Newspapers printed articles about the alleged rape; rumors spread in the white community about it, including that Tusken was dying from her injuries. That evening, a mob of between 1,000 and 10,000 men formed outside the Duluth city jail. The Duluth commissioner of public safety, William F. Murnian, ordered the police not to use their guns to protect the prisoners. The mob used heavy timbers, bricks, and rails to break down doors and windows, pulling the six black men from their cells. The mob seized Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie. They took them out and convicted them of Tusken's rape in a kangaroo court. The mob took the three men one block to the intersection 1st Street and 2nd Avenue East, where they beat them and hanged them from a light pole.