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Madison County. Reverend George McCree, a Negro minister in Canton, told the Commission that Negroes believed the police themselves were implicated. "A lot of this violence, I believe, and we believe, is done by them or with the knowledge of the law enforcement officers of Madison County." Chief Thompson testified that he knew nothing of such allegations." Reverend McCree testified that other Negroes shared his opinion about law enforcement officials, and stated:

99 78

I served a number of years in the Armed Forces. I was
in the invasion of France. I have never seen the fear in
people, even during the invasion of France, as I saw in the
Negroes of Madison County when I went there.80

PIKE COUNTY

79

Of all the counties in Mississippi, Pike County, which is in southwestern Mississippi on the Louisiana border, experienced the most extensive violence in response to civil rights activity. Tension was created in the county in the spring of 1964 when the Council of Federated Organizations announced a summer civil rights project.81 Even before civil rights workers arrived in late June, there were cross-burnings, a bombing, and assaults on four persons-two whites and two Negroes.82

The first of the beatings occurred on June 8, 1964, when three white men from the North, Louis Asekoff, Andre Martinsons, and Rene Jonas, came to McComb to collect information for a magazine article. They interviewed city officials and Negro leaders. As they left McComb to drive to Jackson, they were followed to the city limits by a police car. About 15 miles north of McComb, just outside Pike County, they were forced to the side of the road by cars which had followed them. Asekoff was held at

78 T. 205.

79 T. 267.

80 T. 206-07.

81 Testimony of Sheriff Warren, T.E. 27.

82

See Staff Report of Investigation of Incidents of Racial Violence, Pike County, Mississippi, 1964, January 31, 1965, T. 449-60 [hereinafter cited as Pike County Report].

gunpoint while the gang beat Martinsons and Jonas with brass knuckles.83

84

Asekoff called Police Chief George Guy in McComb and reported the beating. Chief Guy took no action because the incident did not occur within the city of McComb.85 Sheriff Warren of Pike County testified that he knew about the case but took no action because the beating took place in Lincoln County. He said he felt no obligation to investigate because, "I didn't know about it. It wasn't reported to me. I read it in the newspaper.' He stated that he did not receive any inquiry concerning the incident from the sheriff of Lincoln County.

86

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Three days later Ivey Gutter, a 54-year-old Negro who was a life-long resident of Pike County, was stopped as he walked home from work by three men wearing hoods and armed with pistols and shotguns. He was accused of being a member of the NAACP and attacked and beaten with metal clubs. Severe injuries were inflicted which required hospital care. When interviewed by the sheriff, Gutter was able to describe the car used by his assailants but could offer no other identifying information.87

The sheriff's investigation file in this case consists of threefourths of a page, stating Gutter's story. There is no record of any attempt to interview witnesses or suspects, to visit the scene, or to search for the car described by Gutter.88 Sheriff Warren testified, however, that after receiving a tip from Gutter, he made an unsuccessful trip to a neighboring county to search for the

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A week later a Negro mechanic named Wilbert Lewis was abducted by a group of armed men wearing black hoods when he answered a call to repair a car. The men stripped him, tied him to a tree, and interrogated him about the NAACP and COFO.

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85 Testimony of William Wiltshire, attorney for Chief Guy, T.E. 64.

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88

'Investigation report of the beating of Ivey Gutter, dated June 11, 1964, T. 493.

89 T. 16.

When he was unable to provide any information, they whipped him with a cat-o'-nine tails and ordered him to warn his friends that this was only a sample of the punishment for civil rights activities.9

Sheriff Warren testified that he did not investigate the case because it was not reported to him." But Lewis was interviewed by a deputy sheriff the next day,92 and the sheriff testified that he "might have discussed" the case with the FBI.93 The FBI informed the Commission that Lewis subsequently identified one of his assailants from photographs shown to him by Federal agents and that this information was given to Sheriff Warren." The sheriff denied having received it.95 He had no records pertaining to this case.96

96

These assaults-which went unpunished-marked the beginning of a period of intensive racial violence in Pike County. From June to November 1964, 13 Negro homes, a Negro Masonic Hall, and a Negro church were bombed; two Negro churches were destroyed by fire, two were damaged, and another escaped damage when a firebomb failed to ignite. Local Negroes and white civil rights workers were shot at and beaten. During a four-month period of mounting violence law enforcement officials were unable to apprehend persons responsible.97

97

Sheriff Warren testified that he investigated all the incidents which were reported to him and which did not occur within the city of McComb.98 In conducting these investigations he worked with Highway Patrol officers and FBI agents." Ac

90 Pike County Report, T. 451-52.

1 T. 17.

92 Pike County Report, T. 451-52.

93 T. 22-23.

See also testimony of Police Chief Guy, T. 38.

* Memorandum in Commission files, dated February 23, 1965.

95 T. 22.

96 T. 16.

97 Pike County Report, T. 449-60.

98 T. 18.

99 T. 20-21.

Patrol investigators did not keep any records of the Pike County investigations. Testimony of T. B. Birdsong, T. 438-40.

cording to Sheriff Warren, the responsibility for his failure to solve these cases rested with the Negro community itself. He complained that Negroes refused to report bombings to him, but instead called Federal agents, who then notified him. Sheriff Warren believed that the resulting delay of 15 to 20 minutes, which permitted the culprits to get away, was fatal to the investigation.100

One case which the Commission examined in detail suggests a source of the sheriff's difficulties with the Negro community. On August 28, 1964, an explosion occurred at the home of Willie Dillon, a Negro mechanic. Dillon testified that during the evening he had been working in his yard repairing a car for a civil rights worker. He had stopped at about 12 or 12:30 and was inside his home when the explosion occurred. Mrs. Dillon called the FBI. When Federal agents arrived, they were accompanied by Sheriff Warren and other local officers. The sheriff and his deputies questioned both Mr. and Mrs. Dillon, as well as their children, concerning their civil rights activities. According to Mr. Dillon, when the sheriff learned that Mrs. Dillon had been involved with the civil rights movement, he accused them of knowing "something about" who was doing the bombing. He said the Negroes were responsible for the violence and were blaming it on whites. 101 Mr. Dillon told the officers that the only reason he could see for anyone to bomb his house was that he was working on a “COFO This information did not lead to a solution of the bombing, but did result in the arrest of Mr. Dillon:

car.

>> 102

So then they went to the COFO car and they searched
it and said it had been run. I told them, 'Yes, it had
been run because I had been working on it trying to
see would it start.' And so they searched and searched.
I had to hang a light in a chinaball [sic] tree in the

100 T. 20.

101

Warren also issued a public statement to this effect. See note 112, infra, and accom

panying text.

102 T. 6.

yard from my electric line coming into the house. They
looked and seen that there and they said, 'Well, we're
going to take you to jail.' And I said, 'For what?'
And they said, 'For stealing electricity and running a
garage without a license.' I said, 'I don't have a
garage. If this chinaball tree is a garage, well I guess
I'm running one.' And they told me, 'Well, we're
going to take you to jail.'

103

Dillon was taken to jail at 3 a.m. The next afternoon, without seeing an attorney, family, or friends, he was brought before a justice of the peace. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three months and $100 for stealing electricity and five months and $500 for operating a garage without a license.1o1 Dillon explained the reason for his guilty plea:

I pleaded guilty because I had no other choice but to
plead guilty. I had no lawyer. And in the jail in
McComb, whatever the law said, that's what it is. .
That's the way it always has been.105

...

After sentencing, Dillon was allowed to see his wife for the first time since his arrest. He served a month in jail before he was released on bail by a Federal court. The case was then dismissed upon payment of court costs."

106

When asked what evidence he had that Dillon was operating a garage, Sheriff Warren replied, "Well, in Mississippi, we think if a person is under a shade tree working on automobiles for hire, he is operating a garage.'

>> 107

Dillon's prosecution and sentence for operating a garage without a permit were apparently unique in Pike County. The sheriff admitted that he had never arrested anyone else on this charge. A former police justice in McComb testified that

103 Ibid.

104

108

Pike County Report, T. 456.

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