ASSOCIATED PRESS
Handcuffs used to restrain the man who assassinated President James A. Garfield were found last week when workers were cleaning out a closet at D.C. police headquarters.
It was on July 2, 1881, that Charles J. Guiteau shot Garfield at a train station downtown and was almost immediately grabbed by D.C. police Pvt. Patrick Kearney.
“I had thought these things were lost forever,” said Sgt. Nick Breul, department historian.
The handcuffs had been part of an old display that had been left in a dark corner and collected dust during the 1990s, according to Sgt. Breul. The artifacts were kept in such poor condition that Sgt. Breul had said he would take the items to the Washington Historical Society.
Sgt. Breul was barred from the room and the boxes of items were hauled to other sites about 10 years ago.
But last week, workers uncovered a box full of metal knuckles, old handcuffs and pen guns used to fire .22-caliber bullets. One of the handcuffs had a tag identifying them as those used to restrain Guiteau, Garfield’s disturbed killer.
Sgt. Breul doubts the handcuffs belonged to Kearney. Officers didn’t carry handcuffs in those days, instead using billy clubs to subdue suspects. The cuffs were probably used in transferring Guiteau.
Sgt. Breul intends to put the handcuffs in the police museum that he has helped build on the sixth floor of police headquarters. This year, the department acquired a historic booking log that police say is one of the first written records of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
It was 127 years ago on July 2 that Guiteau waited for Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad depot, at Sixth Street Northwest and Constitution Avenue.
Guiteau jumped from the crowd and shot the president twice with a .44 revolver.
Garfield died 11 weeks later.
Guiteau was held at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital until he was hanged on June 30, 1882.
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