Nation : ‘Mississippi Burning’ Sheriff Sues

A former sheriff has filed an $8-million libel suit against the makers of the movie “Mississippi Burning,” claiming he was portrayed unfavorably in the film.

“They have sure done some terrible harm,” the former Neshoba County sheriff, Lawrence Rainey, 65, said today in a telephone interview from his home in Meridian. “Everybody all over the South knows the one they have playing the sheriff in that movie is referring to me.” Rainey, who now works for a black-owned security guard service, was sheriff at the time of the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers near Philadelphia, Miss. The deaths prompted FBI investigations that led to conspiracy charges being filed against 18 men, including Rainey, who was later acquitted. The movie, an Orion Pictures release, is a fictional account of the slayings.