It was Thursday, April 4, 1968.
“I was at the intersection of Summer Avenue and National Street on my way to work,” said Cortez councilman Tom Butler, who was a veteran Memphis police officer. He sighed with immediate distress.
“My initial thought was, Oh God, we’re going to catch hell tonight,” he said. “I knew we were going to be in trouble.”
On the day of King’s assassination, Butler had been employed with the Memphis Police Department for nine years. In the months leading up to that day, 47 years ago Saturday, Butler said there had been little violence in the segregated Middle South city as black sanitation workers marched and protested for better wages and working conditions.
But as the sun started to set across the churning waters of the Mississippi River, that relative peace in the Bluff City was interrupted when King was pronounced dead inside St. Joseph’s Hospital at 7:05 p.m. He had been shot about an hour earlier on the balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel, home today to the Memphis National Civil Rights Museum.
“The tension only needed a spark,” said Butler. “Dr. King getting shot was the worst spark that could have ever happened.”
By the time he reached police headquarters, Butler said, looting and fires had ignited throughout the city’s isolated black ghettos. His scheduled 12-hour beat would turn into an unforgettable 36-hour nightmare.
“To get things under control, they initiated a dawn-to-dusk curfew,” said Butler.
Yet, the order was largely ignored as police vehicles were firebombed with Molotov cocktails, and vigilante marksmen pinned officers down with sniper fire. Butler and his two-car tactical unit were ambushed near North Second Street and Marble Avenue, just north of downtown.
“We got sniper fire from a second-floor apartment,” said Butler. “For three days, we were totally overwhelmed.
Despite reinforcements from neighboring state troopers and 4,000 National Guard troops, the bedlam in Memphis continued even as armored personnel carriers with mounted .50-caliber machine guns rolled down city streets.
“We were able to put the rioting down, to stop the riots, I think, in about six days,” said Butler.
Asked if he witnessed excessive force, Butler replied, “What’s excessive?”
“Looking back today, no,” he clarified. “The force used was necessary. We met force with more force.”
Police used riot batons mainly as defensive weapons to block blows from rioters, Butler said.
“I never saw one used like a baseball bat,” he added. “Never.”
While extreme force likely occurred during the riots, Butler reiterated that he never witnessed anyone being beaten after they were down.
“I saw rioters get whipped up on the street, but I also saw police get whipped up too,” he said. “That just went with the job.”
To his amazement, Butler said he couldn’t recall a single reported death during the revolt.
“There were no fatalities for either the police or the rioters,” he said.
After that grueling 36-hour shift, Butler said he was fortunate to walk away with only minor cuts and bruises. Afterward, however, the stench on his clothes took his wife’s breath away.
“When I got home, I had to take my uniform off outside and put it in a bucket,” said Butler. “I reeked of tear gas.”
tbaker@cortezjournal.com