Dr. Rahm Relates Story of Shooting

Dr. Rahm Relates Story of Shooting

By Hilton Hagan
News Staff Writer

Tyler, Texas. - Dr. Charles Collins Rahm, accused of the slaying that capped years of bitter wrangling in the Brownsboro schools, told his story amidst sobs to newsmen Monday.

At his first meeting with newsmen since the ill-fated school board meeting June 16, the mild-looking, bespectacled osteopath said he fired the shot that killed Thurman Jackson from the floor because "someone was kicking me."

Authorities had kept mum on Dr. Rahm's whereabouts since the shooting. Attorney Charles Tessmer, however, started legal steps Monday that may free Dr. Rahm on bond.

A hearing on his release is set for 9 a.m. Friday before Dist. Judge V. M. Johnston in Athens. Dr. Rahm said he had been in Smith County jail "three weeks today, if today's Monday."

He said he had gone to the meeting armed because of a week of threats, including one that "you'd better get out of this town while you're still alive."

Dr. Rahm was secretary of the school board, and had been Brownsboro's mayor and city health officer, although he has been a resident of the town for only six years.

He said he resigned as mayor to accept an appointment to the school board reluctantly. "I had no desire to serve," he said. "But some friend asked me to take it in an effort to quiet down some of the dissension that had built up over the years."

The dissension revolved around Homer Bass, superintendent of the Brownsboro schools, he said.

The board this year fired Bass and hired H. G. Larkin, former dean of Henderson County Junior College, as superintendent.

Last April a school board election, in which Dr. Rahm was not a candidate, ousted all but one of the pro-Bass members on the school board.

Tension had built up for several days prior to the meeting June 16, Dr. Rahm said. Once some teen-age boys had threatened to beat him up, he said, and Brownsboro Constable Jack Brown had advised him to "protect myself."

Pending at that time was a survey of the school system by the Texas Education Agency over Bass' firing.

The agency had also found 14 Negro school teachers in the 1,000-pupil district "unqualified to teach their subjects," Dr. Rahm said.

He said he had heard some "roughnecks" were going to take "all the board members out and beat them up. We were told that this would be the last meeting of this board. They said they were going to wind it up Thursday."

At the meeting, he said "a colored patron got up and said, "If we don't get our teachers back next fall, you're going to have some trouble here next September that you don't want.'"

School Board President Ivan Long tried to explain that the Negro teachers had not been fired, but were suspended pending completion of the Texas Education Agency's survey.

Long wanted to read the agency preliminary report, he said, but the crowd, white and Negro, gathered around the board table.

The annual Brownsboro firemen's banquet also was scheduled for the night, Dr. Rahm said, and the board planed to finish early anyway.

So Long gaveled the meeting into adjournment.

"The space in front of the table was packed with people, three and four deep," Dr. Rahm related.

"I saw a deputy sheriff at the door. 'Get us out of here,' I said to him. 'I'll try,' he said."

Before he got to the door, however, someone slugged him from behind, knocked his glasses off, and Rahm, who is extremely nearsighted, dropped to the floor, he reported.

"One man said, 'You're not going anywhere.' I tried to get up, but someone was kicking and stomping me. There was blood all over my face and shirt and I reached for his pants leg.

"He stepped back and I shot him.

"I knew I would be killed," he cried.

Deputies took Dr. Rahm to Athens after the shooting and dropped him off at the hospital. After having four stitches taken in his head, Dr. Rahm went to the Henderson County, Courthouse.

"There was no one there," he said, "so I sat down and waited."

He said he wasn't sure whether he would return to Brownsboro if he is released as a result of the hearing Friday.

Dallas Morning News
Tuesday, July 12, 1960
Section 4, Page 1