Greensboro Assistant Police Chiefs Stephanie Mardis and Richard Alston honored the memory of fallen Corporal Joe Randy Massey, slain in a revenge killing on May 31, 1959. At the time, Massey, 42, was a 12-year-veteran and one of the first Black officers on the force. Massey is the highest-ranking officer of color killed in the line of duty.
Last month at the annual Law Enforcement Memorial Service, Police Chief Kamran Afzal posthumously honored Massey and 12 other fallen officers, placing individual roses in a memorial wreath.
For the past several years, Mardis and Alston visit the little known marker near the scene of Massey’s killing at the corner of East Market Street and Murrow Blvd. Mardis said not all of her colleagues are aware of Massey’s tragic death. Sixty-seven years ago, he was shot six times at close range by a revengeful taxi driver to whom Massey had issued some kind of citation earlier in the day…