File No. 319.1123L25/5.
No. 480.]
American Legation,
Panama,
April 23, 1915.
The investigations both by Panama and our military authorities, at
which respectively a representative of the other is present, have
not yet been concluded. The valuable work of the Canal Zone Police
through their detective and policeman branches will continue
also.
[Inclosure.]
Chief of Police Mitchell to the Governor of
Panama Canal Zone.
Balboa Heights,
April 20, 1915.
memorandum for the governor.
With reference to the riot in Colon on April 2, 1915, I have to
advise that of the two Panaman police officers who were in rear
of the building at the southeast corner of Broadway and Hudson
Alley during the riot between the soldiers and police, it is
admitted by Governor Arcia of Colon and regarded as an
established fact that one of the officers who were firing at the
soldiers on the train was sub-lieutenant No. 3, who has been
under arrest since that date. He answers the description of the
policeman who shot Private Deloughery. The identity of the
officer who was with him at the time ,and who was also firing at
the soldiers, has not as yet been learned.
From their position while in rear of the building they could not
have fired the shot which killed Corporal Langdon. It has
developed, however, that there were at least two policemen
firing on Corporal Langdon’s squad from behind a building
located near the northeast corner of Broadway and Hudson Alley,
but due to the fact that but one man exposed himself at a time
in firing upon them, the members of the patrol were under the
impression that but one policeman was shooting from that point.
I have received confidential information to the effect that
Miguel Navas, No. 1, was the officer who fired the shot that
resulted in the death of Corporal Langdon.
Vigilante G. Gordon is said to have been on Broadway at the time
of the riot, and to have positive knowledge as to the identity
of the policemen who were at the location from which the shot,
which killed Langdon, was fired. It has also been reported that
Navas was armed with a 32–caliber automatic revolver.
In the statement made to Lieut. Callaway of the Canal Zone Police
on April 3 by Inez Mose, brown Barbadian, female, 16 years of
age, living in Colon on 9th and Cash Streets, and employed by a
Mrs. Holderman as a servant, in concrete house No. 63, she
states that Navas fired three shots at soldiers at the corner of
10th and Cash Streets, striking one soldier in the arm, a second
in the chest and a third in the ear; but two soldiers, however,
were shot at this place. Investigation is being continued in an
effort to learn the identity of the officers who did the
shooting.
