Killing of Rick "Tiger" Dowdell
On July 16, 1970, Donald Rick “Tiger” Dowdell, a 19-year-old African American activist and former University of Kansas student, was shot and killed by Lawrence Police Department officer William Garrett in Lawrence, Kansas. Dowdell was shot in the back of the head while fleeing through an alley in downtown Lawrence. The exact circumstances preceding the shooting, including whether Dowdell fired at police before Garrett shot him, remain disputed.
Dowdell's death occurred during a period of severe racial and political unrest in Lawrence and was followed by several days of protests and violence. Four days later, 18-year-old University of Kansas student Harry Nicholas "Nick" Rice was also shot and killed by a Lawrence police officer.
A coroner's inquest concluded that Dowdell's death was non-felonious. Decades later, questions remained about the shooting because of conflicting witness accounts and discrepancies and missing pages in the investigative records of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI).
Background
Rick Dowdell was born on May 8, 1951, to Frank Dowdell Sr. and Barbara Harding. He was the fifth of seven sons. His mother died of leukemia when he was 10, and after his father left the family, Dowdell and several of his brothers were raised by their maternal grandmother, Temple Harding.
Dowdell became involved in civil rights activism while attending Lawrence High School. He advocated for the inclusion of African and African American history in the local school curriculum and became the first president of the school's Black American Club. His family had also participated in protests seeking to integrate a local swimming pool.
As a senior, Dowdell led a student walkout in April 1970 over the lack of Black history in the Lawrence school district's curriculum.
Dowdell attended the University of Kansas beginning in the fall of 1969 and was a member of the university's Black Student Union. He withdrew from the university in March 1970 but remained involved in Black community activism in Lawrence and frequently visited the Afro House, a Black cultural center at 946½ Rhode Island Street.
Shooting
On the evening of July 16, 1970, Lawrence police responded to several reports of gunfire in the city, including reports near the Afro House. Dowdell and a female University of Kansas student left the building in a light-colored Volkswagen.
Officers William Garrett and Kennard Avey began following the Volkswagen. Garrett later said that the vehicle was being driven without headlights and had failed to stop at a stop sign. After the vehicle failed to stop for police, the officers pursued it.
The pursuit ended in an alley near Ninth and Rhode Island streets, where Dowdell exited the passenger side of the Volkswagen and ran down the alley.
According to the official account released after the shooting, Garrett fired a warning shot. Police alleged that Dowdell then fired a .357 Magnum revolver at Garrett, prompting Garrett to fire three additional shots. One bullet struck Dowdell in the back of the head, killing him almost immediately.
Whether Dowdell actually fired a weapon has remained disputed. Later examination of the KBI investigative file revealed conflicting accounts concerning the location of the revolver found near Dowdell and other aspects of the physical evidence. Several pages of the KBI file concerning the revolver, Garrett's weapon, ballistic comparisons and paraffin tests were also missing when the records were obtained by The Lawrence Times more than five decades later.
The KBI said it was unable to determine when or why the pages disappeared.
Investigation
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation investigated Dowdell's death. A coroner's inquest was subsequently held at the Douglas County Courthouse. Garrett testified about the shooting, while members of Dowdell's family attended the proceedings.
The inquest ultimately found Dowdell's death to be non-felonious.
Questions about the shooting persisted, however. Accounts differed over whether Dowdell had possessed or fired the revolver attributed to him, the position of the weapon after the shooting, and the sequence of gunfire in the alley.
In 2021, The Lawrence Times requested the KBI's complete investigative file under the Kansas Open Records Act. The KBI initially declined to release the records, citing Kansas law allowing criminal investigation records to remain closed for 70 years.
After further legal efforts, the newspaper obtained most of the investigative file in 2022. The records comprised hundreds of pages, but several pages dealing with crucial firearms and forensic evidence were missing.
Based on its review of the records, The Lawrence Times published a three-part investigative series titled The Murder of Tiger Dowdell in July 2022. The newspaper argued that the available evidence supported characterizing Garrett's shooting of Dowdell as a murder, while also acknowledging that important questions about the precise sequence of events could no longer be conclusively answered.
Aftermath
Dowdell's killing intensified racial and political tensions in Lawrence. Protests and unrest followed his death, beginning several days of violence that became one of the most turbulent periods in the city's history.
Dowdell's funeral was held on July 23, 1970. He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence. His gravestone bears the inscription, "We are an African people. We shall win."
Four days after Dowdell's death, on July 20, Harry Nicholas "Nick" Rice, an 18-year-old white University of Kansas student, was shot in the back of the head during a confrontation between police and a crowd near the university. Rice's death and Dowdell's killing came to symbolize the racial and political turmoil that affected Lawrence during the summer of 1970.
Legacy
Dowdell's death has continued to be commemorated in Lawrence and at the University of Kansas. The university's historical exhibits on the unrest of 1970 describe his killing as a major event in the confrontation between civil rights activists, antiwar protesters and local law enforcement.
In 2020, the Lawrence City Commission approved plans for historical markers commemorating Dowdell and Rice. After several years of review, the city commission approved markers honoring both men in February 2026.
See also
- Killing of Harry Nicholas Rice
- History of Lawrence, Kansas
- Black Student Union
- List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States in the 1970s
External links
- The Murder of Tiger Dowdell – investigative series by The Lawrence Times
- Rick "Tiger" Dowdell – University of Kansas Libraries