This tag was created by Anonymous.
4:00 PM to 4:30 PM
The cars arrived within five minutes; they would have come either from the precinct police station only two blocks south on West 123rd Street, or from assignments patrolling areas of 15-20 blocks. Each car carried two officers; two or three cars were likely sent in response to Shannon’s call. It took only a few minutes for Smith, to decide their arrival was not causing the groups of people inside his store to disperse and leave. Around 4:30 PM he called the West 123rd St. station to tell police they needed to “do something” as “the thing was beginning to get out of control.” It was not that the people in the store were disorderly; Smith, like Patrolman Shannon, perceived their continued presence as threatening violence. Like the manager of the neighboring Woolworths store, he clearly felt "under considerable tension" when a "commotion takes place with a [Black] customer."