Bernard Whitehurst, Jr. was shot in the back and killed on December 2, 1975 by Donald Foster, a Montgomery, Alabama police officer who said he thought Whitehurst was the suspect in the robbery of a neighborhood grocery store. In a subsequent cover-up, police officers planted a gun on him. The initial police report said that Whitehurst fired a gun at the officers, and the police returned fire. There was no autopsy and the body was quickly embalmed before the family was contacted; the coroner relied on police reports that Whitehurst was killed by a bullet fired through the chest.

The Montgomery Advertiser is a daily newspaper and news website located in Montgomery, Alabama. It was founded in 1829.