I went diving into the story here of this sad incident.
Robertson murdered a policeman on the street on a "forenoon", Deputy Sherriff Phillip Fatch. NY Times Article is here, though I can only read the abstract (
https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm...l-richard.html).
It appears that he was accused of assault, and two policemen came to arrest him. This unsourced marker, clearly and heavily biased to the most charitable view of Robertson possible, (
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=202593) claims "When two white deputies arrived to arrest Mr. Robertson, he objected and ultimately fled after an exchange of gunfire left all three wounded." It seems that there is little doubt he murdered a cop and shot another, who appears to have been making a lawful arrest. I can find nothing on if Robertson was guilty or not of the original assault, which is probably lost to time and only the claimed victims really knew, possibly the police if they had provided evidence. Robertson was shot by his victims three times as well. After Fatch succumbed to his wounds, a mob removed him from his cell and "fired several shots" and hung him. I interpret this to mean the poor man was given a coup de grace before being strung up, that's usually what this kind of phrasing meant at that time.
There are efforts for this memorial to Robertson and its final placement, which is apparently a hot topic in Mobile (
https://www.al.com/news/2022/07/cont...-happened.html). Advocates of the memorial, which they wanted to place where a statue of the cancelled Raphael Semmes used to stand, claimed they were unaware of the allegation Robertson committed murder, which seems absolutely impossible to credibly believe as the memorial does include that fact, though phrased in the most charitable way.
What a sad and thoroughly unnecessary human tragedy all around, with 2 deaths and another probably seriously wounded person. A lynching is, should be needless too say, a horrible thing, as is the denial of due process rights, especially when the guilty party is already in custody and no longer a meaningful threat to the public. So is committing murder in the first place, Fatch seems to have done nothing wrong here as far as I have read, he served a legitimate warrant for arrest on assault charges, for those charges to be heard in court. As to the modern controversy, I do not think at this point I will ever understand the cancellation of historical figures to be replaced with similar statues, memorials and commemorations of people who are not historical figures and evidently committed objectively horrible crimes, but are more amenable to the narratives of those doing said cancelling. There seem to be many victims in this saga, and no heroes.