Borger Daily Herald Monday, February 11, 1929.
Services Conducted for Dead Officer
Joe Hutson, Killed by Gun of Fellow Officer, is Buried Here, Today
Funeral services for Uncle Joe Hutson, Borger policeman who was fatally injured in a gun accident at 2:20 o’clock Sunday morning, were held from the First Baptist church at 2 o’clock this afternoon. The services were conducted by the Rev. A. F. Johnson, pastor, and interment was in Highland cemetery.
A large crowd of relatives, friends and acquaintances of the former popular officer attended the services to pay their last respects. An altar banked with flowers denoted the high esteem in which he was held by his fellow citizens.
Six fellow officers and city employees, Judge W. C. Witcher, Dave Blassingame, D. E. Martin, W. G. Bracken, Judge O. V. Overson, and M. J. Stockton, acted as pall-bearers. Employees at the city hall attended the services in a body.
Hutson died in a local hospital at 7 o’clock Sunday morning, following his shooting by the accidental discharge of a bullet from the revolver of Tom Hughes, a fellow officer. Death was attributed to loss of blood from the wound in his upper thigh, where the bullet entered.
The accident occurred in an anteroom at the city hall, when Hughes, attempting to replace the weapon in his holster, dropped it on the floor and it was discharged. The bullet passed through Hughes ankle, glanced from the concrete floor and struck Hutson in the thigh, severing the femoral artery.
Both men were rushed immediately to the hospital and given medical treatment, but the loss of blood was responsible for Hutson’s death.
Officer’s Wife Near Death
Mrs. Joe Hutson, wife of Joe Hutson, Borger Policeman killed in a gun accident Sunday morning was reported near death this afternoon from relapse from a recent illness suffered at the news of her husband’s death.
Mrs. Hutson had not fully recovered when she received news of her husband’s fatal shooting, and it is believed that the accident is responsible for her present condition.