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

B. Z. Kondoul assaulted

B. Z. Kondoul, a thirty-five year-old white man living at 55 West 110th Street, was allegedly assaulted by a crowd of "40-50" black men and women on 7th Avenue near 122nd Street.

According to a report in the New York Evening Journal, Kondoul fled from the crowd until he saw a police officer guarding a grocery store, part of the James Butler chain, at West 123rd St and Lenox Avenue. The officer, Patrolman William Clements, drew his revolver and fired at the crowd to hold them back. After he fired two shots, the crowd backed away from the two white men, and turned to throwing objects at them: stones, fruit, garbage can lids. When the crowd closed in again, Clements "emptied his gun." The shots kept the crowd at bay long enough for a police radio car to arrive and "rescue" Clements and Kondoul. The New York Evening Journal reports the event in the sensational language it favored for alleged attacks by blacks on whites: Clement's "heroism" saved Kondoul from "probable death" at the hands of a "gang" crying "Kill him."

A brief report in the New York American is more to the point, simply stating Kondoul was "rescued by a patrolman who fired several shots at his assailants without hitting anyone." Police officers commonly fired shots in the air to attempt to disperse crowds. In this case, however, the reports suggest that Clements fired at the crowd. It is not clear when the event took place, but it does offer evidence that police shooting at residents might have been responsible for the unattributed injuries from gunfire during the disorder.

Neither story mentions any injury suffered by Kondoul, but he does appear in lists of the injured in the New York Evening Journal and New York Daily News, described as having bruises to the face for which he was treated at Harlem Hospital, and the Home News, "Among the white persons injured by rocks, flying glass or in personal encounters," with "lacerations and bruises." (He does not appear in the New York American list of the injured).

Note: The spelling of Kondoul's name is different in all the reports: Kondoul and Kendul in the Journal and Daily News, Kendel in the Home News, and Aambel in the American.

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