A Georgia police chief will publicly apologize Thursday for his agency’s role in a 1940 lynching — an extraordinary admission believed to one of the first of its kind in the South.
The lynching of Austin Callaway occurred after a white posse removed him from the LaGrange city jail, took him to a rural road and shot him multiple times in the head, arms and hands. The incident had been scrubbed from the city record, but it was remembered by members of the African American community and it contributed to their mistrust of the police department.
When LaGrange Police Chief Lou Dekmar first heard of the incident a couple years ago and as he learned about his agency’s failure to protect Callaway and its failure to investigate the lynching, he believed strongly an acknowledgement and public apology was needed.
He said it’s challenging for his agency to build trust in the black community without acknowledging this past wrong.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” Dekmar said. “We accept responsibility for it and we apologize for it. We want to assure the African American community specifically and the city of LaGrange citizens generally that this climate of injustice would not occur again.”
Dekmar will make his apology to decedents of Callaway who still live in the community and the public at a ceremony of remembrance today at 6 pm at Warren Temple United Methodist Church in LaGrange. A local biracial group, Troup Together, has researched the lynching and members of the group will be at the ceremony that will be broadcast live on Facebook today.
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