In the early winter of 1901, near the Mississippi River town of Friars Point, a lawman met a violent end. Deputy Sheriff James Lucas of the Coahoma County Sheriff's Office was ambushed and killed on Friday, January 11th. He was in the process of serving an arrest warrant for a local bootlegger when the suspect, lying in wait, shot and killed him. The death of the deputy prompted a swift response from local authorities. A posse was quickly formed to hunt for the man responsible for the cold-blooded murder.
The search for the suspected killer was not a protracted one. Later that same day, the determined posse successfully tracked down and captured the bootlegger who had allegedly shot Deputy Lucas from ambush. The historical record of this event does not specify the name of the suspect or the details of any subsequent legal proceedings, such as a trial or conviction.
The death of Deputy Sheriff James Lucas is noted as one of the few line-of-duty deaths in the history of the Coahoma County Sheriff's Office. This historical account, however, is the only information available from online sources regarding the death of a James Lucas in the Clarksdale, Mississippi, area. There are no online records that detail a more recent death of a male by this name in Clarksdale, nor are there any reports of arrests or suspects in connection with such an event.
