Atlanta Daily World

Airman's Father Says Air Force Failed To Protect Son

TOLEDO, Ohio - (ANP) - The father of a 22-year-old airman, accused of attempting to kill a Montgomery, Ala., policeman, and a Toledo congressman has charged that the air force failed to take steps to protect the rights of the serviceman.

Airman Henry Oscar Lee Mays has been released from jail in Montgomery under $1,000 bond and permitted to return to his base at Eglin (Fla.) Air Force Base.

His father also paid $125 in fines for charges against the airman of assault and battery, resisting arrest, carrying a concealed weapon and assault.

The "concealed weapon" was a shaving razor.

Airman Mays also is charged with a felony, assault with attempt to murder and trial on this charge will take place some time in May.

NON-PROTECTED

The boy's father, Oscar Mays, said he was bitter because the "Government did nothing to protect my son." He said they took a lie detector test of the airman's version of the incident at a Birmingham bus station but did not use it in his son's defense.

The airman was beaten brutally while in a Montgomery jail cell.

Congressman Thomas Ludlow Ashley, a Democrat from Toledo, called the matter to the attention of Dudley C. Sharp, secretary of the air force.

Congressman Ashley noted that the air force made no specific request for the custody of the airman, and declared:

"I hardly need point out that racial tensions have never been higher in Montgomery than they are at this time. I find it indefensible and reprehensible in the extreme that the air force has allowed Mays, a Negro, to become the victim of the vindictive, emotion-charged atmosphere which pervades the deep south."