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Bernard Smith arrested
Bernard Smith gave his occupation as interior decorator when examined in the Harlem Magistrates Court, and his home, for the last eight years, as 116 West 126th Street. That building was close to the bar and restaurant, around the nearby southwest corner of West 126th Street and four buildings west. Smith appeared in the lists of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal as one of those charged with inciting a riot. The 28th Precinct police blotter also recorded the charge made against Smith as "Inciting riot."
The last person to appear in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Smith was charged with both malicious mischief, for allegedly breaking the window, and inciting a riot, for his alleged call for the group to break other windows. Held in custody by Magistrate Renaud, Smith returned to court on March 25, when bail was set at $500 for the first charge and $1,000 for the second, and then again on March 26, when Magistrate Ford held him for the grand jury on the charge of riot. Prosecutors reduced the charge of malicious mischief to disorderly conduct, likely indicating a lack of evidence that he had broken the window. Magistrate Ford found him guilty of that charge and sentenced him to five days in the Workhouse or a fine of $25. The docket book recorded that he paid the fine. Misleadingly, the 28th Precinct police blotter also recorded that sentence, but not either of the charges of malicious mischief and disorderly conduct, only the charge of riot.
A week later, Smith appeared before the grand jury, which dismissed the riot charge, an outcome recorded only in his District Attorney's case file. While the grand jury did not indict any of those arrested during the disorder charged with inciting a riot, it did send all the others who appeared before it to the Court of Special Sessions rather than dismissing the charges. The difference in Smith's case could be that no one else allegedly broke windows in the store that he attacked and the subsequent attacks on people and property could not be linked to him.
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- "Transcripts of Police Blotter - Precinct 28, March 19 & 20, 1935," MCCH - Juvenile Delinquency - 1935-36, Departmental Correspondence. Box 34, Folder 1 (Roll 171), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945.
- New York Penal Law, § 2090-2094: Riot
- New York Penal Law, § 722-724: Disorderly Conduct
- New York Penal Law, § 1433: Malicious mischief
- Harlem Magistrates Court docket book
- District Attorney's Closed Case Files, 204075 (1935) (New York City Muncipal Archives).