On a pleasant Monday evening in September of 1969, twenty-six year-old Johnny Lee Thomas excused himself from his family’s dinner table, picked up a pump shotgun and announced that he was going hunting—alone. Seconds later he stepped out of his house and shot sixteen-year-old Aljewel Wesley in the face as she sat on her own front porch listening to records with her boyfriend and grandmother. That was but the first shot in what would shortly become the biggest gunbattle in the 130 year history of the Dallas Police Department. Johnny Thomas continued to shoot at neighbors, friends, family members and passing motorists until the police arrived, at which point he ambushed and shot the first three officers on the scene. He then retreated to his house and held off an assault by a hundred or more determined police officers in a furious firefight that lasted more than an hour and involved hundreds if not thousands of rounds fired. Before the incident ended, ten persons would be shot, including four police officers and a TV cameraman; two would be killed, including the shooter himself. Authored by a participant and based upon official police documents, original newspaper articles and personal interviews with forty six of the hundred or so officers present, the book details the gunbattle from the first shot to the final barrage of gunfire that ended the shooter’s life and brought it to a close. It includes a listing of sixty-seven Dallas officers known to have been combatants or otherwise involved in the incident and details their location and participation as far as it is known. Also included is an analysis of the factors that contributed to the spectacular nature of the incident from departmental policies, procedures, equipment and tactics to the culture and tenor of the times. Chapters are also dedicated to the firearms used in the battle and an analysis of exactly who, among the many officers involved, was responsible for putting an end to Thomas’s rampage—something that was never addressed in the original investigation. The concluding chapters cover the aftermath of the gunbattle from the neighborhood riots and arson fires to the truncated investigation and include a brief history of the Dallas Police Department’s Tactical Division and the fundamental changes in the operation of that unit that were brought about by the affair on Hall Street. The book closes with an epilogue bringing the reader up to date on the major players in the drama.
