Reasons For The Assassination Of Carl Jordan

Carl Jordan (1885-12/21/1903) buried Municipal Cemetery. Carl Jordan died December 21, 1903, from a gunshot wound inflicted two weeks earlier by a Long Beach police officer. Jordan and two other accomplices had been caught breaking into a store room in city hall which stored liquor seized during raids of various illegal saloons. It seemed a teenage prank, to steal the liquor and get drunk, but Marshal Williams was not amused. He arranged a stake out of the store room and caught the three young thieves, who had repeatedly broken into the room. In just a few weeks they had stolen a barrel of beer and a case of wine. The other two burglars, J. S. Saunders and Walter Coseboom, surrendered but Jordan ran. Officer Millard fired at him, the bullet striking Jordan in the leg. Jordan ran several blocks and then became afraid he was going to die. He came back to the jail and gave himself up. At the time the wound did not appear serious but blood poisoning set in and death followed. Coseboom and Saunders told authorities Millard had fired recklessly and should be fired. A jury found the shot fired by the officer was in the line of duty and no blame

Even dull jobs could bring death if one was not careful, as 17-year-old Clinton Coughran found out the evening of September 27, 1905. The teenager had been assigned the task of monitoring the dumping of sugar pulp into processing tanks at the Los Alamitos sugar factory. It was a routine boring job, especially at night when no one was around. Clinton was happy when two friends decided to visit during his lonely shift. Though it was against the rules, they decided that riding the electric trams which conveyed the pulp to a big tank outside the factory would be exciting and fun. Once the cars dumped their pulp they were sent back empty. The teenagers decided to board the empty cars and ride them back into the factory. But all did not go as