Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1894 — SHOT DOWN AT THE POLLS. [ARTICLE]

SHOT DOWN AT THE POLLS.

Politicians Fight with Pistols in On© of the Wards of Troy, N. Y. One man was killed and three others seriously wounded in a fight at a polling booth of the third precinct of the Thirteenth Ward, at Troy, N. Y. Among the watchers at the polling place was Robert Ross and his brother Willidm, both of them being there in the interest of the Republican party. There was also there a well-known character by the name of “Bat” Shea. About 1:30 o'clock a gang of at least fifteen strangers stood waiting to vote, while men whose names were on the poll-list, both Democrats and Republicans, were crowded away. Robert Ross objected to this, and had words with Shea. A dispatch says that the trouble began *in the polling booth, where a crowd of repeaters, headed by Jeremiah Cleary and Shea, attempted to vote. When the vote was challenged the men went outside and immediately started an argument with the Ross boys. Suddenly the crowd surged forward, and in an instant revolvers were drawn and shots fired. Robert Ross fell to the roadway and his brother William cried “I’m shot.” Then the firing ceased as suddenly as it had commenced. Before a surge :n could reach the scene Robert Ross was dead.. William Ross was shot in the neck just below the base of the brain and will probably die. John McGough is dangerously wounded, while Shea’s wound is not considered serious. He is under arrest. Cleary escaped.