Word: crocketts
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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What the city's police and courts can do, though, is to restore black respect for law-not only by more efficient enforcement but also by fairer administration of justice. Few Detroiters are striving harder in that regard than George Crockett-a black judge...
...Bethel Baptist Church one night last year, shooting began outside. Seven bullets tore into a white policeman and killed him. Soon 50 white officers shot their way into the church, leaving 100 bullet scars on its walls and pews, and corralled 142 people including several small children. Judge Crockett, 60, rushed to police headquarters, legally created an impromptu courtroom and began releasing prisoners on their own recognizance. Within hours, the prosecutor agreed to let all but twelve go home. Over his objections, Crockett freed...
Typically, Crockett enraged many whites. For weeks afterward, he was attacked for "releasing killers" and trying to "run the police department." Hate calls forced him to get an unlisted number. Automobile bumper stickers urged SOCK IT TO CROCKETT...
Cooler heads on two investigating commissions later found Judge Crockett's rulings within the law. Many citizens admitted that he had kept an explosive situation from erupting into a repeat of the 1967 riot. But Crockett was proudest of the fact that his actions had given many embittered blacks a renewed trust in courts instead of more reason to revile them. Here was a judge who pointedly asked: "Can anyone imagine the police invading an all-white church, rounding up everybody in sight and busing them to a wholesale lockup in a police garage...
White Votes. Crockett is "just about the most together brother on the bench," says Ken Cockrell, a black activist lawyer in Detroit. In fact, Crockett disagrees with most black militants' deep cynicism about the law. He expects the number of black judges to nearly double in the next three years, and argues that "if the election of black public officials continues, racism in the administration of our laws will soon be a thing of the past...