Gilligan Sues Civil Rights Leaders

May 26, 1965 - New York police lieutenant Thomas Gilligan (pictured), who fatally shot a 15-year-old Negro last summer, sued several prominent civil rights leaders today for a total of $5,250,000 for allegedly calling him a murderer.

The shooting of James Powell in front of a building in the Yorkville section of Manhattan July 16 was widely attributed as being one of the factors that triggered six nights of riots that racked Harlem and the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

Roy Cohn, who represents Gilligan, filed two libel suits in State Supreme Court today.

One suit, which seeks, $3,750,000, is directed against Dr. Martin Luther King; James Farmer and the organization he heads, the Congress of Racial Equality; Jesse Gray, William Epton, Michael Crenovick, the Tri-Line Offset Co., Inc., the Progressive Labor Movement, and the Harlem Defense Council.

This suit charges that the defendants “participated in the preparation and publication of the infamous, malicious, and libelous” pamphlet that carried Gilligan’s picture under the heading “wanted for murder.”This pamphlet, the suit charged, held up Gilligan, a 17-year veteran of the force, to “hatred, contempt, ridicule, and aversion.”The second suit, which claims $1.5 million in damages, is directed against Farmer and CORE. 

It contends that Farmer, “in the presence of other persons, said that ‘James Powell was shot in cold blood. Lieutenant Gilligan must be arrested and charged with murder.’”

The second charge in this suit was the allegation that Farmer, speaking personally and as the head of CORE, said that “information has come to light that Thomas Gilligan is presently in a mental institution receiving treatment.”

In an accompanying affidavit filed with the libel suits, Gilligan said: “I have never been examined by a psychiatrist, nor have I ever been confined to a mental institution or psychiatric ward of any hospital. I have never been treated for any mental or emotional shock.”

Gilligan’s attack of the alleged murder charges was confined to his sworn statement: “I did not murder James Powell or anyone else.”The 38-year-old officer, a Marine Corps veteran and holder of 19 departmental honors, has been cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting by a grand jury and by the Police Department’s complaint review board. 

In addition to the two libel suits and the affidavit, Gilligan directed an action against NBC, against which he was planning to file suit for libel or slander.

Justice Hyman Korn directed the network to appear in court June 4 to answer Gilligan’s demand for the production of two kinescopes, or films of programs, that were shown last July. Dr. King and Mr. Farmer appeared on the programs and discussed the shooting.

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