This tag was created by Anonymous.
3:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Within minutes of Eldridge leaving, Hurley and Urban did change their minds. No explanation was ever given for why they suddenly decided not to have Rivera arrested. Hurley went to the rear of the store, resuming his work supervising the sales staff, and avoided playing any further part in dealing with Rivera. The store detective had gone earlier, after he brought Eldridge to the store. That left Patrolman Donohue and Urban, the window dresser, with charge of the boy.
Donohue would have had to take Rivera out of the store to turn him over to the Crime Prevention Bureau. However, there were still people gathered outside the store, and Donohue “didn’t want to start something.” He evidently feared that those who had witnessed or heard about Hurley and Urban’s struggle with Rivera would object to the boy being in police custody. Harlem’s Black residents had a history of disrupting arrests when they judged police were acting inappropriately as well as taking action against white storeowners and staff who mistreated Black customers. So Donohue decided instead to simply let Rivera go through a rear exit from the store's basement. As the patrolman and Urban took the boy through the store and out a door that led to the basement, they attracted the attention of shoppers throughout the store including L[ouis]. F. Coles, a thirty-year-old Black clerk. One woman called out that they were taking Rivera to the basement to beat him. Cole and several others objected to the boy being taken out of public view. Once Donohue released Rivera on to 124th Street, he returned through the store to the front entrance on to 125th Street, and left the store around 3:30 PM. Rivera went in the opposite direction, home to 272 Manhattan Avenue. He did not tell his mother what had happened in the Kress store.