All Americans Must Respect Police Officers and Obey the Rule of Law

By: Donald V. Watkins

Copyrighted and Published on September 17, 2025

To find out the truth about how Bernard Whitehurst died, Donald Watkins (far right) had his body exhumed for an autopsy.  For reasons they could never explain, police officials did not perform an autopsy after Whitehurst was fatally shot by Montgomery, Alabama police officer Donnie Foster.

My Early Experiences with Police Officers

My early experiences with police officers were not pleasant.  As a 12-year-old boy in 1960, I watched a white Montgomery, Alabama motorcycle police officer verbally abuse my mother during a routine traffic stop in our all-black neighborhood.  The officer threatened to kill my mom for simply asking basic questions about this traffic stop.  During his tongue-lashing, the officer told my crying mother that the “MUN” (which stands for “municipal”) preceding the numbers on the license plate of his motorcycle stood for “Murder U Niggers”. The officer did not care that he was abusing my mother in front of her son.

From 1974 to 1985, my life was routinely threatened by white police officers because of my aggressive prosecution of landmark court cases that challenged excessive police violence against unarmed black citizens in cities across Alabama. The worst threats came during my handling of a wrongful death case against the Montgomery police department (“MPD”) involving the fatal shooting of Bernard Whitehurst.

On December 2, 1975, Whitehurst was shot and killed by Montgomery police officer Donnie Foster.  MPD claimed Whitehurst was a fleeing felon who fired shots at Foster while facing him in a crouched position in the backyard of an abandoned house.

My investigation revealed that Whitehurst was an innocent unarmed black man who was shot in the back while attempting to climb over a fence.  The pistol found beside Whitehurst’s body was a “throw down” gun that was “planted” by police after his death. Within minutes after the shooting, a voice on the police radio screamed, “We done shot the wrong nigger.”

The Whitehurst case evolved into a national police scandal that the Washington Post called “Alabama’s Watergate” in an April 3, 1977, two-page feature story. The scandal resulted in the resignations of the city's mayor and police commissioner, the indictment of three police officers for perjury, and the firing or resignation of eight others.

In 1975, I represented Sidney Williams, a black corporal in the MPD who sought a promotion to the rank of sergeant.  His promotion was blocked by the MPD’s intentional use of racially biased promotional tests.  Every officer above the rank of corporal was white. Corporal Williams sued the MPD to stop its use of discriminatory promotional tests.

We won the case, and the exams were scrapped for the next 10 years.  This landmark court victory cleared the way for a wave of deserving black officers to rise through the ranks of the MPD all the way up to the rank of police chief.  Williams retired as a major in the MPD and later served as chairman of the Alabama Pardons and Parole Board until his retirement in 2007.

In 1983, an out-of-state black family was mourning the death of their mother/grandmother on Todd Road in Montgomery when two white police officers mistook the Michigan and Ohio mourners' license plates as a gathering of out-of-state drug dealers. Unbelievably, these officers raided the funeral gathering on a “no-knock” basis and violence erupted in and around the home as the occupants “stood their ground”.  The officers, who were believed to be home invaders, were shot and subdued during the ensuing melee inside the home.

Eleven of the mourners were subsequently arrested and four of them were viciously beaten while in police custody.  My investigation into this matter as a Montgomery city councilman resulted in the reduction of felony criminal charges to misdemeanors in four of the cases and dropped altogether in the remaining eight cases.

Throughout the Bernard Whitehurst, Sidney Williams, and Todd Road cases, I received a barrage of death threats. These paradigm-shifting cases produced positive changes within the MPD for two reasons. First, former Montgomery County DA Jimmy Evans, who was white, was an exceptional prosecutor who exhibited tremendous courage and bravery by investigating and prosecuting crooked police officers.  Unlike many prosecutors today, Evans held police officers accountable for breaking the law.

Second, a cadre of good police officers, both black and white, covered my back, protected my family, and provided me with the vital evidence I needed to expose the widespread police misconduct in these cases.  Evans and these good police officers put their integrity, personal safety and professional careers on the line to make sure the public learned the whole truth regarding the MPD’s excessive use of force against black suspects, its propensity to cover-up wrongdoing, and the unlawful beatings of black suspects in detention. They also wanted equal employment opportunities to prevail throughout the MPD.

Defending Police Officers

In 1982, I defended Uniontown, Alabama police lieutenant Sammy Plummer, who is white, in a wrongful death case brought by the family of David White, a black suspect who died in a 1981 shootout with Plummer during an attempted arrest.  Plummer was shot several times during the incident.

After a hard-fought and emotionally charged trial, a mostly black Perry County jury cleared Plummer and the city of Uniontown of wrongdoing in David White’s death.

Lt. Sammy Plummer’s case was the first time in Alabama history that a black civil rights attorney defended a white police officer who used deadly force against a black suspect. My defense of Lt. Plummer generated controversy and criticism against me in the state’s black political circles.  I did not care because Lt. Plummer was a great person and a fine police officer.

Finally, from 1985-1998, I routinely defended Birmingham, Alabama police officers while serving as Special Counsel to Birmingham Mayor Richard Arrington, Jr.  During this period, I worked closely with white and black police officers to solve a host of heart-wrenching violent crimes in Birmingham, including the 1994 execution-style murders of five innocent victims at the Changing Times Lounge.  At the time, this massacre was the largest mass murder in Birmingham’s history.

The "Good Ones" Far Outnumber the "Bad Ones"

During my 65 years of very diverse and personal interactions with a multitude of white and black police officers in Alabama, I learned that police officers fall into two distinct groups – good ones and bad ones. Police officers like Lt. Sammy Plummer, Major Sidney Williams, the black and white MPD officers who helped me expose the Whitehurst and Todd Road police cover-ups, and the legion of dedicated Birmingham police officers who made that city’s streets safe are the good ones. They acted to protect and serve our communities on an unselfish basis.

Police officers like the guy who murdered Bernard Whitehurst, the two Todd Road home invaders, and the ones who, in recent years, have senseless killed unarmed, non-violent, African Americans during routine traffic stops and simple misdemeanor arrests fall into the category of bad officers.  Fortunately, the bad ones represent only one tenth of one percent of all police officers in America.

Every profession has bad employees. Police departments are no exception. Yet, we cannot have peace in the streets of America without justice, and we cannot have justice without a healthy respect for police officers and adherence by all Americans to the rule of law.