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• 1 2022-10-26T20:01:26+00:00 Members of the MCCH (13) 129 plain 2024-02-14T18:09:26+00:00 Most newspapers reported in the same edition both the statement that Mayor La Guardia released on the morning of March 20 and had distributed in Harlem and his afternoon announcement of whom he had appointed to the Commission. Only the appointment of eleven committee members was reported in the Daily News, New York Evening Journal, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle, while their names were included in the Home News, New York World-Telegram, and Atlanta World. The New York Age published the names of only the six Black members, while the Afro-American only identified the office holders, Roberts, Villard, and Carter, and Hays. The names and the occupations provided in the mayor’s press statement were published in the Daily Mirror, New York American, New York Times, Daily Worker, and the New York Amsterdam News. The New York Post and the Norfolk Journal and Guide combined that occupational information with information on the political affiliations of each member. The New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun published more extended biographies of all eleven members.
  
  La Guardia announced the members had been selected “because of their distinct contributions in their several fields,” according to a story in the New York Sun. He would later say that the appointments had been made "by advice,” according to the New York Age. There was no direct evidence of who offered La Guardia that advice. That it had not come from the leaders of Harlem’s social organizations was clear from the pointed request that James Hubert, the executive director of the Urban League, made to the mayor in a letter on March 26, “that in the future you will avail yourself of such assistance as is very easily obtained in Harlem and other Negro sections of the City to the end that whatever is undertaken may be accomplished as I know you desire the work to be done.” Instead, La Guardia appeared to have relied on those with whom he had political ties. Hubert Delany was likely one source of advice. La Guardia, who had appointed him tax commissioner, treated him “as an unofficial ombudsman for the black community” according to historian Thomas Kessner. (Delany was a member of the NAACP). The NAACP did send La Guardia a list of names on March 20 that included three of those appointed — Hays, Ernst, and Carter — but there is no evidence to confirm that the Mayor received that list before announcing the Commission members. Historian Stephen Carter argued that Eunice Hunton Carter may have been appointed in recognition of her willingness to run for a state assembly seat for La Guardia’s Republican-Fusion party the previous year. He noted that the party machine “had a tradition of finding places for candidates willing to run in tough cases against incumbents.” An Associated Negro Press story published in the Norfolk Journal and Guide attributed Carter’s subsequent appointment to Thomas Dewey’s team of special prosecutors going after the Mob to that obligation.
  
  La Guardia subsequently added two additional members, a Black clergyman and a white clergyman. Only the New York Amsterdam News reported those appointments, suggesting that the mayor's office did not announce them in press statements. The appointment of Rev. John W. Robinson, the retired pastor of St. Mark's, the city's largest AME church, was foreshadowed in newspaper stories about the mayor's visit to the Interdenominational Preachers Meeting of Greater New York and Vicinity on March 25. Robinson led that group. After their complainants about La Guardia's failure to appoint a minister, the mayor indicated he would consider appointing a nominee of the meeting. Stories in the Home News, New York Times, and New York World-Telegram and in the New York Amsterdam News and New York Age reported that the meeting chose Robinson. Evidence of an indirect political connection that may have made La Guardia receptive to that suggestion appeared in a New York Amsterdam News story on the couple's wedding: Robinson’s second wife, pharmacist Dr. Julia Coleman, was active in the Republican Party in Harlem.
  
  That La Guardia told the Interdenominational Preachers Meeting that he would also appoint a second clergyman “chosen from a denomination not included in the Alliance” was reported only in the New York Age. It took until April 4, almost a week after Robinson's appointment, for the mayor to finalize that choice: Father McCann of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church on West 141st Street. The New York Amsterdam News made McCann's appointment the headline of the story it published on April 6 about the MCCH hearing. McCann had appeared in earlier newspaper stories as a result of a pastoral letter he made public on March 23 blaming Communists for the disorder and calling for a movement to keep them out of Harlem. The priest's anti-communism offered La Guardia a way to address those who had criticized those he had appointed as all liberals. However, La Guardia had clearly also decided the second clergyman on the committee should be Catholic as he had sought the advice of Edmund B. Butler, a prominent Catholic lawyer who was secretary of the city’s Emergency Relief Bureau, about whom to appoint immediately after he met with the Black ministers. Butler wrote to him the next day, to give him McCann’s name, which he had been unable to think of at that time: “He has always been very much interested in Negroes and volunteered for the work….I think that the appointment of him would be excellent.” A note on the letter recorded, “Father McCann is white,” likely another criteria for his selection given that the committee had two more Black members than white members after Robinson’s appointment. Several days later, on April 1, Butler spoke to La Guardia about McCann, after which he told the clergyman that La Guardia was going to appoint him. On April 4, La Guardia wrote to notify Roberts that he had appointed Father McCann. Even after the Communist Party wrote to both the MCCH and the Mayor to complain about McCann's appointment on April 25, the Daily Worker did not report it.
  
  In the historical literature, only Lindsey Lupo identified all thirteen the members of the MCCH, in a chart that described their occupations in two or three words. Cheryl Greenberg named Delaney, Randolph, and, inexplicably, Cullen as examples of the "impressive range of experts" that La Guardia had appointed, also mistakenly including Frazier as a member of the commission. Naison only identified the number of "representative citizens" appointed, which he stated was eleven, neglecting the later appointments of Robinson and McCann. Johnson also mistakenly identified the MCCH as an eleven-member commission, without identifying any of the members. Kessner mentioned only Roberts, the chair, as did Watson.
  
  Information on the attendance of the MCCH members at their meetings and public hearings was collated by their staff. The MCCH included its own appraisal of each members contribution to its work in the foreword of the version of its report it submitted to Mayor La Guardia. Who signed, and thereby endorsed the report of the subcommittee on crime and the MCCH's final report, was documented in the MCCH records.

  Black members:

  Eunice Hunton Carter

  • Press statement: “social worker and lawyer"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Lawyer and social worker, holds degrees from Smith College and Columbia and Fordham Universities, Republican-Fusion candidate for Assembly from 19th Manhattan District in 1934"
  • New York Post: “lawyer and social worker and Fusion political leader” 
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a social worker, lawyer and leader in every important progressive movement in the community, who knows Harlem in its gladness and sorrow"
  • Meeting Attendance: 17
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 4 (missed May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Countee Cullen

  • Press statement: "author"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "poet, graduate of New York University; contributor to magazines and newspapers and winner of several poetry awards"
  • New York Post: “the poet”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a young Negro pedagogue and poet, brought to the commission the point of view of the youth"
  • Meeting Attendance: 11
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 4 (missed May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Hubert T. Delany

  • Press statement: "Tax Commissioner of the City of New York"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Negro, lawyer, graduate of the College of the City of New York and New York University Law School, Assistant United States Attorney under former United States Attorney Charles H. Tuttle, Republican candidate for House of Representatives from 21st Manhattan District in 1920. Commissioner of Board of Taxes and Assessments by appointment of Mayor LaGuardia in February 1934."
  • New York Post: “lawyer and Republican leader"
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "Commissioner of Taxes and Assessments of the City of New York, was well-qualified to anlayze the employment situation in Harlem. Mr Delany, a lawyer and former public official, was well-equipped to analyze the problem of unemployment with as little intellectual bias as anyone in the community."
  • Meeting Attendance: 12
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 3 (missed May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  A. Philip Randolph

  • Press statement: "Natl. President, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "general organizer and president of National Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, attended College of City of New York, founder of a magazine, 'The Messenger'"
  • New York Post: “president of the National Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a great leader in the labor movement displayed his keen sense of understanding as President of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Mr Randolph brought to the Commission a greater understanding of labor problems as they affect the Negroes than any other man that could be found in the community. Harlem respects and admires A. Philip Randolph."
  • Meeting Attendance: 7
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: MCCH report (not in New York when the Subcommittee report was submitted)

  Charles Roberts

  • Press statement: "dentist"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Negro, dentist, graduate of Lincoln University, Republican candidate for House of Representatives from 21st District in 1924, member of Board of Aldermen, 1931-1933"
  • New York Post: “dentist, Republican leader and former Alderman”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "selected for the reason that he has lived in the community of Harlem for over a quarter of a century. His life has been devoted to the development of the social, economic and cultural advancement of the community, both as a former public official and as a professional man. His unquestioned interest and knowledge of the community needs make him an outstanding representative of Harlem."
  • Meeting Attendance: 20
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Rev. John Robinson

  • No press statement or newspaper stories about his appointment
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a representative of the Interdenominational Ministers Alliance, symbolizes the opinion of Negro clergymen of Harlem. It is useless to state the churches of Harlem exercise the most vitalizing influence that can be found in this area."
  • Meeting Attendance: 13
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Charles Toney

  • Press statement: "Municipal Court"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Justice of Municipal Court; graduate of Syracuse University, Tammany Democrat"
  • New York Post: "justice of the Municipal Court and Democratic political leader”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a Justice of the Municipal Court of the City of New York, was of great assistance in that by reason of his experience in what is known as the poor man's court, brought a legal understanding to the commission that was valuable."
  • Meeting Attendance: 13
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 1 (missed April 6, April 20, May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

   

  White members:

  Morris L. Ernst

  • Press statement: "lawyer;" “writer and publisher” in the Daily Mirror and New York American
  • New York Herald Tribune: "lawyer, graduate of Columbia University, member of American Civil Liberties Union, counsel in many liberal causes, represented Mrs. Margaret Sanger, birth-control advocate; mediator in recent taxicab strike by appointment of Mayor LaGuardia"
  • New York Post: "of the Civil Liberties Union,” and grouped with Hays
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "an eminent attorney, did yeoman service relative to the housing situation"
  • Meeting Attendance: 6
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 2 (missed April 20, May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime

  John J. Grimley

  • Press statement: "doctor"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "physician, lieutenant-colonel of 369th Infantry, National Guard of New York, crack Negro regiment"
  • New York Post: “lieutenant-colonel of the Negro 369th Infantry, National Guard”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "brought to the Commission intimate contact with the manhood of Harlem through his experience as commanding officer of the 369th Infantry. Col. Grimley also rendered technical advice relative to the problem of health, having spent years as superintendent and director of various hospitals."
  • Meeting Attendance: 5
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 4 (recorded as missing May 18, but was referred to as present in transcript)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime

  Arthur Garfield Hays

  • Press statement: "lawyer"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Lawyer, graduate of Columbia University, counsel to American Civil Liberties Union, appeared as defense counsel in many cases involving civil liberties - coal strike in Pennsylvania, 1922; Scopes evolution trial in Tennessee, 1925; Countess Cathcart immigration case; Sacco-Vanzetti case in 1927, and most recently in defense of John Strachey, English lecturer threatened with deportation"
  • New York Post: “of the Civil Liberties Union,” and grouped with Ernst
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a champion of civil liberties, conducted with astuteness and patience the public hearings concerning the police and their treatment of Harlem. The information so adduced was of invaluable worth to the study."
  • Meeting Attendance: 12
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5 (chair)
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

  Father McCann

  • No press statement or newspaper stories about his appointment
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "represented the Catholic opinion of the community"
  • Meeting Attendance: 5
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 3 (missed March 30 [not appointed at that time], May 18)
  • Reports signed: Neither

  William J. Schieffelin

  • Press statement: "Trustee of the Tuskegee Institute”
  • New York Herald Tribune: "Chemist, graduate of Columbia School of Mines and University of Munich, chairman of Citizens Union, trustee of Hampton Institute and Tuskegee Institute, schools for the education of Negroes"
  • New York Post: “chairman of the Citizen's Union and of Tuskegee Institute, the Negro university”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "a trustee of Tuskegee Institute, a contributor and benefactor of the Negro race, a director of the Citizen's Union, and an exponent of social justice, contributed calm understanding of the perplexing problems that this committee dealt with."
  • Meeting Attendance: 9
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 3 (missed May 4, May 18)
  • Reports signed: MCCH report (not in New York when the subcommittee report was submitted)

  Oswald Garrison Villard

  • Press statement: "publisher"
  • New York Herald Tribune: "owner of 'The Nation'; graduate of Harvard University, liberal crusader, grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, founder of 'The Liberator,' and apostle of abolition of slavery"
  • New York Post: “editor of the Nation”
  • Foreword to the MCCH report: "former editor and owner of a metropolitan daily, former professor at Harvard University and contributing editor to the Nation, a member of the NAACP, writer and lecturer, a keen student of American social problem, not excepting the oftern referred to Negro problem, brought a wealth of understanding and experience. It has been said of Mr Villard that his merciless scrutiny and analysis make him one of the foremost social philosophers of America."
  • Meeting Attendance: 12
  • Subcommittee on Crime Hearing Attendance: 5
  • Reports signed: Subcommittee on crime; MCCH report

   
• 1 2022-10-29T19:10:54+00:00 MCCH Meeting (March 29, 1935) 42 plain 2024-01-28T17:19:50+00:00 The second meeting of the MCCH on March 29 attracted significantly less attention in the press than the first meeting. A story in the New York American on March 27 mentioned that it would take place. Only the New York Evening Journal published a story clearly based on the statement the MCCH released after the meeting, briefly announcing a hearing would take place on March 30 and the membership of the subcommittee holding it, including the recently appointed Rev. Robinson. A copy of the meeting minutes is in the MCCH records, together with multiple copies of the agenda. A report Carter prepared was on the agenda for this meeting.
  
  The only member not to attend was A. Philip Randolph; he had been called to appear before the National Mediation Railroad Board in Washington, DC on the day of the meeting. The other ten original members were joined for the first time by Rev. John Robinson, whom Mayor La Guardia had formally appointed that same day, fulfilling the commitment he made at his meeting with the Interdominational Preachers Meeting of Greater New York and Vicinity on March 25.
  
  Hays gave a report of the “Committee to Investigate the Happenings of March 19th.” He had evidently taken over from Toney, the chairman appointed at the first meeting. There is no mention of that change in any sources. Hays' report focused on preparations for a hearing the next day, March 30; there is also no evidence of when after the first meeting the decision to schedule that event had been made or by whom. While the upcoming hearing was reported the day after the meeting in the New York World-Telegram without attribution, the New York Herald Tribune attributed that information to Villard; however, that seems unlikely as the statement he wrote included a vague commitment rather than that information. It was Hays whom the Home News quoted a day later, on March 27, identifying him as “a member of a subcommittee which will meet at the Heights Court at 10 a. m. on Saturday 'to welcome anybody who has anything to tell us about what happened.'” The same statement later appeared in the Afro-American, in a separate story from the one that mentioned the first meeting of the MCCH, suggesting it had been made at a different time. On March 27, the Daily Worker reported that Hays’ statement announcing the hearing had “followed by a few hours a statement issued by Oscar Villard,” and included an attack on District Attorney William Dodge for suggesting he would use the criminal anarchy statute to prosecute Communists arrested during the disorder. The New York American also reported Hays' comments on March 27, and said he made them “yesterday,” March 26, the day after the committee met and Villard released his statement. The decision to hold a hearing on March 30 thus appeared to have been made between the MCCH’s first meeting and the first meeting of the subcommittee.
  
  Reports by Delany and Ernst on the subcommittees they chaired also mentioned planned public hearings, on housing on April 6 and on discrimination on April 13. (The MCCH had use of two courtrooms, making it possible to hold hearings on different topics at the same time.) Villard’s statement announced both those hearings as well as the hearing on the events of March 19th taking place the next day.
  
  The future program of work adopted by the MCCH at this meeting gave a far smaller place to the investigation of the events of the disorder going forward than indicated in the statement to the press after their first meeting. The extensive program outlined by Randolph, with contributions by Ernst, did not mention those events. However, it did appear to assume they were being investigated as an item under “Methods for making work of Commission effective” that called for “Release [of] sections of Report from time to time” listed as the first such section, “Immediate cause of riot Tuesday, March 19.” Randolph emphasized that recommendation in a letter to Carter informing her he would not be able to attend the meeting, writing “In order that the public, colored and white, may not develop a mordant and cynical pessimism toward the Commission, I think it proper to dramatize the work by the release of sectional reports by various committees from time to time. The first section released might well be on the immediate case of the riot Tuesday night, March 19.” The suggested program of work Walter White of the NAACP sent the mayor and MCCH on March 26th, likely discussed at the same time, gave a similar limited place to investigation of the events of the disorder. The “Immediate Causes of Rioting March 19th and 20th” was the second to last topic in his outline, which he envisioned as warranting attention at the outset of the investigation: “It is suggested that the committee might well devote, at the beginning of the” investigation, as much time as it deems wise to checking the facts on immediate causes of the riot to establish responsibility and to settle controversial points where, in the opinion of the committee, there is sufficient legitimate doubt on these points to merit investigation.” White, like Randolph, argued that it was “desirable for the committee to issue a preliminary report as soon as possible on its findings in this regard.”
  
  After the MCCH adopted an outline of the work drawn up by Randolph, “certain changes in Committee assignments were accepted.” Six new subcommittees were appointed focused on topics in the outline: education, health and sanitation, labor problems, law and legislation and relief agencies. The subcommittee on the events of the disorder was renamed “Crime.” (Randolph’s outline had proposed a subcommittee to investigate “Police – riot night – numbers and policy rackets.”) The members of that committee announced on March 29 appear to have been Hays, Toney, Schiefflin, Carter, and Robinson; those are the names reported in a New York Evening Journal story published on March 29, apparently based on the statement the MCCH released to the press. Robinson’s addition came at the instruction of La Guardia. A note in the files of the mayor indicated that a member of his staff had telephoned Hays on March 29 to tell him the “Mayor hopes it will be possible to have Dr. Robinson serve on Mr Hays subcommittee and requests that Robinson be advised of the next meeting of the committee.” At some point before it submitted its report, Villard was added to the subcommittee. He signed that report as a member, together with Hays, Toney, Carter, and Robinson. He could have replaced Schiefflin, whose signature was missing. However, Hays' covering letter submitting that report to the mayor noted that Schiefflin’s signature was missing as “he at present is in Europe.” Three undated lists of the subcommittee memberships filed in the records of the MCCH confusingly list only some of the members identified in those sources; they are likely drafts. What appears to be a copy of the press statement released after the meeting on March 29 included only Hays, Schiefflin, and Toney as subcommittee members, omitting Carter and Robinson, as well as Villard. Two documents in the same file, one entitled “Suggested Committees and Assignments” and the other “Chairman and Members of Each Sub-Committee,” listed Hays, Schiefflin, Toney, and Villard as members of the crime subcommittee, omitting both Carter and Robinson.
  
  It was also at this meeting, in a discussion of securing letterheads, that the MCCH chose a “formal name.” They had been referring to themselves as the “Bi-Racial Commission.” The new name may have been Villard’s suggestion; he moved the motion to adopt it.
• 1 2023-07-09T00:33:29+00:00 The MCCH and the subcommittee report 20 plain 2024-02-02T22:06:57+00:00 Villard sent his draft report to Hays on May 27, the day before the MCCH was scheduled to meet. He proposed that they “read the report to the whole committee and discuss any suggestions or criticisms.” Only six other MCCH members joined them at that meeting, only Ernst of the four other white members and five of the seven Black members, Roberts, Carter, Toney, Robinson, and Cullen. All five members of the subcommittee on crime were among those in attendance. Villard read the report, “a few necessary corrections” were made, and then Ernst moved that the MCCH adopt the report and arrange to submit it to the mayor. Hays’ copy of Villard’s report is marked up with several corrections and additions. They are likely a combination of changes made by Hays and those made at the MCCH meeting.
  
  The MCCH made several changes to reduce the violence in the report’s portrayal of the events of the disorder. “Riot” was replaced with “disturbance” in the opening sentence and the account of police fetching Rivera from his bed to show he was unharmed. Hays later explained that due to the small proportion of the community involved in the disorder, the MCCH “often referred to the incidents of that night as a 'disturbance' rather than a 'riot.'” The violence described in the report was further reduced by corrections to claims not supported by the information gathered by the MCCH. The reference to five deaths in the preface to the findings that opened the report was corrected to several deaths. Opting to refer less precisely to several deaths reflected the uncertainty surrounding two of the four deaths the MCCH had investigated, with no clear evidence of the circumstances in which August Miller and Andrew Lyons had died. There is no mention of a fifth death. A later reference to “five men who lost their lives were killed by police” was removed. The possibility that police were responsible for all the shootings during the disorder had been examined during the first public hearing, but they had been established as responsible only for killing Lloyd Hobbs and James Thompson. Also removed from the middle of a long quotation of Louise Thompson’s testimony to the first public hearing was a mention of a woman breaking an umbrella on the head of a police officer in the Kress store. None of the other testimony about events in the store had mentioned such an attack.
  
  At the same time as they downplayed the violence of the disorder as a whole, MCCH members heightened their criticism of the actions of the police and district attorney in the killing of Lloyd Hobbs. As well as additions highlighting how unlikely it was that Hobbs had time to enter the automobile store, loot it, and leave carrying items in his hands as the police described, a further denunciation was added: “A policeman who kills becomes at once prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.” Criticism of the district attorney was made more pointed, with the reluctance to seek an indictment of Patrolman McInerney becoming a result of the “killer” being a police officer.
  
  One other set of cuts to the report changed its portrayal of participants in the disorder. The MCCH removed two descriptions of the Black population that employed racist stereotypes that implied a degree of responsibility for the disorder. Villard had allowed, in introducing the section on police conduct, that “the excitable nature of the people with whom the police were called upon to deal” would have contributed to the actions of police during the disorder. In the final sentence he had also attributed the danger radical propaganda posed to “public order” in Harlem not only to the economic and social conditions but also to “a people peculiarly subject to emotional appeals.” The description of participants as coming from the criminal class, which Villard had used in place of Hays description of them as hoodlums, was changed to hoodlums. Presenting participants as troublemakers rather than criminals reduced the threat posed by the disorder, in a parallel with the change from riot to disturbance.
  
  Hays sent Villard a “clean copy” of the report on May 29, which included an additional section he wrote addressed to the mayor and police commissioner urging them to take the opportunity to change the system and psychology of police. After Villard returned it with “a few typographical and stylistic changes on June 1, Hays responded suggesting adding a final sentence highlighting the recommendations to create community oversight of the police and change police behavior could be adopted even in the midst of a depression as they required no extra spending, a version of which appeared in the final report. Both those additions were made without reference to the other MCCH members.
  
  At the next meeting of the MCCH, on June 4, Hays reported that the edited report was ready to be signed by MCCH members, after which he would deliver it to the Mayor’s office. Ten MCCH members signed the report. The signatures of A. Philip Randolph and William Schieffelin were missing because they were out of town, Hays wrote in the letter accompanying the submitted report. Father McCann had “refused to sign the Report, apparently not approving thereof.” Although the priest had not been at the meeting on May 28 that had read the report, he was present the next week when it was ready for signatures but apparently had not voiced his objections at that time. However, when the subcommittee report was released, McCann would publicly challenge the MCCH account of the events of the disorder and the role of police in the violence.