announce the death of the wretch. He rushed to the street door, shouted
the news to the crowd, and a moment later the bleeding body was dragged
to the pavement and made the target of a score of pistols. It was shot,
kicked and beaten almost out of semblance to humanity....

The limp dead body was dropped at the edge of the sidewalk and from
there dragged to the muddy roadway by half a hundred hands. There in the
road more shots were fired into the body. Corporal Trenchard, a
brother-in-law of Porteus, led the shooting into the inanimate clay.
With each shot there was a cheer for the work that had been done and
curses and imprecations on the inanimate mass of riddled flesh that was
once Robert Charles.

Cries of "Burn him! Burn him!" were heard from Clio Street all the way
to Erato Street, and it was with difficulty that the crowd was
restrained from totally destroying the wretched dead body. Some of those
who agitated burning even secured a large vessel of kerosene, which had
previously been brought to the scene for the purpose of firing Charles's
refuge, and for a time it looked as though this vengeance might be
wreaked on the body. The officers, however, restrained this move,
although they were powerless to prevent the stamping and kicking of the
body by the enraged crowd.

After the infuriated citizens had vented their spleen on the body of the
dead Negro it was loaded into the patrol wagon. The police raised the
body of the heavy black from the ground and literally chucked it into
the space on the floor of the wagon between the seats. They threw it
with a curse hissed more than uttered and born of the bitterness which
was rankling in their breasts at the thought of Charles having taken so
wantonly the lives of four of the best of their fellow-officers.