This day in history: Mother of teen killed by cop criticized coroner inquiry. Also, UW and Oregon said they were departing an athletic conference. Sound familiar?
From 1975: Carrie Jordan, mother of the late Craig S. Jordan, issued a statement through her attorney, Carl Maxey, “strenuously objecting” to the way the coroner’s inquest into the death of her son was conducted.
She said she had asked for an inquest chaired by a judicial officer; with minority representation on the jury; and a “full and extended inquiry in which somebody other than the prosecuting attorney himself could participate in the questioning of the witnesses.”
“None of these things were granted,” said Carrie Jordan in her statement. “We have found instead an all-white jury who in and of themselves were totally unknowledgeable about the law, who could not properly ask pertinent questions and the inquest was chaired by a fine doctor with no legal experience. It became, in effect, a one-man show; the prosecuting attorney, that is.”
She also said she had no intention to pursue any legal action against the officer who shot her son and asked that the prosecutor “do nothing” further against the officer.
Yet she also urged a “full investigation into the police relationship with the non-white community.”
“We all have to live here together and we have to get along,” she said. “The police department, because they have guns, have a greater obligation to fully and fairly treat all citizens alike.”
From 1925: A Paulsen Building janitor rose to his feet in the witness box, pointed dramatically, and said, “There is the man!”
He was pointing at Isadore Edelstein, alleged ace safecracker, accused of breaking into dozens of safes and vaults in the Paulsen Building.
The janitor claimed he saw Edelstein come out of an elevator late at night on the day of the thefts. He said Edelstein was accompanied by “a woman – apparently a woman.” He said “she looked more like a man than a woman.”
The trial would continue over the next week.
Also from 1925: Gonzaga University was planning to ask to be admitted to the Pacific Coast Conference since the athletic conference it belonged to, the Northwest Conference, was falling apart.
Gonzaga, Washington State University, Gonzaga University and the University of Washington and University of Oregon were among the members of the Northwest Conference. WSU, UW and Oregon had been members of both the Pacific Coast and Northwest conferences. But UW and Oregon gave notice that they intended to leave the Northwest Conference. Meanwhile, Gonzaga scheduled a football game for Thanksgiving 1926 with WSU.