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._:
Solomon Russell Wright, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
I reside at No. 129 West 27th Street; on Thursday, August 16th, 1900,
about 6:30 P. M., I left the house and walked to the corner of 7th
Avenue and 28th Street, where I met a friend of mine, with whom I
stood and chatted for about three quarters of an hour, when I left and
returned down 7th Avenue towards 27th Street, and had got within about
one hundred feet of 27th Street, when I was struck by a missile thrown
by an Italian boy. I naturally turned around and asked him what he had
done that for. I passed on, however, and had got about fifty feet east
of 7th Avenue, on 27th Street, when a police officer ran after me,
and seizing me commenced feeling around my clothes as if in search of
something. I had an ordinary pocket knife in the change pocket of my
coat, and the officer finding it said, "What are you doing with this?"
I answered, "Do you see me doing anything with it?" He then took me
to the 30th Street station house (19th Precinct), and while going up
the steps of the station house I stumbled, and the officer then hit
me on the back of the neck with his club. I was arraigned before the
sergeant, who took my pedigree, and at the close of that proceeding the
officer who had me in charge, and whose name is Kennedy, said to the
sergeant, "What will we do with this feller?" The sergeant replied,
"Kill the black son of a b----!" The said officer then brought me back,
and when we reached a flight of stairs leading down to the cells he
shoved me down the whole flight; when I reached the bottom some other
officers who were down there grabbed me and punched and beat me with
their fists. I was arraigned the next day and charged with carrying a
knife, and I was committed for ninety days. I served part of the time,
when I was released on bail. I was not intoxicated, and had never been
arrested before in my life. I never have and do not stand around the
corners of the neighborhood; and further, I am employed by the Standard
Oil Company as a porter.