Died in jail or a lockup
Lovett Davis
Lovett Davis, a 25-year-old Black man, was held in the jail in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Early on May 25, 1909, a mob of about three hundred unmasked men broke into the jail, overpowered the deputies stationed inside, and took him out, according to the Pensacola Journal. Sheriff Phillips, his deputies and Circuit Judge Grace were reported to have pleaded with the mob to spare him, but the mob hanged him from a telegraph pole on one of the town's main streets. Accounts differ on the time of the killing and on whether the rope broke before he was hanged again, and a grand jury in late May returned no charges against anyone in the mob.
Cause of death, as reported: Killed by another person in custody