The Birmingham SAC kept a record of the many warnings he had passed along, as though the official notices conveyed responsibility to the police. It was an uncomfortable exercise for a law enforcement officer with advance knowledge of a crime. With almost transparent chagrin, he informed Director Hoover in Washington that he had been obliged to deliver his last warning on Sunday, May 14, to Detective Tom Cook, an officer he knew to be an active collaborator with the Klan, as Cook was “the only man on duty.”
