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Deliberate Indifference: A Story of Racial Injustice and Murder
On Christmas Day, 1987, a black man named Loyal Garner, Jr., drove down the wrong road in East Texas and was pulled over by a white police chief. He was taken to jail, beaten unconscious, and hospitalized - after officers came up with a cover story. Although witnesses swore that he was murdered, the policemen were summarily acquitted by a hometown jury. Only after prosecutors in another county wrested control of the case was justice served. In Deliberate Indifference an award-winning investigative journalist tells a true story that resembles a cross between the plot of Mississippi Burning and a frontline report from Daryl Gates's L.A. With a meticulous attention to detail, Howard Swindle extends his inquiry beyond Garner's murder to probe the poisoned heart of American racial injustice. Deliberate Indifference is a profoundly disturbing investigation of sanctioned murder and a miscarriage of justice that brings home hard truths about America's stubborn legacy of racism.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
17 people want to read
About the author
Howard Swindle
15 books1 followerClinton Howard Swindle was editor of North Texas' student newspaper, the Campus Chat, in 1968 before being named Outstanding Journalism Graduate. After serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War, he worked for the Fort Worth Press and the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, which led to a position with the Dallas Times Herald.
In 1979 he joined the Dallas Morning News, where he worked as a reporter, assistant metropolitan editor and assistant managing editor for projects before becoming a writer-at-large. In 1986, the News won its first Pulitzer Prize for a project that Swindle edited. Projects led by Swindle would later win two other Pulitzers for the paper.
Swindle was the author of several books, including Once a Hero; Doin' Dirty; America's Condemned: Death Row Inmates in Their Own Words; Trespasses: Portrait of a Serial Rapist; and Deliberate Indifference: A Study of Racial Injustice and Murder. Universal Pictures' Eye See You, released in 2002, was based on his novel Jitter Joint.
In 1979 he joined the Dallas Morning News, where he worked as a reporter, assistant metropolitan editor and assistant managing editor for projects before becoming a writer-at-large. In 1986, the News won its first Pulitzer Prize for a project that Swindle edited. Projects led by Swindle would later win two other Pulitzers for the paper.
Swindle was the author of several books, including Once a Hero; Doin' Dirty; America's Condemned: Death Row Inmates in Their Own Words; Trespasses: Portrait of a Serial Rapist; and Deliberate Indifference: A Study of Racial Injustice and Murder. Universal Pictures' Eye See You, released in 2002, was based on his novel Jitter Joint.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 14, 2024
That it took me nearly four years to eventually finish this book says something.
This was a frustrating book that tried to do too much and became overwhelming. The author tries to tell a chronological story, but he's never clear about the story he's trying to tell. It's a story about police brutality, small-town corruption, and race and racial relations in 1980s East Texas. It's a story about legal strategies and counterstrategies, protests, human interest concerns, and human collateral damage.
The author introduces far too many characters (including the setting or locales) for the reader to keep track. They may be essential to "the story" but the reader... or at least this reader kept getting lost sorting out how each character shaped the story.
This was a frustrating book that tried to do too much and became overwhelming. The author tries to tell a chronological story, but he's never clear about the story he's trying to tell. It's a story about police brutality, small-town corruption, and race and racial relations in 1980s East Texas. It's a story about legal strategies and counterstrategies, protests, human interest concerns, and human collateral damage.
The author introduces far too many characters (including the setting or locales) for the reader to keep track. They may be essential to "the story" but the reader... or at least this reader kept getting lost sorting out how each character shaped the story.
Displaying 1 of 1 review