Nine-year-old Albert Garner did not have much of a defense when he stood before the Juvenile Court.
He simply looked up at Judge DeLacy and told the truth as he saw it: “I was just playing tag.”
The boy had been arrested the night before on a charge of disorderly conduct after children were reported making noise near the Whitney Avenue Christian Church. The other boys ran when the policeman came, but Albert was caught and brought to court.
It did not take long for the judge to see the matter plainly. Within minutes, the case against the little boy was dismissed.
“Just Playing Tag”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — When Judge DeLacy, in the Juvenile Court this morning, asked nine-year-old Albert Garner what he was doing to be arrested last night, the youngster turned his big blue eyes up into the court’s face and said:
“I was just playing tag.”
A better looking little fellow has never faced Judge DeLacey than Albert Garner, and it took the court less than three minutes to decide that there was absolutely no foundation for the charge of disorderly conduct entered against the boy and to dismiss the case.
Young Garner, with several other children, was playing about the yard of the Whitney Avenue Christian Church. The policeman who arrested him said complaints had been made against the boys of the neighborhood because of the noise they made around the church. The other boys ran and got away.
Source: The Washington Times. Washington, D.C. November 21, 1908.
