Pickett, one of Lakeland's first Black police officers, later forensic expert, dies at 95

Edgar Pickett, a retired detective with the Lakeland Police Department, poses at his home in Lakeland in 2015. Pickett was the first Black detective and first forensic specialist at LPD.
Edgar Pickett, a retired detective with the Lakeland Police Department, poses at his home in Lakeland in 2015. Pickett was the first Black detective and first forensic specialist at LPD.

Nearly 70 years ago, Edgar T. Pickett Jr. achieved history when he and three other men became the first Black officers in the Lakeland Police Department.

Pickett rose to become a detective and distinguished himself for his prowess in analyzing fingerprints and other forensic evidence. He died Thursday at age 95, the Lakeland Police Department announced.

“Retired Sergeant Edgar Pickett is an icon in our community, a giant among men throughout his life,” LPD Chief Sam Taylor said in a statement. “Our agency is better today because of the foundation laid by his work in law enforcement and the mentoring he provided to so many others. Even working in adverse times, he not only dedicated himself to serving as an officer in his community but became a leader in forensics and fingerprinting.”

Related: Despite Discrimination, Edgar Pickett Co-Founded Lakeland's Crime Lab.

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Taylor said that he thinks of Pickett each time he passes the department’s forensics lab, which is named for the late officer.

“He will definitely be missed, but he will never be forgotten,” Taylor said.

Pickett grew up in a racially segregated Lakeland, graduating in 1946 from Washington Park School, the city’s designated school for Black children.

Pickett soon found work as a display manager for Montgomery Ward & Co. in downtown Lakeland, near Munn Park. He later told a Ledger reporter that he felt anxious riding his bicycle to and from work and passing Pine Street, a rough area filled with saloons.

Edgar T. Pickett Jr., second from left, was among the first four Black officers to join the Lakeland Police Department in 1954.
Edgar T. Pickett Jr., second from left, was among the first four Black officers to join the Lakeland Police Department in 1954.

One day he noticed a police officer standing on the corner and felt safer. But the officer greeted him with belligerence and racial slurs, Pickett said, an incident that inspired him to join the force, though the Lakeland Police Department at the time did not admit Black officers.

“I wanted to be a police officer to prove you didn’t have to be that kind of individual,” Pickett later said.

Pickett’s mother worked in the Lakeland mayor’s office, and his father was president of a local business group, the Negro Chamber of Commerce. The group lobbied LPD to change its hiring policies, and in 1954 — the same year as the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling — the department hired Pickett and three other Black officers: Samuel King, Thomas Hodge and Samuel Williams.

Pickett was the last surviving member of the foursome.

Despite the milestone in hiring, the four Black officers soon learned they were not considered equal to their peers. Pickett was relegated to a space away from the main locker room and not allowed to change clothes in the same room as white officers. The Black officers had to use separate bathrooms and water fountains.

Supervisors also assigned Pickett to unappealing shifts, he later told a Ledger reporter. The Black officers were denied training opportunities and were instructed not to arrest any white people.

Edgar T. Pickett, a retired Lakeland Police Department detective, sits during a news conference in 2019 to announce the arrest of Joseph Clinton Mills for the 1981 murder of Linda Slaten. Pickett, a forensic specialist, worked on the original investigation.
Edgar T. Pickett, a retired Lakeland Police Department detective, sits during a news conference in 2019 to announce the arrest of Joseph Clinton Mills for the 1981 murder of Linda Slaten. Pickett, a forensic specialist, worked on the original investigation.

“We were more or less figureheads and couldn’t do anything,” Pickett said.

Supervisors never assigned the four to check incidents in predominantly white neighborhoods, only allowing them to patrol and respond to calls in the north side of Lakeland, which had mostly Black and minority residents.

Pickett and the other three faced harassment from some fellow officers, he later said. He had to work alongside the same officer who had insulted him on Pine Street before he joined the force.

Supervisors removed Pickett from street patrols in the 1960s and sent him for training on youth offenders at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, and he soon led the agency’s juvenile department.

Pickett’s career trajectory changed in 1964, when he was shot in the shoulder while responding to a service call. At that point, he decided he no longer wanted to be a police officer, Pickett later said.

Pickett saw a newspaper ad for the American Institute of Applied Sciences in Chicago, which offered a correspondence course in forensic investigation. He enrolled and began learning about fingerprinting, photographic evidence and ballistics.

Edgar Pickett, a retired Lakeland Police Department detective, displays his badge at his home in 2015. Pickett died last week at age 95.
Edgar Pickett, a retired Lakeland Police Department detective, displays his badge at his home in 2015. Pickett died last week at age 95.

The officer began carrying a camera to crime scenes and converted his kitchen into a makeshift darkroom. He also spent time at Duane Perkins' photography shop in Lakeland, as the owner taught him how to develop film.

Pickett earned a certification in forensic science and became a fingerprint technician in 1973. A supervisor doubted Pickett’s work and required him to send prints to the FBI office in Washington, D.C., for further analysis.

"It would take them two to three weeks to confirm that I have the correct prints — I never made a mistake,” Pickett later told a Ledger reporter.

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Even so, Pickett’s supervisor blocked him from testifying in court cases. Pickett sought permission from the State Attorney’s Office and eventually had his first opportunity to take the stand in a courtroom, where he was qualified as an expert.

Pickett, who attained the rank of sergeant, began attending seminars across the country and was invited to the FBI Academy by a local agent who had taken an interest in his work, The Ledger reported. In a further validation, the Lakeland Police Department named Pickett its officer of the year in 1975.

Five years later, Pickett collaborated with the FBI on fingerprint analysis and helped to confirm the identity of serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin after he was arrested in Tampa. Pickett also worked with the federal agency to identify a local suspect who had threatened to assassinate President Jimmy Carter during a visit to Lakeland in 1980s.

Even as he gained professional acceptance, Pickett still endured racial hostility. In the mid-1970s, he awoke one night to find a white cross planted near his front door, not yet ignited. Burning crosses, signifying white supremacy, were symbols of intimidation used by the Ku Klux Klan.

Edgar Pickett, a retired Lakeland Police Department detective, shows the fingerprint kit he used in 1964, an item on display in his Lakeland home. Pickett was the department's first Black detective and first forensic specialist.
Edgar Pickett, a retired Lakeland Police Department detective, shows the fingerprint kit he used in 1964, an item on display in his Lakeland home. Pickett was the department's first Black detective and first forensic specialist.

“The community never did know it,” Pickett said of the incident. “I didn’t want to let them know it scared me.”

He added: “I have had shotguns in my face, knives in my back. It was that cross that really upset me.”

In 1981, Pickett was called to an apartment complex on Brunnell Parkway, where LPD was investigating the murder of Linda Patterson Slaten. The 31-year-old woman had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a wire hanger, her nude body left in the apartment.

“Someone told me no Black officers had any right to look at a white lady naked,” Pickett later recalled.

Slaten’s murder remained unsolved until 2019, when DNA evidence led to the arrest of Joseph Mills, who later pled guilty to the killing. Pickett attended the news conference at which Mills’ arrest was announced.

Pickett retired from LPD in 1983 but continued to work as a consultant for law enforcement agencies and taught at community colleges. He also rediscovered his youthful enthusiasm for carpentry, helping to rebuild his boyhood church, Harmony Baptist, after the destruction of the original building.

Pickett was one of the founders of Word Alive Ministries, which his son, Telefair Pickett, led for years.

LPD welcomed Pickett back to retiree luncheons, including one held last year, agency spokesperson Robin Tillett said. Department members visited Pickett regularly after he entered hospice care, she said.

An interview with Pickett archived in the Lakeland Public Library’s Special Collections can be found at https://vimeo.com/255029318.

A wake for Pickett will be held Friday at 5 p.m. at New Bethel AME Church at 2122 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., with the funeral scheduled for Saturday at 10 a.m.

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Pickett, one of Lakeland's first Black police officers, dies at 95