Gun Play

When Florence Brown got home from the dance, her husband Jack met her at the door. He was either pleased to see her or as angry as a wasp, depending on whose story you want to believe.

Jack left the dance early. Why? Reasons varied. Either his feet were hurting from a burn he’d gotten earlier or he was annoyed because a man at the dance had wagged his finger at Florence while they danced. After he left, he stopped by the saloon where his friend Nelson “Nelse”  Walker worked and asked him to walk Florence home. Nelse later stated that he picked Florence up at about 1 a.m. at the dance and walked her to the Brown home.

The Bakersfield Armory hall where the dance Jack and Florence Brown attended was held, circa 1900. California State Library

According to Nelse’s version of events Jack had a pistol in his hand when he opened the door. He offered Jack a drink from his flask, but Jack declined. Jack laid the pistol on the bed. Turning angrily to his wife, he demanded to know why she’d arrived home so much later than he’d told her to.

Nelse made his excuses and quickly went on his way. He explained later that “he didn’t want to mix in the fuss.”

It wasn’t long before a gunshot rang out. Florence ran out of the house, screaming that her husband had been shot. The police were summoned.

Jack lay on the floor of the bedroom. He was definitely dead.

It was all a huge mistake, Florence insisted. They’d been fooling around with Jack’s pistol and it had gone off. It was simply a terrible accident.

The police took Florence into custody. 

Five days later Jack Brown was laid to rest in the Union Cemetery in Bakersfield, California. Jack and Florence had only lived in Bakersfield a few months. He hailed from Missouri and she was a Kansas girl. He’d been looking for work as a cook when he died. 

According to Florence Brown’s inquest testimony, Jack had been happy to see her when she got home and only displayed the pistol as a joke. She said that after Nelse left, she picked the gun up from the bed and began to play with it. She said she was facing her husband, who was about two feet away, when the gun suddenly went off. He was hit in the chest and fell to the floor. She stepped over him, placed the gun on a commode by the front door, and ran outside to get help.

Florence insisted that messing around with the gun was a game she and Jack often played for fun. Sure, they had “little quarrels” she told a reporter in an interview from jail. And after they argued, Jack would leave the house, but he always came back in less than a day with a smile on his face.

“We talked together about a month ago that we had better quit fooling with the gun, as one of us might get hurt. So from that time on we did not use it in our fooling like we used to. I cannot understand how the thing went off.”

The autopsy on Jack’s body told a different story. He had been shot in the back at close range—there were powder burns on his back between his shoulder blades. There was a small hole to the left of his spine, near his left shoulder blade, where the bullet had entered. It passed through his left lung, severed his aorta and made a larger hole in his upper chest, near his neck, where it exited his body. The doctor who performed the autopsy said Jack had been bending forward when he was shot from the rear.

Florence was charged with murder. Because Bakersfield was not known as a welcoming place for African Americans, (by the 1920s the police chief of Bakersfield was a member of the Klan), she had trouble finding a lawyer. The legal proceedings had to be postponed several times, but eventually Florence secured the services of Attorney Jess Dorsey.

The first trial ended in a hung jury. In September 1912, she was convicted of manslaughter at her second trial. The jury recommended a lenient sentence. She was given a term of six years at San Quentin. She served slightly more than four years and was released two weeks before Thanksgiving in 1916.

Florence’s identification photos in a San Quentin mug book. California State Archives

The following February, while employed as a chambermaid, Florence was arrested in San Francisco for vagrancy. (“Vagrancy” was a code word often used by police for someone engaged in prostitution.) She was fined the enormous sum of $1000 (almost $24,000 in 2023 dollars).

Florence was her middle name. Depending on which source you want to believe, her first name was either Minnie, Mamie or Mabel. Her maiden name may have been Williams, the name she was using when she was arrested in San Francisco. I’ve been unable to locate Florence in records after that arrest.

Florence’s identification card, San Francisco Police Department. Collection of the author

We’re never going to know exactly what happened the night Jack Brown died, but since a jury found Florence guilty of manslaughter, they believed the killing was done without “malice aforethought.” Since Florence admitted to a reporter that she knew it was dangerous to “play” with a gun, Jack’s death could not have been ruled an accident. But if she had been able to find a competent attorney when she was arrested, she’d have been advised to keep her mouth shut and say nothing about the events that led up to the shooting and perhaps Jack’s death would have been ruled an accident.

I know some of you who read my blog will say that Florence got what she deserved or even that her sentence was a too light. I disagree. Florence was, in my opinion, the victim of a racist criminal justice system.

Based on her appearance in the identification photos taken after her release from San Quentin, the incarceration took a heavy toll on her. Florence apparently had to resort to prostitution to survive after she got out of prison. No one deserves that kind of punishment.