Remembering....... Loyal Garner Jr., Three former police officers, all of them white, were found guilty today of murdering a black man who was severely beaten in an East Texas jail more than two years ago in a case that provoked sharp racial tensions in the region. The victim, Loyal Garner Jr., a 34-year-old truck driver, was mortally injured while being held in a small county jail in Hemphill, near the Texas-Louisiana border. Mr. Garner was arrested for drunken driving on Christmas Day 1987 and died two days later in a hospital in Tyler. The three defendants were convicted by an all-white jury in Tyler after a two-week trial in a state district court. They are Thomas Ladner, 42 years old, who was the police chief in Hemphill, and James Hyden, 35, and Billy Ray Horton, 59, who were sheriffs deputies in Sabine County. They contended that they struck Mr. Garner in self-defense. They Crossed That Line But the prosecutor, District Attorney Jack Skeen, said in his closing arguments: They crossed over that line from law-enforcement officers to common criminals. Putting on a badge is not a license to murder........ nytimes/1990/05/04/us/3-ex-policemen-are-convicted-in-texas-killing.html
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 00:57:36 +0000
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