. The officer
charged me with having a gun, and of giving him a fight in the hallway,
but did not produce the gun and was given until the next day to
produce it, when he produced a revolver and a bread knife of peculiar
shape, claiming that was what I had in my possession at the time of my
arrest. Deponent denied then and now that he had ever had a revolver
and knife in his possession, and that the only thing that was found on
him and taken from him was fifty cents in money and a small penknife.
Notwithstanding the denial of the ownership of the revolver and knife
by the deponent, and also that the officer brought no witnesses as
to his taking the said articles from him, deponent was fined fifteen
dollars, which was paid.