The initial response to the Algiers Motel incident on a national and even local scale was abysmally minimal, considering the actions of officers involved. The following day, DPD had investigated the hotel, finding the bodies of the Cooper, Temple, and Pollard. While some will say that the incident was covered up entirely, it is important to consider the context in which the incident occurred: a massive and unrelenting riot across the city. Detroit, for lack of a better phrase, was burning and because of the dramatics of the uprising, some failed to look into the events of that night. That sentiment though, would not last very long.
Immediately after the officers cut loose the remaining five men and the two women, they each ran to the homes of friends and families of the victims. All of the men were wounded and frantic as they tried to recount everything they remembered from that night. Margaret Gill, the mother of Carl Cooper, attempted to mend the wounds of Clark and Forsythe. “(Lee) had knots the size of fists all over his head and deep, deep wounds…I could only so much for him.” All of the men were in shock and terrified from the ordeal they had just endured. Soon after, the mystery of that night would warrant a full investigation by the DPD. On the Monday, July 31, after the riots had concluded and five days after the incident occurred, the police department launched an investigation into the Algiers Incident.
Immediately as the investigation into the Algiers motel began, investigators noticed that something was amiss. Although the call leading to the incident was a claim of sniper fire, it was clear the three men were murdered at close range, two of them from a double-barrel shotgun and one from a handgun. The local news outlets began covering the incident in detail in the weeks after the riots finished, with a bevy of questions driving the public. As John Hersey notes, it was still very unclear how Cooper and Temple were killed. How were Senak and Thomas involved in the murders? How culpable were the state troopers who were in and out of the motel that night? Many puzzles remained and unfortunately for the families of the deceased and the community in Detroit, few would be answered through the trial for the Algiers Incident.
Eventually, after a drawn out investigation, the policemen involved in the Algiers were arrested and brought to trial (Note: the featured picture for this page is Senak, August, and Paille with their lawyer). Though, the investigation process for the detectives involved was long and arduous, meeting many roadblocks along the way. On August 2, 1967, Detective Schlachter called for warrants against Ronald August for the murder of Auburey Pollard and Robert Paille for the murder of Fred Temple. Both, he stated, seemed like clear cut cases of murder, especially Pollard’s case, where he was killed at the height of the “death game” before the night ultimately unraveled.
Schlachter and his team struggled to find definitive evidence as to how Cooper and Temple were murdered exactly. According to the initial interviews of those present that night, Cooper attempted to run out of the motel upon seeing police outside, ultimately meeting his fate, but who pulled the trigger? Similarly, it was clear Temple was murdered without much of a struggle, but how many people were involved in his killing?
Investigators similarly had trouble gathering substantial evidence regarding officer Senak, the man many remarked as the ring leader of the entire incident. An oft-complained about officer, Senak was noted prior to and after the incident as being a brutal officer who abused his authority regularly, with little to no repercussions. Including the Algiers incident, Senak was involved or mentioned in several other police brutality incidents, each time managing to escape jail time or losing his job.
Ronald August and Robert Paille were much different cases than Senak, neither having as long a track record with potential abuses of authority like Senak. August, a member of the Detroit Police Department, was the primary suspect in the killing of Pollard, a case that possessed much more substantial evidence than the deaths of Cooper or Temple. Paille, like Senak, was also a member of DPD but was able to defend that there was little to no evidence to suggest he committed any blatant wrongdoing as the police stormed the motel and took the lives of Cooper and Temple.
While the justice system seemed to be dragging their feet on the case, the citizens of detroit decided to take matters into their own hands. On August 30, 1967, black citizens of Detroit organized the “People’s Tribunal,” a mock trial that named August, Paille, Dismukes and Thomas as defendants. The jury of the people’s tribunal included a novelist, John Killens, Rosa Parks, and two whites. The tribunal raised a great deal of interest in the community and was held at a local church after the Dexter Theater decided to renege on their commitment to house the event, under fear that the mock trial would result in ramifications from the authorities.
As witnesses testified, one after the other, the tribunal became dead silent, as the horrors of torture and abuse sickened the audience and jury. The jurors of the tribunal ultimately found the defendants in the case guilty, but the Detroit News covered the event as if it were a joke, placing the coverage of the tribunal next to the comics section of the paper. While the tribunal did little to sway the authorities in the case itself, it raised consciousness of the black community, according to Dan Aldridge, a Wayne State graduate student at the time who helped organize the tribunal.
While detectives struggled to find the truth of the murders of Cooper and Temple, there were several issues with witnesses outside of the investigation. In the show-ups and lineup identifications that took place during the investigation, Clark and Forsythe were able to identify some of the officers present that night but also mistakenly identified others who certainly were not there. To make matters worse, the testimony of Warrant Officer Thomas, who watched Senak carry out the “Death Game” and saw August walk into the room with Pollard where he would eventually die, offered differing accounts of what happened, eventually offering a testimony that would vilify David Senak. As these issues mounted for investigators, witnesses like Moore claimed they were being followed and beaten for being part of the upcoming trail against August and Paille.
Throwing another wrench into the investigation was the initial call that prompted the incident in the first place: a claim of snipers in the area. After thorough investigation of the motel and surrounding areas, no gun was found. In other words, Cooper, Pollard, and Temple lost their lives on a call for a sniper that never existed in the first place. Attorney’s for the case were confounded by the testimony of Warrant Officer Thomas, whose testimony removed culpability from David Senak. As the state began to assemble its case for the trial against the officers involved that night, the public was rocked by the publication of John Hersey’s text “The Algiers Motel Incident,” an investigation of his own that included vivid detail and interviews of those involved in the atrocities of that night. The fallout of the book would suggest that the defense had its work cut out for it, but they were able to have the trials moved out of the prosecution-favoring detroit to Lansing, Michigan.
Hersey’s book illustrated many serious allegations of the Detroit police, guardsmen, and other officers involved. For many, Hersey’s retelling of the Algiers Motel Incident was their first encounter with the horrific details of that night and as such, black citizens were outraged by the details of beatings, harassment, and alleged executions of the young men. Attorneys for Paille, August, and Thomas argued that the book’s release would influence the jury and thus, a unbiased jury would not be attainable in the city of Detroit. The judge in the case agreed and the trials were transferred to Ann Arbor, Lansing, and Mason, MI.
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