![]() Three generations after the lynchings, former San Jose Mercury reporter and columnist Harry Farrell wrote the insider account of the event: Swift Justice: Murder and Vengeance in a California Town. Ordinarily the sheriff would have provided Thurmond’s confession to the press, but it was released through Louis Oneal’s law office. Oneal had joined the sheriff and FBI agents in the interrogation of suspect Thomas Harold Thurmond. Emig to run for Santa Clara County sheriff, and got him elected. Three years previously, Oneal had handpicked San Jose Police Capt. Fellow Republican Oneal, literally Rolph’s next door neighbor in the mountains on the west side of Santa Clara Valley, was the powerful overlord of the dominant county political machine.ĭuring the assault on the county jail and the lynching, Oneal maintained an open phone line from his ranch to the jail in downtown San Jose with him was Raymond Cato, appointed by Rolph as the chief of the California Highway Patrol. Rolph was connected both personally and politically to San Jose through former state Sen. ![]() Two hours prior to the lynching, he canceled a trip to the western governors conference in Boise, Idaho, to prevent his chief political rival, the lieutenant governor, from using the National Guard because he had left the state. James “Sunny Jim” Rolph retorted that he would pardon the lynchers. A Los Angeles radio announcer featured the lynching as a “live event.” A San Jose movie theater projectionist placed a slide on the screen that announced that the lynching was about to start, and the patrons surged toward the exits.Īsked if he would order the National Guard to stop the lynching, Gov. Incessantly, since the discovery, that crisp fall morning, of a terribly decomposed body in the San Francisco Bay determined to be the kidnap victim, radio stations had broadcast inflammatory bulletins about the lynching. ![]() The exploitation of honest public feeling, and the surly contempt for the rule of law that gave rise to these lynchings, endures to this day-perpetuated by a materially flawed depiction of the guilt of the lynch victims who were never indicted or arraigned, much less tried for the crimes of which they were accused. This blistering scorn permitted up to 15,000 men, women and children to jam a city park, cheer an assault on the county jail across the street, witness and then celebrate two lynchings. Never before or since has the rule of law been so collectively subverted by law enforcement (including the FBI), public officials, community leaders, everyday citizens and the press. The lynching of Harold Thurmond and Jack Holmes for the kidnap and murder of Brooke Hart in San Jose in November 1933 was a singular event in American history.
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