The one police officer assigned to guard Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre was not at his post when the President was shot, and the police board that heard the complaint against him left no record of why it was dismissed.
John Frederick Parker was an officer of the Metropolitan Police in Washington, D.C., assigned as Lincoln's guard on the night of 14 April 1865, at Ford's Theatre [1].
Before 1865 he faced repeated complaints to the police board, including being drunk on duty, sleeping on duty and visiting a house of prostitution. In 1864 the board ruled he be dismissed, but he was reinstated. On 14 April he reported to the White House three hours late and was sent ahead to the theatre. He left the small passageway outside the President's box, took a seat where he could see the play, and at the intermission went for a drink nearby with Lincoln's footman Charles Forbes and coachman Francis P. Burke.
Sources agree he was not at his post when the actor John Wilkes Booth entered the box and shot Lincoln; it is not known for certain whether he was still at the drinking place or back in a seat inside. On 1 May 1865 the police superintendent charged him with neglect of duty for allowing a man to enter the box and shoot the President. The board heard the case on 3 May and dismissed it on 2 June; no transcript survives. He was never called to testify at the 1865 military trial of the people accused of helping Booth. He stayed on the force until 13 August 1868, when he was fired for sleeping on duty.
Later writers, notably Otto Eisenschiml, a chemist who in 1937 suggested that Northern leaders were behind the killing, asked why Parker was never punished. One historian who studied the case, George S. Bryan, found no evidence he was a conspirator. Parker himself later told family he had been released by Lincoln, and some historians think Lincoln may have told him to find a seat. Without the board's record, why the complaint was dismissed is still unknown.
[Report #200] WHO. Parker was 'a member of Washington's Metropolitan Police Force' (
web.archive.org) and 'was assigned as Mr. Lincoln's bodyguard the night of the shooting' (
web.archive.org). 'John Frederick Parker was born May 19, 1830, in Winchester, Virginia.' (
web.archive.org) Against that: 'No government or Bible record regarding Parker's specific birth date or more specific birth location other than Virginia has been published in government records.' (
en.wikipedia.org) Both held.
RECORD BEFORE 1865. 'When the Metropolitan Police Force was organized in 1861, he became one of its first 150 officers.' (
web.archive.org) 'These charges included conduct unbecoming an officer, visiting a house of prostitution, firing a pistol through a window, being drunk on duty, being asleep on duty' (
web.archive.org); 'At times he was reprimanded; at other times the charges were dismissed; at no time was he fired.' (
web.archive.org) Against that: 'Superintendent Webb on August 3rd, 1863, charged him with general inefficiency, specifying that in a period of about eighty-two days Parker had been absent forty-one.' (
archive.org) 'He was tried before the Board of Metropolitan Police on April 6th, 1864, and judgment was that he be dismissed from the force.' (
archive.org) 'Nevertheless he was reinstated' (
archive.org). Both held.
JOINING THE WHITE HOUSE GUARD (dates disagree, all held). 'Parker was one of four officers who became presidential guards on November 3, 1864.' (
web.archive.org) The same thread: 'Parker was assigned to the detail sometime between late February and early April 1865.' (
web.archive.org) Bryan: 'He was a new man at this job, having been detailed from the Metropolitan Police less than two weeks before.' (
archive.org) 'John Parker, to whom the duty fell, had recently been chosen by Superintendent Richards to fill a vacancy in that detail.' (
archive.org)
14 APRIL 1865. 'On the night of April 14, 1865, Parker reported to the White House at 7:00 P.M. (three hours late).' (
web.archive.org) 'He was told to go to Ford's Theatre and wait for the president's party to arrive.' (
web.archive.org) 'His orders (according to Crook) were then to stand, fully armed, in the little vestibule' (
archive.org). 'Parker took a seat in the small passageway just outside the State Box. From this spot he could only hear the play; he soon left his post and found a better seat.' (
web.archive.org) Bryan, from 'Parker's own acknowledgment to Crook, that, hearing the voices of the players but unable to see the action, Parker finally took an empty seat in the dress circle.' (
archive.org) Parker's own later account: 'he later told family members that he was then released by Lincoln until the end of the play.' (
en.wikipedia.org) And: 'some historians and authors have logically suggested that Abraham Lincoln, with his known lackadaisicalness for personal safety, told Parker to leave his post and find a seat where he could see the play.' (
web.archive.org) Held: whether he left on his own or was released. At the intermission he 'had left the theater to get a drink at a nearby tavern with Lincoln’s valet, Charles Forbes, and coachman Francis P. Burke.' (
history.army.mil) (see star_saloon_intermission). 'It is uncertain whether Parker returned to the theater' (
history.army.mil); 'When John Wilkes Booth entered the State Box, Parker was either still in the saloon or back at his seat from which he could both see and hear the play.' (
web.archive.org) 'The special guard was not on post—that is all we know.' (
archive.org)
THE BOX DOOR AND PARKER. 'Despite all attempts to prove, without success, that the hole in the door to box 7 was bored by Booth that same afternoon' (
npshistory.com), a letter from Frank Ford says 'The hole was bored by my father, Harry Clay Ford, or rather on his orders, and was bored for the very simple reason it would allow the guard, one Parker, easy opportunity whenever he so desired to look into the box' (
npshistory.com). Against that: 'It was testified that the hole in the box door appeared to have been bored with a gimlet, then reamed with a penknife.' (
archive.org) 'An iron-handled gimlet, capable of boring a hole three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, was discovered in Booth's trunk at the National after Booth had disappeared.' (
archive.org) Both held.
AFTER THE SHOT. 'On May 1st, 1865, formal notice was served upon Parker that a charge of neglect of duty had been preferred against him by Superintendent Richards to the Board of Metropolitan Police.' (
archive.org) The charge: 'Said Parker allowed a man to enter the President's private Box and Shoot the President.' (
web.archive.org) 'Parker was tried on May 3rd, but no transcripts of the case exist. Washington newspapers did not cover the case. All that is known is that the complaint was dismissed on June 2nd.' (
web.archive.org) 'Parker was not called to testify during the trial of the conspirators, and no full account of his actions that night exists.' (
nps.gov) 'One of Lincoln's other bodyguards, William H. Crook, said of Parker:' (
web.archive.org) 'Had he done his duty, I believe President Lincoln would not have been murdered by Booth.' (
web.archive.org) 'Mrs. Lincoln's dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley overheard Mrs. Lincoln yell to Parker,' (
en.wikipedia.org) 'So you are on guard tonight, on guard in the White House after helping to murder the President.' (
en.wikipedia.org) Parker, per the same account: 'I did wrong, I admit, and have bitterly repented... I did not believe any one would try to kill so good a man in such a public place, and the belief made me careless. I was attracted by the play, and did not see the assassin enter the box.' (
web.archive.org) Bryan: 'But that he was a conspirator or in the pay of conspirators, there is neither evidence nor likelihood.' (
archive.org)
1868 AND AFTER. 'Parker remained on the police force until 1868. Finally, he was fired on August 13th of that year for sleeping on duty. He claimed he had been ill.' (
web.archive.org) 'He died in Washington on June 28, 1890, of pneumonia, complicated by asthma and exhaustion.' (
web.archive.org)
HELD. Why the Police Board dismissed the complaint: 'no transcripts of the hearing survive' (
nps.gov). Not found (Oct 2026); would settle: the Metropolitan Police Board trial record of 3 May–2 June 1865. Otto Eisenschiml (1937) asked: 'Why was police guard John F. Parker not punished?' (
filsonhistorical.org) — held as a question, not an answer.
THE OCTOBER 2026 RESEARCH REPORT SAID Parker 'joined the carriage escort to Ford's Theatre' and drank with 'John Buckingham (the coachman)'; its sources say 'He was told to go to Ford's Theatre and wait for the president's party to arrive.' (
web.archive.org) and name 'Francis P. Burke (Lincoln's coachman)' (
web.archive.org).