ISSUE: ‘Orangeburg Massacre’ investigation

OUR VIEW: FBI decision to reject new probe is realistic 

The FBI’s decision not to reopen the investigation of the 1968 incident known as “the Orangeburg Massacre” was the correct call.

Those in South Carolina who long have called for a probe of the shootings that left three students dead and 27 wounded in the wake of civil rights protests indicate disappointment. They contend the objective is not to see prosecution in the case 40 years later but rather to learn more about just what happened and why.

To date the most definitive account of why state troopers opened fire on students protesting outside South Carolina State University came in the book “The Orangeburg Massacre” by journalists Jack Nelson and Jack Bass. So many dispute even that account, with nearly everyone having a different story to tell about what happened that fateful day.

The differing accounts and disputes prompted Orangeburg citizens, black and white, in 1999 to call for a different approach to the annual remembrance of Henry Smith, Samuel Hammond and Delano Middleton, the three students who died on Feb. 8. Essentially, the pact was to put the events of 1968 into historical perspective and remember those who were killed and injured. In other words, end the dispute over just what happened and memorialize those who should not have had to die in a struggle for equal rights.

When the FBI announced it would consider the Orangeburg Massacre as a so-called cold case, it had to be understood that the nation’s top law enforcement agency was not on a purely fact-finding mission. The idea was to determine whether people should be prosecuted.

The determination was that the federal system would not allow it. The Constitution does not allow a person to be tried twice on the same charges. That is double jeopardy.

The FBI investigated the 1968 tragedy, with the probe leading to charges against nine troopers. When a federal grand jury refused to indict the troopers, prosecutors decided to try them anyway on a charge of imposing summary punishment without due process of law. A jury of 10 whites and two blacks acquitted all of the defendants a little over a year later, finding they acted in self-defense.

State charges were never filed in the case, and there is no indication they would be now. Then-Gov. Robert McNair contended in 1968 and did until his recent death that the FBI was the appropriate agency to handle the probe and resulting prosecution.

There remains sentiment in the state Legislature for a state investigation of the Orangeburg Massacre, but supporters do not have the votes to make it happen. Many feel it is not necessary, as the conflicting stories and disputes are not resolvable.

What is certain is that Orangeburg was forever changed on Feb. 8, 1968. Our community, once ripped apart by strife over race, today works diligently to set a new standard for race relations. There have been successes. There have been failures. The memories of Smith, Hammond and Middleton are reason aplenty to remember while building a better day.

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