Orders Investigation of Second Lynching

Orders Investigation Of Second Lynching Negro Charged With Attack Shot to Death Tuscaloosa, Ala., Sept. 25-(P)-The second lynching in Tuscaloosa County within the past six weeks was under investigation by the Sheriff’s department today, Sheriff R. L. Shamblin ordered the inquiry Sunday after the body of Dennis Cross, Negro under bond on a charge of assaulting a white woman. was taken from his home by men posing as officers and shot to death. The Sheriff said he was told the group of six or seven men appeared at the Negro’s home and told Dennis it was necessary for him to go to Tuscaloosa and post a bond larger than that required when he was re- leased on bail a week ago. The visit of the group was reported to Shamblin by neighbors of Dennis and a search was started which result- ed in the finding of the Negro’s body near. the Tuscaloosa Country Club Sunday at daybreak. Dennis had been struck three times by pistol bullets. Shamblin said the charge against Dennis was a bailable offense as the victim of the alleged assault had not been attacked. The woman had Identified the Negro as her assailant. The slaying of Dennis followed by six weeks to the day the lynching of Dan Pippen, Jr., and A. T. Harden, Negros under indictment on a charge of murdering the daughter of a Tuscaloosa County farmer. Pippen and Harden were killed and Elmore Clark, another Negro, was wounded by a group of masked men who seized the prisoners from Tuscaloosa County officers hurrying them to Birmingham for safekeeping An investigation into the lynching of Pippen and Harden, ordered by Judge H. B. Foster of Tuscaloosa County is in recess pending the recovery of Attorney-Genera Thomas E. Knight, Jr., who was wounded by the accidental discharge of a rifle while the grand jury’s investigation was under way several days ago.