On
August 23, 1974 the cops shot an unarmed 26-year-old black man six times by a
white cop. The cop said that the black
man had resisted arrest on a driving on an expired license charge. The man was not driving at the time his
license was checked. Witnesses, who were
all white, said the cop came into a 7-11 store where the black man was, and
cracked him across the head with a club for no apparent reason.
When
the man fought off the attack, the cop fire six shots, hitting the man in the
stomach. The shooting lead to three hours
of rioting by some black citizens in Herndon.
Seventy-five very heavily armed police responded.
A grand jury investigated the shooting but on
August 30, about sixty outraged black citizens of Herndon called a meeting with
police to protest the killing.
The
county eventually paid $25,000 in an excessive force, wrongful arrest suit with
the dead man’s brother. The cop got to
keep his job.
After
the killing, the police made many, many, promises about hiring more black cops
but by 1981, the federal government found that the police had made little
progress in hiring blacks and made even less progress in promoting them.