Redneck Trooper Indicted In 1965 Civil Rights Slaying Of Black Man

 From  Associated Press 

MARION, ALA. - A 73-year-old retired state trooper was indicted Wednesday in the 1965 shooting death of a black man - a killing that set in motion the historic civil rights protests in Selma and led to passage of the Voting Rights Act.

District Attorney Michael Jackson said a grand jury returned an indictment in the case. He would not identify the person charged or specify the offense until the indictment is served, which could take a few days. An attorney for former Trooper James Bonard Fowler, however, said he had been informed that the retired lawman had been charged.

It took the grand jury only two hours to return the indictment in the slaying of Jimmie Lee Jackson, 26, who was shot by Fowler during a civil rights protest that turned into a club-swinging melee.

Fowler has contended he fired in self-defense after Jackson grabbed his gun from its holster. Calls to his home were not returned Wednesday.

"I think somebody is trying to rewrite history and I don't think it's fair to this trooper," said Fowler's attorney, George Beck. Beck said he was not told what Fowler had been charged with, but he said the district attorney had been talking about a murder charge, "so I assume that's what he got."

The indictment is the latest in a series of civil rights-era cases across the South that have been resurrected for prosecution after lying dormant for decades. In recent years, prosecutors have won convictions in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls and in the 1964 killings of three civil rights volunteers near Philadelphia, Miss.

In light of those cases, people in Alabama began to call for a new examination of Jackson's death. Michael Jackson, who was elected in 2004 as the first black district attorney in the Selma and Marion district and is no relation to Jimmie Lee Jackson, said he acted on these calls.

Jimmie Lee Jackson's daughter, Cordelia Heard Billingsley of Marion, who was 4 at the time of the killing, said: "We'll finally know what happened. My grandchildren have asked me questions, and I couldn't give them answers."

Fowler was among a contingent of law officers sent to Marion the night of Feb. 18, 1965. According to witnesses, about 500 people were marching from a church toward the city jail to protest the jailing of a civil rights worker when the streetlights went out. Troopers contended the crowd refused orders to disperse. Soon law officers began swinging clubs, with marchers fleeing.

A group of protesters ran into Mack's Cafe, pursued by troopers. The cafe operator said 82-year-old Cager Lee was clubbed to the floor along with his daughter, Viola Jackson, whose son, Jimmie Lee Jackson, was shot trying to help them. He died two days later.

The shooting galvanized civil rights activists who had not been getting any national media attention in their efforts to register blacks to vote in Selma, said Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of "Parting the Waters" and other books about the civil rights movement.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived to preach at Jackson's funeral, and in reaction to the killing, black civil rights demonstrators set out on March 7, 1965, on a march from Selma to Montgomery. They were routed by club-swinging officers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge at Selma, an attack known as "Bloody Sunday."

Comments

[Lindy]

I grew up in Hartford, AL, where Mr. Fowler attempted to raise his children; suffice to say they were just as mean, nasty, and racist as he was (and probably remains).

This man often used Geneva Co. High School Band Boosters meetings-of all things-as his personal forum of profanity and hate, spewing verbal vomit on all, children included, in attendance.

His pride in such abusive and antisocial behavior was unfortunately instilled in his children, specifically manifested in his daughter. One can only hope that time has matured her beyond those early lessons so the hate may be healed rather than perpetuated.

I've no doubt he killed Mr. Jackson simply because he could and hope that this devil will get his due.

And that he is allowed free on bond is simply mind boggling, does he really deserve any more free time beyond the 42 years he took from Mr. Jackson (not that he deserved those years, mind you)?

Evil. Pure evil.