Page:We Charge Genocide - 1951 - Patterson.djvu/31

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THE OPENING STATEMENT
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Couser was not armed. The patrolman received no punishment.

Charles Fletcher, also of Philadelphia, was shot and killed on November 16, 1947 by Patrolman Manus McGettingan who claimed he killed him after receiving a call about a prowler. Fletcher, who had no police record, had worked for ten years at the Exide Battery Company.

Charles Curry, 23, was slain by Patrolman Nolan O. Ray in Dallas, Texas, on December 17, 1947 on a bus. Ray, in civilian clothes, had ordered a Negro sitting beside him to move. The Negro passengers complained and Ray jumped to his feet, drew his revolver, and ordered all Negroes “to take their hands out of their pockets.” When Curry did not comply swiftly enough, Ray shot and killed him. Ray was dismissed from the force and indicted for murder.

George Thomas, Negro youth, was shot and killed by a Kosciusko, Mississippi patrolman who claimed Thomas tried to escape after being arrested on February 2, 1948.

A Negro prisoner, on May 23, 1948 in Augusta, Georgia, was beaten to death by a prison guard when he refused to work in a snake-infested ditch.

Roy Cyril Brooks, of Gretna, Louisiana, was shot and killed on February 27, 1948, by Patrolman Alvin Bladsacker. Brooks was a prominent trade unionist. He was involved in an argument with a bus driver when Bladsacker pulled him off the bus and killed him.

James Tolliver, 40, of Little Rock, Arkansas, was beaten to death in February of 1948 by Patrolman Blaylock. Tolliver was trying to help a drunken woman when Blaylock came up behind him and struck him on the head. He died almost instantly.

John Johnson, 50, was slain by Birmingham, Alabama, police who claimed he was resisting arrest on March 29, 1948.

Alma Shaw, 42, was slain by Birmingham police on April 19, 1948 who claimed she was resisting arrest.

Marion Franklin Noble, 19, was slain by Birmingham police on April 27, 1948 who said he resisted arrest.

Willie Johnson was shot to death, on May 3, 1949, by two Brunswick, Georgia policemen who claimed that “he was looking at a house suspiciously.” Johnson, 58, had been a resident of Brunswick for fourteen years, was a county employee and a deacon of St. Paul’s Baptist Church.

Robert J. Evans, 86 years old, a patriarch of Norfolk, Virginia was shot and seriously wounded on December 12, 1950 by Patrolman E. M. Morgan who said the old man assaulted him.

Danny Bryant, 37, of Convington, Louisiana, was shot and killed in October of 1948 by Policeman Kinsie Jenkins after Bryant refused to remove his hat in the presence of whites.

Herman Glasper, 30, was shot and killed in Bryan County, Georgia,