News of the armed standoff at the Carrier house attracted white men from all over the state to take part. Reports were carried in the "St. Petersburg Independent", the "Florida Times-Union", the "Miami Herald", and "The Miami Metropolis", in versions of competing facts and overstatement. The "Miami Metropolis" listed 20 black people and four white people dead and characterized the event as a "race war". National newspapers also put the incident on the front page. The "Washington Post" and "St. Louis Dispatch" described a band of "heavily armed Negroes" and a "negro desperado" as being involved. Most of the information came from discreet messages from Sheriff Walker, mob rumors, and other embellishments to part-time reporters who wired their stories to the Associated Press. Details about the armed standoff were particularly explosive. According to historian Thomas Dye, "The idea that blacks in Rosewood had taken up arms against the white race was unthinkable in the Deep South".