I called Officer Julius Fulmore last week. I had a short list of candidates for the anonymous source who told the Rev. Nelson Johnson that Lt. Craig McMinn ordered the destruction of about 50 boxes of files related to the Klan-Nazi shootings while he commanded the special intelligence section. Fulmore confirmed that he was the one. Here's the story.
Fulmore told me: "I know that you know; otherwise you wouldn't be calling me."
We decided to hold off on publishing the information about Fulmore's roles in hopes that we could learn more from interviewing him. I haven't spoken to Fulmore in depth yet. I've gotten some of the details from Fulmore's lawyer, Amiel Rossabi over the past seven days. It was only a matter of time before Fulmore's identity was going to come out, and secrets are hard to keep in a small city like Greensboro.
We decided to publish our story.
3 comments:
Emily Harwell, former research director of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, indicates in a recent e-mail that the staff was less than certain that an operational plan for Nov. 3, 1979 ever existed. There is a discrepancy in the accounts of various police officers
She directed me to this passage from the report:
Chapter 8: Police Internal Affairs investigation: Making the facts known?
Was there an Operational Plan?
There is conflicting information about whether a written Operation Plan was prepared for the parade and, if so, what became of it.
The report of McManis Associates, the management consulting fi rm commissioned by the city to review the police planning and actions, reported that there was no written operational report for the event.
In contrast, Retired Patrolman Ramon Bell, who worked in the traffic division of the Field Services Bureau in 1979, told commissioners at a public hearing that he had personally seen and read the Operational Plan for the march,
[Bell's testimony:] "The physical location of my office was near the patrol assembly area. It was also near an area where all the district captains had their offices.… There was an administrative plan. I read it, and I saw it. I have no idea what happened to it, or where it went after November 3. But there was an administrative plan. It was written by, I suppose, Captain Hampton and approved by administrative.
"...I had access to these documents. I have read them. In fact, I read that Operational Plan twice because I couldn’t believe it. A lot of us read the operational plans and just shook our heads. You don’t let 2 groups with extreme political views from each other come together without a buffer; and the buffer would have been the police."
On its own, Bell’s recollection is not sufficient to conclude that there was indeed a written plan when none of the officers directly involved in the planning have mentioned it. Indeed, Gibson noted that he did not believe that in 1979 Operational Plans were standard procedure, although they became so afterwards. However, Bell’s insistence that he clearly recalls the document and read it twice raises questions about the existence of such a written plan.
In addition, while the GTRC received from the GPD some 4 linear feet of documents made from microfilm there was nothing resembling a 10-page operation plan that Bell described. Police Attorney Cawn, who was appointed to redact the documents for release to the GTRC, also did not recall seeing an Operational Plan.
If there was a plan, it is concerning that it appears to be no longer in existence when voluminous other documents were preserved in microfilm. Bell told the GTRC that he did not know what happened to the Operational Plan. In addition, Capt. Gibson told the GTRC that Bell had recently called and asked Gibson “if I knew that the Department had shredded all the documents after the trial in Winston Salem. I said I had no knowledge of that. I had no reason to know anything about that.” The documents we received from the GPD were made from microfilm, so it may well be that paper documents were shredded after they had been filmed.
Based on available evidence, we cannot make a clear determination about whether there was indeed a written Operational Plan that was not microfilmed with the other records, or if one never existed. However, we are troubled by either alternative, and that such a basic fact is not known about such a controversial event in our city.
So the question I posed to the pastors at the news conference remains: If they have the evidence then why not release it all at once?
Had I been taking bets I would have gambled that Fulmore was their source so when are they going to prove their case?
And finally, if Fulmore is innocent in all this then it's a sin that 3 pastors are taking their sweet time clearing his name when they could have already done so.
How can anyone not question the motives of these 3 pastors when they only tell us partial truths if in fact they are telling us the truth?
To all 3 pastors, "The truth shall set you free" so why do you keep the truth to yourselves?
Billy, what additional information do you think the pastors should provide? And do you believe the city has an obligation to provide more information in response to the allegation made by Officer Fulmore?
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