The Algiers Verdict

The role of the ghetto policeman, said the Kerner Commission report, "is already one of the most difficult in our society. He must deal daily with a range of problems and people that test his patience, ingenuity, character and courage in ways that few of us are ever tested." Patrolman Ronald August, then 28, faced his test on the night of July 26, 1967, when Detroit writhed in the grip of the decade's worst ghetto riot. He was one of three policemen who, with state troopers and National Guardsmen, rushed into the Algiers Motel seeking a reported sniper. They rounded up nine young Negro men and two teen-age white prostitutes. When the lawmen left, three of the Negroes were dead. August admitted shotgunning Auburey Pollard, 19, but claimed self-defense. He was charged with first-degree murder. Last week an all-white jury took the white patrolman's word for it.

The setting for the month-long trial was Mason, Mich., a farm town 90 miles from Detroit's Negro ghettos. That site was chosen because of heavy publicity in Detroit. In the old, tree-shaded courthouse, the jury of local folk listened as 48 witnesses described the night of horror. They accused the police officers of beating and threatening the people in the motel in a desperate attempt to find a sniper who proved in the end to have been imaginary. Witnesses, some with criminal records, charged that August took Pollard into a room, that there was a shot, and that August emerged saying: "He didn't even kick." Prosecutor Avery Weiswasser contended that August and the two other cops, David Senak and Robert Faille, "chose to kill first and investigate later."

Family Man. August, who sat mute and ramrod-straight through most of the trial, was pictured by his lawyer as an "upstanding family man" who "married his high school sweetheart." The patrolman admitted shooting Pollard when the youth "came at me." He also acknowledged making conflicting statements immediately after the incident, saying that he had feared that he would be blamed for all three deaths. Judge William Beer, in a highly unusual move, ruled out conviction on lesser charges and directed the jury either to acquit August or to find him guilty of first-degree murder, with a mandatory life sentence. The judge reasoned that the prosecution's contentions ruled out manslaughter or second-degree murder. The all-or-nothing choice, however, made conviction more difficult. After two hours and 50 minutes, the eleven women and one man voted for acquittal. Pollard's mother, Rebecca, wept bitterly: "I didn't look for them to find him guilty. All whites stick together."

August, Senak and Faille, who have been suspended from the force, still face federal conspiracy charges of violating the civil rights of all eleven motel occupants, including the other two who were killed, Carl Cooper, 17, and Fred Temple, 18. Exactly how they died has never been explained.

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