Oct. 3, 1964 - The FBI arrested four Philadelphia, Miss., law enforcement officers and a former sheriff today. They were charged with depriving seven Negroes of their civil rights by unlawfully detaining and beating them.
The arrests were made under two indictments returned today by a Federal grand jury that conducted a two-week investigation into the slaying of three civil rights workers last June and into other racial violence in Neshoba County.
The charges have no direct connection with the murder case. When the sealed indictments were returned in Biloxi, sources close to the investigation said they concerned the slaying of the three young men.
But when they were made public after the arrests today, it was disclosed that the two incidents of violence that were involved occurred before the civil rights workers arrived in Neshoba county.
Those arrested are:
Sheriff Lawrence Rainey (pictured), 41 years old, serving his first year as sheriff.
Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, 26, a former fireman and city policeman and the central figure in the arrest of the slain civil rights workers.
E.G. Barnett, 42, who served a four-year term as sheriff before Rainey was elected.
Richard A. Willis, 40, a city policeman who also participated in the arrest of the civil rights workers.
O.N. Burkes, 71, also a city policeman.
All the defendants are charged under two Federal laws with conspiring to and actually depriving the Negroes of their rights under the Constitution, while acting under the color of law.
The FBI said Price and Rainey had arrested Kirk Culberson, 46, and Harry Hathorn last Jan. 26 on drunkenness charges and had beaten them. Culberson, who was struck on the head with a blackjack, required hospitalization for five weeks, the FBI said.
The other incidents occurred in October 1962. The FBI said Sam Henry Germany was arrested by Rainey on cow-stealing charges, stripped of his clothing, and beaten with leather straps by Rainey, Burkes, Barnett, and Willis.
Four others also arrested on cow-theft-charges — Cleo Jack Nichols Jr., Harvey Nichols Jr., Ernest Kirkland, and Earl Tisdale — were taken to City Hall in Philadelphia, stripped to the waist, and beaten with straps by Rainey, Barnett, Willis, and Price, the FBI said.
The defendants were brought to Meridian, Miss., from Philadelphia, 40 miles away, in two FBI cars. A crowd of about 200 whites were waiting at the Federal Building in downtown Meridian when they arrived.
Rainey and Price, in uniform but without their guns, walked into the building smiling broadly. Some in the crowd cheered Willis as he stepped from another car. Others jeered reporters and shoved photographers.
A delegation of 30 or 40 whites accompanied the defendants in separate cars. Price and Rainey laughed and talked with them in the corridor while the bonds were being prepared.
Support this project at patreon.com/realtime1960s
Comments