Chasing King's Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassin

At 6:03 pm, just moments after Ray escaped in his white Mustang, the police officers from Tactical Unit 10 radioed in a report that King had been shot. The dispatcher ordered all units to form a ring around the Lorraine, ensuring no one came or went.

At 6:06, the dispatcher amended the order to include the “brick building directly across from the Lorraine” (153), where the bullet was suspected to have come from. Just a minute later, Tactical Unit 10 announced that they had found the murder weapon that Ray had left behind. The owner of the shop where the gun had been left told officers that he had seen a “well-dressed” young white man running south on Main Street. By 6:10 pm, Tactical Unit 10 had discovered that Ray fled the scene in his white Mustang. 

Ten minutes after King had been shot, an ambulance arrived to take him to the hospital.

Swanson notes that ambulances in 1968 were “little more than station wagons that transported sick or injured people” (157). There were no paramedics or medical equipment in the ambulance that came for King. Police officers began trying to interview witnesses, but many of them were uncooperative. Not only were they “grief stricken” and in shock, many of King’s associates distrusted law enforcement after years of harassment and racist violence.