November 30, 1921, A mob of white men chased down the car of Sheriff
J.P. Flynt of Runnels County, Texas, and pulled 15-year-old Black Teen Robert
Murtore from the car and murdered him.
Muratore had been arrested the day before for allegedly
assaulting a nine-year-old white girl in Ballinger, Texas, the only evidence against
Murtore was that he worked in the same hotel as the girl’s mother.
The mob had gathered at the jail in Ballinger the morning of
the 30th and it was obvious to the veteran lawman what they were going to do. Roughly
three miles outside of Ballinger the mob overtook the sheriff’s car. According
to the Austin American, the sheriff pleaded with the mob to let the law do its
job and let justice take its course but they forced the boy from the car and violently
shoved him into one of their cars.
The mob tied him to a post a short way from the road and shot him
at least 50 times. The Eagle newspaper of Bryan, Texas reported that the mob
then left, “the ‘mob’ was very orderly and dispersed leaving Sheriff Flynt to
get the coroner. If Sheriff Flynt, who had been sheriff for 8 years and a Texas
Ranger for 7 years, recognized any members of the mob he never pressed charges
and Robert Muratore’s murderers walked away.
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