Written in Blood: The History of Fort Worth's Fallen Lawmen, Volume 2, 1910-1928

Chapter 2: Police Officer John A. Ogletree (May 15, 1913)

39 2 Police Officer John A. Ogletree (MAY 15, 1913) “A brave officer who died in pursuit of his duty” TOMMIE LEE WAS A BAD MAN; there could be no doubt about that to the Fort Worth police. But they saw him as something even worse: a “bad nigger,” which in the Jim Crow era was perhaps the worst epithet in police vernacular.1 The authorities knew him as an unregenerate gambler, thief, brawler, and killer. He was a tyro at the first two, but a master at murder and mayhem. He had already killed two or three men even before the events of May 15, 1913. His full name was Tom Lee Young, but for his own reasons he shortened it to “Tom Lee” after moving to Fort Worth. The local newspapers that gave him his fifteen minutes of fame, however , insisted on calling him “Tommie Lee.” (One of the reasons for using the diminutive was because “Tom Lee” Officer John A. Ogletree, a big, burly man, posed for this formal studio shot in front of a canvas backdrop. Barely visible: the bobby-style helmet that would go out in 1915. Ogletree’s brother is cropped out of this family photo. (Courtesy Stephen E. Ogletree) 40 Written in Blood was a fairly common name among whites; “Tommie Lee” distinguished him in public reports from white men with the same name, a subtle form of racism.) Whatever name he was called, he did not go through life quietly. Being deferential toward “the Man” was not in his makeup; he had an attitude especially when he had been drinking , and although Fort Worth may have been a Western town on the map, the white population was thoroughly Southern in its attitude toward race. Confederate veterans held a reunion in Fort Worth in 1913, and the Klan had never completely died out. The Fort Worth Record had no problem labeling Tom Lee a “bad nigger.”2 He managed to stay out of trouble in his day job as a bootblack and porter at the Congress Barber Shop, which boasted some of the most distinguished men of Fort Worth as customers. The staff The Congress Barber Shop at 610 Main was FortWorth’s finest barbershop for more than twenty years.With nine chairs, six bathrooms, electric lighting, and a shoeshine stand, it served the city’s elite.Tom Lee worked here—shining shoes, sweeping up, and cleaning the spittoon—in his day job. (Courtesy Fort Worth Public Library, Central Library, Genealogy, History and Archives Unit) Police Officer John A. Ogletree (May 15, 1913) 41 would have been on a first-name basis with the gentlemen clientele. Lee’s job as “porter” meant that in addition to shining shoes and boots, he did all the custodial work.3 Before coming to Fort Worth, Tom Lee Young had worked as a porter in an Ennis barbershop where he kept up the façade of a real-life Uncle Tom, the lovable slave in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel, who had become a shameful stereotype of his race. It was after work that Tom Lee liked to cut loose. He had his first serious brush with the law in 1907 when he stole an expensive diamond ring from an Ennis jeweler. He was caught almost immediately and sent to the penitentiary for three years. Upon release, he relocated to Fort Worth, changed his name, and kept his nose clean—at least for a time. He moved in with his brother and sister on East Third, an area described on fire insurance maps of the day as “negro tenements.” Other family members who might help keep him out of trouble lived nearby. After bowing and scraping to gentlemen customers all day, Lee liked to head down to Hell’s Half Acre to have a little fun, which usually meant shooting dice and drinking cheap liquor. But he always made it home to catch a little shut-eye before going in to work.4 John A. Ogletree was also a workingman who had to earn his daily bread, but he was white and wore a uniform and badge, which placed him on a completely different plane from Tom Lee Young. Ogletree was thirty-five years old in 1913, having been born in Texas in 1878. He was still living with his parents when they all moved to Fort Worth sometime before 1900. He had four...