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| Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-Times, 05-April-1948 |
SHERIFFS PREVENT
LYNCHING OF NEGRO
Mob violence would decrease if public officials followed the example of the Rocky Mount, Va., officers who prevented the lynching of Ote Gilbert, a negro sentenced to 20 years for criminal assault, the American Civil Liberties Union declares in a statement issued today.
According to a letter received by the Union from J. P. Lee, public prosecutor of Rocky Mount, a mob formed outside the jail to lynch Gilbert, but dispersed when they found that any attempt to take the prisoner would result in a number of people being killed.
"The officers were determined to go to any length in the protection of the prisoner, even to the sacrifice of their lives," Lee's letter to the Civil Liberties Union declares. "The suit of the whole matter was satisfactory. The negro was saved from lynching and nobody was hurt."
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