Black Caucus wants criminal case opened in 1965 slaying
By Jannell McGrew
Montgomery AdvertiserMembers of the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus are calling on federal and state authorities to investigate and prosecute a former Alabama trooper who fatally shot a civil rights demonstrator 40 years ago.
The Alabama Attorney General's Office and the Alabama Bureau of Investigation already are conducting a joint review of the case, said Chris Bence, a spokesman for state attorney general Troy King.
The results of that review will determine whether "an investigation is appropriate," Bence said.
In an impassioned plea before the caucus Tuesday afternoon, state Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, urged lawmakers to demand an official investigation into the death of Jimmy Lee Jackson.
During a demonstration in February 1965, Jackson was shot by then-State Trooper James Bonard Fowler, who was among a group of officers sent to Marion to maintain order. Jackson later died at a Selma hospital.
"To this date, Fowler has never been prosecuted," Sanders said. "In fact, he has never been interviewed by the authorities. It is time that he be prosecuted for the murder of Jimmy Lee Jackson."
(Whole thing.)
A welcome development, of course, but the investigation should be into the involvement of any local or state police who were known to have been in Marion, Alabama the night Jimmy Lee Jackson was shot. As I've noted previously, Jackson was shot by Fowler, but he may well have then been beaten to death by a slew of other officers after the shooting. That he died from his injuries may also have been because he was denied treatment at the hospital in Marion and had to be transported to Selma to get care.
Here's some of the account of Albert Turner, who was in Marion on the night in question and was for many years the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Alabama:
then they took Jimmy and pinned him against the walls of the building and uh, at close range they shot him in the side. Just took the pistol and put it in his side and shot him three times. . . . then they ran him out of the . . . front door of the cafe. And as he run out of the door, the remaining troopers or some of the remaining troopers were lined up down the sidewalk back toward the church . . . he had to run through a corridor of . . . policemans standing with billy sticks. And as he ran by them they simply kept hitting him as he kept running through. And he made it back to the door of the church, and just beyond the church he fell. And of course he was picked up at that point and carried to the hospital. [H]e was carried to the Marion Hospital here in town, and he stayed there about an hour or so before, and nobody would wait on him . . . then he later was taken to the hospital in Selma, where he did receive services. Probably if he had been waited on properly here, his condition would not have been this he may still have died, but it's only speculation. But they did not wait on him. And he… he was probably an hour or two or more probably 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning before he really received . . . medical services after he had been uh, shot and beaten to death. And he was, some people feel that maybe he… he was beaten to death moreso than shot to death. The severe head wounds were pretty bad.
Follow the link on "previously," above, to get more of the story about Jimmy Lee Jackson and the Selma to Montgomery March.
For more news articles on the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus request for an investigation:
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