(I cannot improve on this story from the time so I am placing the original AP story as written by Doug Stone here).
MEMPHIS (AP) — Nobel Laureat Martin Luther King Jr., father of non-violence in the American civil rights movement, was killed by an assassin's bullet Wednesday (sic) night.
King, 39, was hit in the neck by a bullet as he stood on the balcony of a motel here. He died less than an hour later at St. Joseph's Hospital.
Gov. Buford Ellington immediately ordered 4,000 National Guard troops back into the city. A curfew, which was camped on Memphis after a King-led march turned into a riot a week ago, was reimposed. Police said incidents of violence, including several fire bombings, were reported following King's death.
The 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was standing on the balcony of his motel here, where had come to lend protests in behalf of the city's 1,500 striking garbage workers, most of them Negroes, when he was shot.Two unidentified men were arrested several blocks from the motel.
Police also said they found .30-.06 rifle on Main Street about one block from the motel, but it was not confirmed whether this was the weapon that killed King. An aide who was standing nearby said the shot hit King in the neck and lower right part of his face. "Martin Luther King is dead," said Asst. Police Chief Henry Lux, the first word of the death.
Asst. Hospital Adminstrator Paul Hess confirmed later that King died at 7 p.m. of a bullet wound in the neck. The Rev, Jesse Jackson said he and others in the King party were getting ready to go to dinner when the shooting occurred. "King was on the second floor balcony of the motel," Jackson said. "He had just bent over. If he had been standing up, he wouldn't have been shot in the face.
SOURCES
"Dr. Martin Luther King Killed By Sniper's Bullet In Memphis," by Doug Stone, Associated Press, The Morning Herald, Uniontown, PA, April 5, 1968, 1.
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