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Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935

Albert Yerber arrested

Near the end of the disorder, at 5 AM on March 20, Charles Alston, Albert Yerber, Edward Loper and Ernest Johnson allegedly opened fire on police stationed at Lenox Avenue and West 138th Street. Apparently their shots did not find their targets as no injured officers were reported, but Alston suffered a fractured skull as the men fled police. Trying to escape by leaping from the roof of a six-story-building to the adjoining building, Alston fell to a second-floor ledge. He was a twenty-one-year-old Black man, as was Loper, Johnson was twenty-two years of age, and Yerber twenty years of age. Alston lived northwest of the alleged shooting, on the edge of Harlem at 512 West 153rd Street. The other men also lived west of where they were arrested, within Harlem, Johnson at 206 West 140th St. Loper at 298 West 138th St., and Yerber at 106 Edgecombe Ave. Only a small proportion of those involved in the disorder lived above 135th Street.

Although all the press accounts of the incident report that the four men shot at police, there is some doubt about the incident as no guns were found on them when they were arrested. Alston did not appear in court, likely because of his injury, but on March 20 the other three men were charged only with disorderly conduct, the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book records, and then found not guilty by Magistrate Ford – hardly lending credence to their involvement in shooting at police.

The press reports contained few details of the shooting, even as they employed a range of dramatic and emotive language - for example, the New York World Telegram reported a “nest” of snipers “trying to pick off” policemen. Stories in the New York World Telegram and Brooklyn Daily Eagle did offer the name of the officer allegedly targeted by Alston and his companions, Patrolman Jerry Brennan of the Morrisiana station, and the same dramatic account that a bullet whistled past his ear as he stood on post at Lenox Ave and 138th Street. Taking cover, he saw the men on the roof of the six-story building at 101 West 138th. Soon after police reinforcements arrived and rushed to the roof to arrest the men. One other story, in the Home News, identified Brennan, but cast him not as the target of the shooters but as one of the police who responded. In a radio car assigned to the area with his partner Patrolman McGrady, Brennan “heard the shots and sped to the scene. At the radio car's approach the four snipers [standing in the doorway] ran to the roof of the building.” This story provides the key detail that no guns were found on Alston and his companions, explaining both the charges brought against them and their acquittal, and giving it some more credibility than other accounts.

Alston’s fall attracted more attention than the shooting

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