Theft Of Trunk From Bus Lands One In Hospital

Case(s)
Source Type: Newspaper
Publisher: The Tuscaloosa News
Place of publication: Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Date of publication: 9/5/1934 0:00
Source URL: View Source
Transcript:

Negro Shot, Four Others In Jail, After Dumping Trunk On Highway
Five negroes in an automobile who conceived the idea of dumping a trunk from the top of a Teche Greyhound bus near Alberta City and gathering up its scattered content were frustrated early this morning and one of them, Mack Ruggs, 25, of the Birmingham vicinity, lay painfully wounded this afternoon in Druid City Hospital with a bullet wound in the hip.
The others, Swansie Ruggs of Roosevelt, Ala., near Birmingham, Emma Larkin, 213 Ninth Street, Tuscaloosa, and Adel and Willie Little of Brighton, are held as witnesses in County Jail.
According to information from the sheriff’s office, the negro who was wounded left his companions at a point near the last railway crossing this side of Bessemer and climbed aboard the bus, riding there until near Alberta City, where he dumped the trunk to the highway.
He then rejoined the negro party in the atuomobile, which was following the bus, and they continued to Davis Bottoms, on the outskirts of Tuscaloosa. There they put out Emma Larkin, a Tuscaloosa negro woman, and returned in the car to the point where the trunk had been thrown off.
In the meantime the driver and passengers of a second bus had discovered the littered contents of the trunk and notified the bus management at Tuscaloosa. A Mr. Clanton, employed as nightwatchman by several business firms here, was dispatched to the scene.
Shortly afterward the Ruggs negro approached and had put some of the articles into his automobile when accosted by Mr. Clanton. The negro took flight and Mr. Clanton fired once, the ball lodging in the negro’s hip.
Deputies R.M. Pate and Hal Curry, from the sheriff’s office, came on the scene and brought the negroes to town, leaving the wounded negro at the hospital and locking up the others to be held for investigation and as witnesses.
The trunk was said to have belonged to a University student from Boston who was not a passenger on the bus.