Shooting of Vivian Strong


Vivian Strong was a young African American girl who was shot and killed, without warning, by a white police officer, James Loder, in Omaha, Nebraska in 1969. The killing sparked three days of riots in Omaha's Northeast neighborhood.

Shooting

On June 24, 1969, teenagers gathered for a party at a vacant apartment in the Logan Fontenelle Housing Projects. The teenagers were playing music and dancing. When police arrived, claiming to have been called on suspicion of a robbery, the teenagers fled out of the back door. One of the police officers, James Loder, shot into the fleeing crowd and Vivian Strong, a 14-year old African-American girl, was struck in the back of the head and was killed. Unrest and riots followed for three days in Omaha's Northeast neighborhood, resulting in 21 arrests, 88 injuries, and $750,000 in property damage. Black Panthers, armed with weapons, protected black churches and the local black newspaper, the Omaha Star, during the riots.

Aftermath

Vivian Strong's sister, Carol, was with her when she was killed; she did not receive any counseling afterward, her mother had a nervous breakdown, and Carol subsequently took over the care of her younger brothers and sisters.
The summer of Strong's death, the Black Panther Party started the Vivian Strong Memorial Liberation School. The BPP established Liberation Schools in several US cities. The school in Omaha may have operated for only a week before it closed down.
James Loder, the police officer who killed Vivian Strong, was released from jail on a $500 bond. He was found innocent of manslaughter at trial and returned to the police force, where he served for two more years. He was the estranged biological son of Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr, who had claimed him as her adopted son in 1941 in order to conceal his illegitimacy.

Theater

's play, Vivian's Music: 1969, that imagines the last days of Vivian's life, won an award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
In 2019, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of her killing, the play was produced, at several off-Broadway theaters, in New York City.