They hadn’t yet done much investigation into McMillian, so they decided to arrest him on a pretextual charge while they built their case. Myers claimed to be terrified of McMillian; one of the officers suggested to Myers that McMillian might have sexually assaulted him; the idea was so provocative and inflammatory that Myers immediately recognized its usefulness and somberly acknowledged that it was true. Alabama law had outlawed nonprocreative sex, so officials planned to arrest McMillian on sodomy charges.
On June 7, 1987, Sheriff Tate led an army of more than a dozen officers to a back-country road that they knew Walter would use on his return home from work. Officers stopped Walter’s truck and drew their weapons, then forced Walter from his vehicle and surrounded him. Tate told him he was under arrest. When Walter frantically asked the sheriff what he had done, the sheriff told him that he was being charged with sodomy. Confused by the term, Walter told the sheriffthat he did not understand the meaning of the word. When the sheriff explained the charge in crude terms, Walter was incredulous and couldn’t help but laugh at the notion. This provoked Tate, who unleashed a torrent of racial slurs and threats. Walter would report for years that all he heard throughout his arrest, over and over again, was the word
nigger
. “Nigger this,” “nigger that,” followed by insults and threats of lynching.
“We’re going to keep all you niggers from running around with these white girls. I ought to take you off and hang you like we done that nigger in Mobile,” Tate reportedly told Walter.
The sheriff was referring to the lynching of a young African American man named Michael Donald in Mobile, about sixty miles south. Donald was walking home from the store one evening, hours after a mistrial was declared in the prosecution of a black man accused of shooting a white police officer. Many white people were shocked by the verdict and blamed the mistrial on the African Americans who had been permitted to serve on the jury. After burning a cross on the courthouse lawn, a group of enraged white men who were members of the Ku Klux Klan went out searching for someone to victimize. They found Donald as he was walking home and descended on him. After severely beating the young black man, they hanged him from a nearby tree, where his lifeless body was discovered several hours later.
Local police ignored the obvious evidence that the death was a hate crime and hypothesized that Donald must have been involved in drug dealing, which his mother adamantly denied. Outraged by the lack of local law enforcement interest in the case, the black community and civil rights activists persuaded the United States Department of Justice to get involved. Three white men were arrested two years later and details of the lynching were finally made public.
It had been more than three years since the arrests, but when Tate and the other officers started making threats of lynching, Walter was terrified. He was also confused. They said he was being arrested for raping another man, but they were throwing questions at him about the murder of Ronda Morrison. Walter vehemently denied both allegations.When it became clear that the officers would get no help from Walter in making a case against him, they locked him up and proceeded with their investigation.
When Monroe County District Attorney Ted Pearson first heard his investigators’ evidence against Walter McMillian, he must have been disappointed. Ralph Myers’s story of the crime was pretty far-fetched; his knack for dramatic embellishment made even the most basic allegations unnecessarily complicated.
Here’s Myers’s account of the murder of Ronda Morrison: On the day of the murder, Myers was getting gas when Walter McMillian saw him at the gas station and forced him at gunpoint to get in Walter’s truck and drive to Monroeville. Myers didn’t really know Walter before that day. Once in the
On June 7, 1987, Sheriff Tate led an army of more than a dozen officers to a back-country road that they knew Walter would use on his return home from work. Officers stopped Walter’s truck and drew their weapons, then forced Walter from his vehicle and surrounded him. Tate told him he was under arrest. When Walter frantically asked the sheriff what he had done, the sheriff told him that he was being charged with sodomy. Confused by the term, Walter told the sheriffthat he did not understand the meaning of the word. When the sheriff explained the charge in crude terms, Walter was incredulous and couldn’t help but laugh at the notion. This provoked Tate, who unleashed a torrent of racial slurs and threats. Walter would report for years that all he heard throughout his arrest, over and over again, was the word
nigger
. “Nigger this,” “nigger that,” followed by insults and threats of lynching.
“We’re going to keep all you niggers from running around with these white girls. I ought to take you off and hang you like we done that nigger in Mobile,” Tate reportedly told Walter.
The sheriff was referring to the lynching of a young African American man named Michael Donald in Mobile, about sixty miles south. Donald was walking home from the store one evening, hours after a mistrial was declared in the prosecution of a black man accused of shooting a white police officer. Many white people were shocked by the verdict and blamed the mistrial on the African Americans who had been permitted to serve on the jury. After burning a cross on the courthouse lawn, a group of enraged white men who were members of the Ku Klux Klan went out searching for someone to victimize. They found Donald as he was walking home and descended on him. After severely beating the young black man, they hanged him from a nearby tree, where his lifeless body was discovered several hours later.
Local police ignored the obvious evidence that the death was a hate crime and hypothesized that Donald must have been involved in drug dealing, which his mother adamantly denied. Outraged by the lack of local law enforcement interest in the case, the black community and civil rights activists persuaded the United States Department of Justice to get involved. Three white men were arrested two years later and details of the lynching were finally made public.
It had been more than three years since the arrests, but when Tate and the other officers started making threats of lynching, Walter was terrified. He was also confused. They said he was being arrested for raping another man, but they were throwing questions at him about the murder of Ronda Morrison. Walter vehemently denied both allegations.When it became clear that the officers would get no help from Walter in making a case against him, they locked him up and proceeded with their investigation.
When Monroe County District Attorney Ted Pearson first heard his investigators’ evidence against Walter McMillian, he must have been disappointed. Ralph Myers’s story of the crime was pretty far-fetched; his knack for dramatic embellishment made even the most basic allegations unnecessarily complicated.
Here’s Myers’s account of the murder of Ronda Morrison: On the day of the murder, Myers was getting gas when Walter McMillian saw him at the gas station and forced him at gunpoint to get in Walter’s truck and drive to Monroeville. Myers didn’t really know Walter before that day. Once in the
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