William Wetherspoon Gemmell, 24, a special officer with the Pawtucket Police Department, responded to a disturbance between two men on the evening of Friday, June 19, 1908. Summoned to the scene, he stepped in to calm the dispute. When he showed his badge, one of the men pulled a handgun and fired, striking Gemmell in the neck on a Pawtucket sidewalk. Neighbors and bystanders saw the sudden turn from argument to gunshot, a routine intervention collapsing into violence in an instant.
He w
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