Clay County AlArchives News.....Deputy arrested in shooting of Clarence Bailey September 11, 1929
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Linda Ayres http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00031.html#0007674 December 27, 2022, 11:10 pm

Our Mountain Home September 11, 1929
Sept. 10. Cecil Guthrie, deputy sheriff of Clay County, held without bond in the 
county jail here on a charge of first-degree murder in connection with the fatal 
shooting Sunday of Clarence Bailey, 18-year-old high school student, will be 
given a preliminary hearing at 10 a. m. Wednesday before Judge E. J. Garrison in 
county court here. Bailey was shot one time and killed when he is reported to 
have fled in an attempt to escape arrest on a charge of violating the 
prohibition law. Guthrie surrendered at the sheriff's office following the 
shooting and was placed in the county jail pending the preliminary hearing. 
Sheriff J. H. Allen said Guthrie told him the shooting was accidental. He said, 
according to the sheriff, that he and another officer were approaching Bailey 
and several other youths in a pasture near Ashland to arrest them when they 
fled. Guthrie told the sheriff he fired two shots into the air in an attempt to 
frighten Bailey and make him stop. The third shot, which struck the youth in the 
back of the head and killed him, Guthrie, said, was fired accidentally when he 
stumbled and fell While pursuing Bailey. Guthrie said a jug containing a 
quantity of whisky was found on the scene where he first saw Bailey and the 
other youths. The accused officer's story was corroborated by W. Z. Alexander, 
the officer who was accompanying Guthrie. Bailey was the son of J. W. Bailey, 
prominent Clay County planter, was a student at the Clay County high school and 
a member of the football team last year. Funeral services were held Tuesday. 

W. J. Foster, deputy prohibition administrator for the Northern district of 
Alabama, in a statement Monday said that the time is coming when enforcement 
officers working on liquor cases will be obliged to use more care in handling 
firearms. Foster deplored the killing Sunday of Clarence Bailey by a deputy 
sheriff. "Public opinion will soon force officers to use more care with their 
weapons," Foster said. "There is no need for carelessness and slipshod methods 
in prohibition enforcement. The law can be intelligently enforced without 
shooting suspects." Foster recently issued a statement warning federal dry 
agents to be exceedingly careful in their use of firearms, a warning which has 
been repeated many times, by Washington prohibition directors.

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