One Marshal's Badge

by McKinney, Louie

• ISBN13: 9781597973670
• ISBN10: 159797367X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-08-30
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc

Summary

While many people are familiar with the U.S. Marshals Service's reputation from frontier days, when legendary lawmen such as Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson enforced the Wild West, the agency's modern exploits are less well known. One Marshal's Badgesheds light on the service's valuable role in current national and international affairs through the intriguing figure of Louie McKinney, the agency's former director. McKinney's life is an inspirational story of personal fortitude and professional achievement. Growing up a sharecropper's son in the segregated South, McKinney rose to become the first career deputy to lead the Marshals Service. Prior to his promotion, McKinney contributed to the agency in many groundbreaking ways, including helping to restore order to the skies after a rash of airline hijackings in the early 1970s; guarding prisoner John Hinckley, the man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, as a yearlong assignment; transporting criminals to trial and to prison in his own car before the creation of Con Air; enforcing the integration of Southern public schools as a black deputy marshal; and heading an innovative sting operation that netted hundreds of fugitives by enticing them with free football tickets. One Marshal's Badgeoffers a rare glimpse into the Marshal Service's inner workings, especially its witness protection program and elite SWAT team, and is an eyewitness account of the social turbulence that defined American history in the late twentieth century.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Early Years: From the Farm to the High Seas	p. 7
Tales of Two Badges: The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Service	p. 25
Before Con Air: Transporting Criminals in My Car	p. 41
A Long Bus Ride: Enforcing Integration in the South	p. 49
Preventing Airline Hijackings: The First Sky Marshals	p. 57
Shadow Stalkers: The Creation of the Special Operations Group	p. 73
Inventing Identities: The Witness Protection Program	p. 105
Deputy in Paradise: Rising through the Ranks in the U.S. Virgin Islands	p. 129
Interpol: Helping to Police the World	p. 145
Top Cop: Running the Marshals' Fugitive Apprehension Operation	p. 157
Working Retirement: Leading the Marshals Service	p. 173
Index	p. 191
About the Authors	p. 197
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