Location: Mobile County, Alabama
Age: 23
Year: 1945
Prinest McCann, 23, was a truck driver and WWII veteran. He was killed by police officer Melvin Porter in Mobile County, Alabama, in 1945.
McCann was walking to the grocery store to buy eggs and stopped to observe a dice game.
Porter and another police officer, Patrick Gibney, drove up to McCann and shot him twice in the head from their car window.
Porter later alleged that McCann had resisted arrest and attacked him.
The FBI opened an investigation into the murder but closed the case citing insufficient evidence to overcome Porter’s claim of self-defense.
For more information, search CRRJ’s archive.
Read more about McCann’s death on the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive
About the Archive
The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive houses case files and documents for more than 1,000 cases of racial homicides in the Jim Crow South. Co-founded by Melissa Nobles, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Margaret Burnham, CRRJ director and professor of law at Northeastern, these uncovered stories highlight how violence affected lives, defined legal rights and shaped politics between 1930 and 1954.
Documents relating to McCann's death
For newspaper reports, advocacy group documents and more, search our archive.
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