Larry Joe Dean, Officer

Clinton Police Department

Shortly after 10 P.M. on Tuesday, August 12, 1969, Officer Dean became involved in a high-speed pursuit with a vehicle through Clinton. The pursuit ended at 715 East Fourth Street where the driver jumped out and ran inside the house. Backup Officer Gilbert Harrelson arrived with Officer Dean and they proceeded to the residence. Henry Lee Evans, 22, allowed the officers in the house. There they confronted the suspected driver, Kenneth Evans, 17, and their mother Bertha Evans, 49. When the officers attempted to arrest Kenneth Evans, he resisted and a fight broke out between the officers and the Evans family members. Officer Harrelson was forced out of the residence and before he could get back in he heard shots fired from inside the residence. When other backup officers were able to get back in the house they found Officer Dean and Kenneth Evans dead from gunshot wounds. Dean's wife Julie was expecting their first child when he was killed. Their son Larry Joe Dean, Jr. was born five months later

Otto Thomas, Patrolman

Clinton Police Department

In the summer of 1953, the city of Clinton only had one black police officer, Otto Thomas, who had been on the force about four years. On Friday, June 26, 1953, about 4:15 P.M. Officer Thomas, 47, went to the Bell’s Tavern in the colored Lincoln District of Clinton. Inside the bar, he had arrested Robert Lister, Jr., his wife and a companion, Bertram Stevenson for a burglary he was investigating. As Thomas escorted the three outside of the bar, Lister’s father, Robert, Sr., 51, shot Officer Thomas four times in the chest.  The senior Lister then drove away from the scene but was arrested about two hours later by Clinton Police and Caddo County deputies.  Offering no resistance, he pulled his car over and stuck his arms out of the window. The murder weapon, a .32 caliber foreign made automatic pistol, was lying on the seat beside him when he was arrested.  Officer Thomas died from his injuries before reaching the hospital. Thomas was the first law enforcement officer to be killed in the line of duty in Custer County since 1941.