Greensboro's African American Community Newspaper since 1967
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.
On that fateful day, the 31-year-old cab driver dropped his fare off and then went home to retrieve a handgun. He then waited for Massey to perform his routine rounds, eventually locating him after midnight, sitting in the then Foust service station on East Market Street, completing paperwork. The assailant entered the service station, called out to Corporal Massey, and then shot him six times as he sat at the desk, according to an online report.
The cab driver was arrested, convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
