James Park in San Jose. Crowds began to gather outside the jail at around 11 a.m., shortly after local newspapers had run extra editions announcing that Brooke's body had been found. Sheriff Emig pre-emptively ordered the erection of an improvised barricade of parked automobiles and trucks to protect the jail. By 9:00 p.m., a mob estimated by the press to range anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 men, women, and children were jammed into the park, with an estimated 3,000 vehicles left on streets nearby. Governor Rolph was in regular telephonic communication with Raymond Cato, whom he had appointed to head the California Highway Patrol. Cato was ensconced in the home of a Rolph political ally and neighbor in the mountains west of San Jose with an open phone line to the jail. Although the crowd was characterized as "good natured" earlier in the day, periodically there was an ominous chanting of "Eleven o'clock!" At approximately 9:00 p.m., Rolph canceled a planned trip to the Western Governors' Conference in Boise, Idaho, to prevent his chief political rival, Lieutenant Governor Frank Merriam, from calling out the National Guard to stop the lynchings. At approximately the same time, the crowd began demanding the jail surrender Holmes and Thurmond; they responded to the refusal by moving the improvised siege barriers aside. Sheriff Emig contacted Rolph at 10:30 p.m., asking that the National Guard be deployed to protect the prisoners. Rolph refused. The assault on the jail commenced at approximately 11 p.m. By midnight, thousands had gathered outside the jail; the sheriff's deputies fired tear gas into the crowd in an attempt to disperse them. However, the crowd became angrier and larger. After the first round of tear gas was launched into the crowd, the nearby construction site at the post office was raided for materials that were first thrown at the jail; later, a battering ram was improvised from a heavy pipe. Emig ordered his officers to abandon the bottom two floors of the jail, where Thurmond and Holmes were being held. It was later noted that both cells had been occupied by other notorious murderers. Emig also had ordered that no police officer would be allowed to use their guns or clubs to defend the jail; Emig, his nine deputies, and eight state patrolmen were all beaten, choked, and/or trampled during the course of the riot. The mob, by this time estimated at