Echoes of Shannon Street: The Kidnapping and Murder of Officer Robert S. Hester - Paperback

by Kelly Nichols (Editor), Dana Howell (Editor), James R. Howell (Author)

A documentary titled, "Shannon Street: Echoes Under A Blood Red Moon, A Memphis Tragedy", based on the book is due to be released in the Spring of 2016. The film adaptation is in Pre-Production. It is, to this day, the largest number of suspects to die in a non-riotous, local police action in this country. Echoes of Shannon Street is a true crime police procedural that tells the story of the abduction of two white police officers by black cult members in the racially-divided city of Memphis in January, 1983. The event began a highly-publicized and sharply criticized stand-off between hundreds of police officers and the seven suspects barricaded inside a small house in a predominantly black area of north Memphis. For the next day and a half, negotiators attempted in vain to communicate with the leader of the cult, a mentally ill man named Sanders. Inside a local school, top police officials discussed their options. Outside, police officers stood in the cold, anxiously awaiting orders to go inside and rescue their fellow officer. The wait was long and hard, made even more horrific by the fact that for five hours, the officer's beating and his cries for help were heard through bullet-riddled windows and broadcasted through the officer's own radio. Thirty hours later, one of the abducted officers lies in a hospital, a bullet wound through his hand and face. The other is found dead in the living room of the house, cuffed with his own handcuffs, his bloody flashlight nearby. All seven suspects are dead, shot by the department's all-white TACTICAL Unit. Twenty-eight years later, few will talk of it. Actual radio transcripts, witness statements, and autopsy reports included in the thousand page case file are reprinted in whole or in part. Use of these documents, in addition to investigator's notes, crime scene photos, newspaper accounts, and recent interviews with some of the officers involved, tell the hour-by-hour account of a hostage crisis out of control.

Author Biography

James has a B.S. degree in History from Austin Peay State University (1984). For the past thirty years he has worked in the field of law enforcement as a Park Ranger with Tennessee State Parks, an Officer with the United States Secret Service and retired from the Memphis Police Department at the rank of Major in April 2015. Awards: Officer of the Month, South Precinct - 4 times. Officer of the Year, South Precinct (Optimist Club) Investigator of the Year, Investigative Bureaus Officer of the Year, Memphis / Shelby County (Optimist Club)