On June 2, 1965, Oneal Moore was killed when he and his partner—the first two Black sheriff’s deputies in Washington Parish, Louisiana—were ambushed by gunmen with ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1964, Dorman Crowe, the white sheriff of Washington Parish went to the Black community for support for his re-election campaign, promising to hire two Black deputies during his next term. After winning re-election, Sheriff Crowe kept his promise: Oneal Moore and Creed Rogers became the first two Black deputy sheriffs in the parish.

The local Ku Klux Klan was reportedly enraged by the presence of Black deputies on the force and vowed to retaliate. Approximately a year after Deputies Moore and Rogers were appointed, they were responding to a call about a brush fire when they noticed a pickup truck with a Confederate flag bumper sticker following them.

The pickup truck’s occupants shot at the back of their car, and bullets smashed the rear window. As the pickup passed them, the occupants fired into the deputies’ car, hitting Deputy Moore in the head and killing him instantly. Deputy Rogers was shot in the shoulder and permanently blinded in his right eye after the car crashed into a tree.

Deputy Rogers was able to use the radio and call in a description of the pickup truck. A vehicle fitting the description was stopped less than an hour later at a police roadblock. Law enforcement officers discovered several firearms and a noose during a search of the vehicle. The occupant of the vehicle, a known Klan member, was charged with murder and briefly held, but charges were later dropped, citing insufficient evidence. Bail for the suspect was paid with funds raised by local Klan members.

Even though the FBI conducted multiple investigations into the case, no one was ever held accountable for the attack that killed Oneal Moore and permanently injured Creed Rogers.