A lynch mob killed even acquitted Italian defendants

Evidence

The mayor ordered a search of the city’s Italian neighborhoods, and the police obliged, arresting any Italians they could find. By noon, at least sixty Italians had been rounded up. Eleven were charged with Chief Hennessy’s murder, and six proceeded to trial. None of the men were convicted. Three were acquitted, and a mistrial was declared for the remaining three, yet the judge ordered them back to prison to await trial on additional charges. Anti-Italian sentiment in New Orleans, however, increased after the jury verdicts failed to convict anyone. The next evening, on March 14, 1892, a mob broke into the jail and lynched all eleven Italians, including the three men who were acquitted, the three whom the jury did not convict, and five who never received a trial. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 125