Word: hester
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Your story about the shootout in Memphis [Jan. 31] raises serious questions about our society's attitudes toward criminals. Maxine Smith, executive secretary of the Memphis N.A.A.C.P., and Walter Bailey, Shelby County commissioner, wrongly portray the police as the criminals. Officer Robert Hester, who was tortured and murdered, was the victim. His fellow officers, who were forced to stand by and listen to Hester's screams and pleas for mercy, were also victims. Lindberg Sanders and his cult followers are the criminals...
...found, so they left. A second call complaining about the handling of the case prompted two patrolmen to visit 2239 Shannon, where they were set upon by the occupants. Two other officers then arrived on the scene. Shots were fired, and three patrolmen fled the house. But one, Robert Hester, 34, was captured and held hostage...
...members of a freaky religious cult, and included its leader, Lindberg Sanders, 49, an unemployed construction worker. Besides refusing to eat pork or drink water, they believed police to be agents of the devil. After 30 hours of futile negotiations, the authorities surrounding the house became convinced that Officer Hester had been murdered. Six members of TACT (for Tactical Apprehension Containment Team), stormed the dwelling, and in the ensuing struggle all seven cultists were killed. Hester was found inside, badly battered and dead for several hours...
...first, police reinforcements thought they could talk Hester's captors out. The officers barricaded the area, surrounded the cult headquarters and evacuated nearby buildings. Police established contact with Sanders over Hester's police radio. Nearly incoherent, Sanders repeatedly threatened to "blow [Hester's] head off." By midnight the batteries in the police radio had run down, and contact was maintained through a bullhorn and occasionally the telephone...
...Wednesday morning, Sanders had permitted Officer Hester to shout from a window that he was all right. Police, meanwhile, began monitoring sounds in the house with boom microphones. Later that night they also moved a TACT force (a local SWAT team) into the area. Early Thursday morning, police at the listening devices heard Sanders say, "My daddy's dead, my brother's dead, and the devil's dead." Assuming that the "devil" meant Hester, police stormed the house with tear gas and gunfire. Within minutes the firefight was over. Hester's battered body was found just...