1977 SPECIAL REPORT: "MEMPHIS COP SPEAKS OUT ON BEING REMOVED FROM MLK SECURITY DETAIL"
Edward E. Redditt, who had taken up a post in the firehouse on the day of the murder, was ordered to go home at 4 p.m. because of a reported attempt on the life of his family. The order was attributed to Memphis Police and Fire Department Frank C. Holloman, who had served in the FBI for 25 years.
The task force said Redditt may have been removed becuase Philip R. Manuel, an investigator for the Senate Government Operations Committee, apparently notified Memphis police that his staff had received a tip from an informer about a plot to kill a “Negro lieutenant” in Memphis.
Manuel, the task force said, has no “present recollection” of the incident. However, the report added, “He said the events sounded familiar and he believed the Memphis police records were correct.”
The report also noted that another black police officer, Willie B. Richmond who also had been assigned to surveillance of King, remained in the firehouse after Redditt’s departure and was among those who rushed to the motel after the shot was fired.
The task force said it could not establish clearly the reasons why the two black firemen, Norvell E. Wallace and Floyd E. Newsum, were transferred from the firehouse. It did note, though, that both were strong supporters of the strike by Memphis sanitation workers, most of whom were black, that had drawn King there as a gesture of solidarity.
“Our investigation has not disclosed any evidence that the detail of Wallace and Newsum was in any way connected with the assassination,” the report said. It speculated that they might have been transferred because their sympathy for the strikers would have made hostile to what many blacks saw as police efforts to syp on King.
Perhaps the biggest question left unanswered by the report is where Ray got the substantial sums of money that he spent during the year between his escape from a Missouri prison and King’s killing. The task force said, “The sources for Ray’s funds still remain a mystery today.”
In regard to the Hoover-inspired FBI harassment of King, the task force found that there might have been legitimate reasons for investigating him initially, because the FBI had established that one of his advisers at one time had had Communist ties. #MLK #blackhistory
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