On Sept. 8, 1940, a group of white men wearing hoods dragged a black teen named Austin Callaway out of a jail in LaGrange, Georgia, shot him multiple times and left his dead body in a rural area of the county, according to city officials.
For over 76 years, the brutal lynching was never investigated by authorities and remained unacknowledged by the city leaders.
But this past Thursday night, LaGrange's mayor, police chief and community leaders finally acknowledged that "justice failed Austin Callaway" during a remembrance service for the teen. They also apologized for the lynching in front of Callaway's surviving family and the black community.
"I, on behalf of the LaGrange Police Department, and the city of LaGrange, want to acknowledge the police department’s failure to take crucial action in its obligation to protect Austin Callaway," LaGrange Police Chief Louis Dekmar said at a remembrance service for Callaway. "I am profoundly sorry. It should never have happened."
Dekmar said he sincerely regretted and denounced the role police played in the lynching "both through our action and inaction." He admitted the "record of the police department's efforts to locate Austin after he was kidnapped is absent," and that "not surprisingly -- and, sadly -- so is any investigation into his murder." It was not clear what Callaway had been jailed for at the time.
The police chief also said he owed an apology to the black community "that has lived the burning frustration of injustice."
"An acknowledgment and apology is necessary to aid in healing wounds of past brutalities and injustice, so we can build a better future," he said.
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