Bernard Whitehurst, Jr. was shot in the back and killed on December 2, 1975 by Donald Foster, a Montgomery, Alabama police officer who said he thought Whitehurst was the suspect in the robbery of a neighborhood grocery store. In a subsequent  cover-up, police officers planted a gun on him.The initial police report said that Whitehurst fired a gun at the officer, and the police returned fire.There was no autopsy and the body was quickly embalmed before the family was contacted;the coroner relied on police reports that Whitehurst was killed by a bullet fired through the chest.