In the turbulent spring of 1968, amidst the clamor of the Memphis sanitation strike, a sixteen-year-old African American young man named Larry Payne was fatally shot. His death on March 28, 1968, was a tragic chapter in the city's history, intertwined with the civil rights movement and the final days of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
On that Thursday afternoon, a march in support of the striking sanitation workers had devolved into unrest.
Larry was among those who had joined the demonstration. In the ensuing chaos, he was pursued by a white Memphis Police Officer, Leslie Dean Jones. The chase ended at the Fowler Homes public housing complex where Larry lived. He sought refuge in the basement boiler room.
Accounts of what happened next diverge sharply. According to multiple witnesses, Larry emerged from the boiler room with his hands raised, pleading with the officer not to shoot. They maintained he was unarmed. In stark contrast, Officer Jones claimed that Larry was holding a large butcher knife as he came out of the basement. Jones stated that he fired his shotgun in self-defense, striking Larry in the stomach and killing him. The single shot was the only fatality of that day's protests.
In the aftermath of the shooting, a Shelby County grand jury declined to press charges against Officer Jones. The U.S. Department of Justice also conducted an investigation into potential civil rights violations but ultimately concluded there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. Larry Payne's family filed a civil lawsuit against the officer and the city, but it too was unsuccessful. The case was re-examined decades later under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007. However, in 2011, the Department of Justice again closed the case, stating they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer had used excessive force. The officer, Leslie Dean Jones, passed away in 2019, never having faced criminal charges for the death of Larry Payne.
