On patrol: April 4, 1968

ON APRIL 4, 1968, I was working the 4-to-midnight shift with my partner, Leroy Spivey, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, N.Y. We were on patrol during an unusually warm spring evening in the predominantly black neighborhood.

We had been working together for about a year as the first black and white (referred to as "salt-and-pepper") team in our precinct, and one of the first in the city. The tour in the high-crime area had been pretty much a routine affair during the first half of our shift: burglaries, robberies, auto accidents, family disputes.

Then, about 8 p.m., a tragedy occurred that would change the course of history.

It began for us when someone yelled over the police radio, "Martin Luther King was just shot in Memphis."

Leroy, an African-American who had often spoken proudly of the man who for many years had led the civil-rights movement toward equality in America, sat in stunned silence. As I steered the car along the darkness on Sumner Avenue, I looked at my partner and said, "Don't believe that. It's some jerk with a depraved sense of humor." But a few minutes later, a voice said, "King is DOA. A sniper got him."

Leroy covered his face with his hands and shook his head slowly as if trying to block out the truth of the message.

Then, over the radio, came a few comments from the less-than-human segment of the department. "Whoopee!" one voice said. "It's about time!" said another.

The pain on Leroy's face intensified with each remark from the faceless cowards, secure in their anonymity. It was only moments later that the news swept the country and the riots began. Calls for police flooded the airwaves as a segment of the population took to the streets, burning and looting in a mad frenzy of outrage and frustration.

WE SPENT THE next 12 hours racing from one riot to another, handcuffing looters and taking them to a booking location so other officers could process them, allowing us to return to the street.

I don't remember how many arrests we made during that long, tumultuous night, but we worked continuously until 8 the next morning.

Although the violence, bitterness and hatred I witnessed during that 16-hour tour would be long remembered, the most unforgettable sight was the intermittent tears that filled my partner's eyes as he struggled with his emotions but did his job with courage and dignity. He berated those we caught looting and condemned them for besmirching the memory of King.

Several times, when we collared someone who had just crashed through a store window and was running away with stolen property, my partner would grab them by the throat and push them up against a wall.

"This is how you honor the memory of Dr. King?" he shouted. "You think this is what Dr. King would have wanted?" he hissed, struggling to keep from pummeling those who used the death of an icon as an excuse for criminal activity.

I don't pretend to understand the emotional roller coaster he and millions of other blacks had to deal with as they faced an uncertain future without their beloved leader. King represented more than the civil-rights movement in America. He was the conscience of a nation that needed to be continuously reminded of its sins against those who were being judged by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.

King, a believer in non-violence, lost his life in a violent act, but left behind a legacy that could not be tarnished by a racist's bullet. Thanks to him, millions of people were able to break the chains that kept them in bondage more than a hundred years after they were proclaimed to be "emancipated."

King was a giant, the likes of which we'll probably never see again. *

Bob Weir lives in Flower Mound, Texas.