by Richard Lloyd Jones, and one of two white-owned papers which were published in Tulsa, broke the story in that afternoon's edition with the headline: "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In an Elevator," describing the alleged incident. According to some witnesses, the same edition of the Tribune included an editorial warning of a potential lynching of Rowland, titled "To Lynch Negro Tonight." The paper was known at the time to have a "sensationalist" style of news writing. Allegedly all original copies of that issue of the paper have apparently been destroyed, and the relevant page is missing from the microfilm copy. The Tulsa Race Riot Commission in 1997 offered a reward for a copy of the editorial, which went unclaimed. A copy of the "Tulsa Tribune" of 1 June 1921 was found: on the front page was an article headlined "Nab Negro for attacking girl in an Elevator" [right]. The editorial page was also found: it did not have an article headlined "To Lynch A Negro Tonight". Other newspapers of the time like The Black Dispatch and the Tulsa World did not call attention to any such editorial after the event. So the exact content of the column – and whether or not it existed at all – remains in dispute. However, Chief of Detectives James Patton attributed the cause of the riots entirely to the newspaper account and stated, "If the facts in the story as told the police had only been printed I do not think there would have been any riot whatsoever." Stand-off at the courthouse The afternoon edition of the Tribune hit the streets shortly after 3 p.m., and soon news spread of a potential lynching. By 4 p.m., local authorities were on alert. White residents began congregating at and near the Tulsa County Courthouse. By sunset around 7:30 p.m., the several hundred white residents assembled outside the courthouse appeared to have the makings of a lynch mob. Willard M. McCullough, the newly-elected sheriff of Tulsa County, was determined to avoid events such as the 1920 lynching of white murder suspect Roy Belton in Tulsa, which had occurred during the term of his predecessor. The sheriff took steps to ensure the safety of Rowland. McCullough organized his deputies into a defensive formation around Rowland, who was terrified. The Guthrie Daily Leader reported that Rowland had been taken to the county jail before crowds started to gather.