On June 24, 1969, Vivian Strong, a 14-year-old African American girl, was killed in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, when a white police officer shot her in the back of the head without warning. The white police officer, and his Black partner, had been dispatched to the location because there were "juveniles breaking in." When they arrived at the scene a small group of teenagers fled out of an abandoned apartment where they had been dancing. The killing sparked three days of riots in Omaha's predominantly African-American Northeast neighborhood.
After being suspended and then fired, the officer was charged with and pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. After the case, in which he personally testified, he was acquitted by an all-white jury and served two more years on the Omaha police force.
The shooting has since been showcased in several theatrical adaptations.
Vivian Strong
The daughter of James and Kasie Strong, Vivian was born on December 24, 1954, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She attended Tech Jr. High in Omaha, Nebraska and planned to become a secretary, but because of a heart condition she developed in 1964 (a leaky aortic valve), her attendance was irregular and sporadic. She routinely visited local hospitals and care facilities; for example in January 1964 she stayed at the University of Nebraska Medical Center for over a month (January 23 - February 27), and from April to November of the same year, she was a "bed patient" at Hattie B. Munroe Home. She had one sister and six brothers. A childhood friend described her as, "so sweet" and "a good friend to everybody."
Shooting
On June 24, 1969, no more than nine teenagers gathered, played music, and danced at a party hosted in a vacant apartment in the Logan Fontenelle Housing Project. Following a call to police about a suspected robbery, two officers arrived, and the teenagers fled out of the back door. James Loder—the white officer of the two—shot into the fleeing group without warning, which struck the then 14-year old Strong in the back of the head, killing her. Both James W. Smith—Loder's African American partner—and Strong's sister, Carol, asked Loder, "Why did you shoot her?", but he did not reply.
In the first news article about the incident, which appeared on the cover of the Omaha World Herald on June 25, 19-year old Linda Bradley, Strong's babysitter at the time, said, "We were playing records in the alley. We do it all the time. I even went around to the neighbors to see that it would be alright." She said when the police arrived they "went to see what was going on," and she concluded by saying Loder "shot her right in the head. He didn't holler, or shoot in the air or anything. There was only one shot."
Community response
Unrest followed for three days in Omaha's Northeast neighborhood, resulting in 88 injuries and over one million dollars in property damage and making national headlines. In just those three days, fifty-six arrests were made, all of them being African-Americans. During the riots, the Black Panthers, armed with weapons, protected Black churches and the local Black newspaper, the Omaha Star.
Within the week, on June 28, 30 Black and white women accused police of brutality in the Near North Side of Omaha, and of having a double standard for the treatment of white and Black people. The police chief denied both charges and talked to the delegation for over an hour. One of the women argued that police should give more attention to psychiatric screening of recruits before they are sent into the field. Similarly, two days later, Omaha Mayor Eugene Leahy met with a delegation of 15 African-American women, who complained about discrimination by the police; in response, the Mayor said their grievances would "be studied and analyzed".
Several days after the killing, activist Ernie Chambers called on the city to pay damages of $100,000 to the parents of Strong. Mayor Leahy responded by saying it was "ridiculous" and, "I'm not saying the $100,000 figure is ridiculous for a girl's life but it is ridiculous to demand that the city pay it," saying instead the remedy would be appropriately found in court. Members of the United Presbyterian Church contributed approximately $300 to the family of Strong, and approximately 35 Omaha policemen and firemen, most of whom were African American, contributed $150.