This page was created by Anonymous.  The last update was by Stephen Robertson.

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

David Bragg arrested

Sometime during the disorder, Patrolman Leahy of the 28th Precinct arrested David Bragg, a thirty-three-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing a rock through the window of Ben Salcfas' grocery store at 2061 7th Avenue, according to a story in the Home News. The window could have been broken around 11:15 PM, when a group of twenty-five to thirty people gathered at the intersection. Another officer from the 28th Precinct, Patrolman Peter Naton, arrested one member of that group, James Pringle, for allegedly urging the others to cross the street so they could throw rocks at police. The group continued on despite the arrest, smashing store windows, according to Naton. Bragg may have been part of that group. Later, two stores close to the grocery store were looted. First, Sarah Refkin's delicatessen at 2067 7th Avenue at 12:30 AM, and then Nicholas Peet's tailors store at 2063 7th Avenue at 1:30 AM. The shoe repair store directly across 7th Avenue from the grocery store was also looted sometime during the disorder. Bragg lived at 235 West 135th Street, over ten blocks north of the store, between 7th and 8th Avenues. He likely had come to 125th Street some time earlier in the evening in response to the rumors circulating in Harlem and joined the people who moved south on 7th Avenue as the disorder intensified.

"Ben Salcfas" of 2061 7th Avenue was recorded as the complainant against David Bragg in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. A story in the Home News was the only other source that linked Bragg to 2061 7th Avenue. The information that Bragg threw a rock at the store window was also only found in that story, a report of his appearance in the Harlem Magistrates Court. The charge made against Bragg when he was arraigned, malicious mischief, involves the destruction of property, and was used in other prosecutions for breaking windows. However, police initially charged Bragg with inciting a riot, which was the charge recorded in the 28th Precinct police blotter, and in the lists of those arrested during the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. When Bragg appeared in court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on bail of $1,000. Convicted by the judges of that court, he was sentenced on April 1 to three months in the Workhouse, according to the 28th Precinct police blotter.

This page has tags:

This page references: