NO CASE AGAINST HARPOLE.
Negro Did Not Shoot Three White
Men -- Is Discharged.
Judge U. S. Guyer of the North city court, Kansas City, Kas., yesterday discharged Reuben Harpole, being tried for the shooting of Joshua Wells, Charles Johns and M. U. Martinson at Fifth street and Oakland avenue on the night of April 10. He said there was not enough evidence against the negro to convict him. The state's attorney expressed himself as satisfied with teh decision.
The three men named had been drinking according to their own statements made to the chief of police, and had quarreled with a party of negroes about a couple of small girls. A negro bystander then drew a revolver and commenced firing. Martinson, who was shot first, drew his revolver, but it would not work and he tossed it over an adjacent signboard into a vacant lot. Harpole was arrested a few days later and identified by the two girls as the man wanted for the shooting.
Joshua Wells is now in Bethany hospital, where he underwent an operation for the removal of a bullet, which is said to have lodged in the vicinity of the right lung. He will die.
