History repeats itself

Some of these homicide stories recently coming out of Texas bring to mind the Billie Sol Estes scandal of the early 1960s in that state.

That scandal involved the death of Henry H. Marshall, a former manager for the State Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation office, who was found dead with five bullet wounds from his own rifle on June 3, 1961!

It was reported that the local sheriff declared Marshall’s death a suicide!

That scandal, and Estes’ relations to it, held such political implications that it reached a subcommittee hearing of the U. S. Senate chaired by Senator John McClellan of Arkansas. The suicide accusation was so ghoulishly ridiculous that Senator McClellan posed for media cameras with a similar rifle and asked something like: “How does a man commit suicide by shooting himself five times with a bolt-action rifle?!?” Given some of the statements of persons defending the killings of African Americans by white police officers, especially the recent two in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, one wonders if we need another senatorial hearing with 2019 dramatics like those of Senator John McClellan back in 1962.

“… and the cycle is ever travelled anew.”

— David, Boston