Biography
Milton Eugene Lindsey was a 23-year-old Black worker, husband and father of two in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Early on July 21, 1974, police officers Paul O'Rear and Buddy Hullander entered a Black nightclub on Main Street without cause, demanded identification, and arrested him; one officer told the other, per Lindsey, to stop in an alley and beat him, which they did with pistols, blackjacks, boots and spit, leaving multiple lacerations to his head and back. Officers then charged him with public drunkenness and assault and battery on police officers. At trial the defense produced a Polaroid of an officer with a swollen eye alleging Lindsey had assaulted him, but witnesses — including the officers themselves — testified Lindsey was not drunk, was never given a drunk test, and was not staggering; the judge dismissed the drunkenness charge yet still handed down suspended sentences on two counts of assault and battery and a 92-dollar fine. Reconstructed from The Black Panther, Vol. XII No. 3 (August 10, 1974).