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Detective Henry Roge assaulted
As Hughes was being arrested, Roge's injuries were bleeding profusely. A call for medical assistance brought Dr Fabian of the Joint Disease Hospital to attend to the detective. A New York Evening Journal photographer captured several images of a uniformed officer helping a bleeding Roge from the scene (the only images of an injured police officer published). According to the record of medical attendances, Roge remained on duty after being attended by the doctor, but other sources reported that his injury required two stitches, which involved Roge being taken to Harlem Hospital. The Probation report recorded that Roge was on sick leave for ten days after his injury, making it more likely his injury required him to leave the scene for treatment.
Hughes was tried and convicted of misdemeanor assault. The prosecutor’s notes on the trial suggest that Gill’s testimony stressed that he was certain of his identification of Hughes as the man who threw the rock, against which Hughes offered his denial and a series of character witnesses. In response, the prosecutor argued that Hughes “saw plenty of trouble – went right into it.” At the sentencing hearing, the judge expressed belief that Hughes had thrown the rock at the store window, not Roge, so sentenced him to term of only three months in the workhouse.
As with other assaults, the press coverage of this case was fragmented. Roge appeared on the lists of those injured published by white newspapers the New York American (on both March 20 & 21), New York Evening Journal, Home News, Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Post, and in stories in the Daily Mirror. Hughes appeared in lists of those arrested published in the Black newspapers the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the white New York Evening Journal. The two were linked in only three stories, in the New York Times, Home News and Daily Worker. Even when Hughes was tried, producing additional coverage, only two of the five stories mentioned Roge. But that legal process did generate case files in both the DA’s office and the Probation Department which provided details that are available for only a handful of the events of the disorder.
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This page references:
- "Harlem Riot Damage is Figured at Half Million," Afro-American, March 30, 1935, 1, 2.
- "Injured," New York Daily News, March 20, 1935, 3
- Probation Department Case File, 26461 (1935) (New York City Municipal Archives)
- “List of Victims," New York Evening Journal, March 20, 1935, 1, 3.
- "1 Dead, 7 shot, 100 Hurt as Harlem Crowds Riot over Boy, 16, and Hearse," New York Herald Tribune, March 20, 1935, 1.
- District Attorney's Closed Case Files, 204052 (1935) (New York City Municipal Archives)
- "List of Dead And Injured In Riot In New York City," Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 30, 1935, 18.
- "Medical Attendances, 19-20 March 1935," Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 5 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- "Says Economic Conditions in Harlem Are Bad," Atlanta World, March 27, 1935, 1, 2.
- “List of Casualties in Riots,” New York Post, March 20, 1935, 6.
- "5 dying and Scores Wounded as Race Riots in Harlem Subside," Home News, March 20, 1935 [clipping]
- “Riot’s Casualties," New York American, March 21, 1935, 2.
- "1 Slain, 20 Injured in Harlem Rioting," New York American, March 20, 1935, 1.
- "Police Shoot Into Rioters; Kill Negro in Harlem Mob. 3,000 Storm Store After Boy Knife Thief, 16, Is Reported Lynched-Several Shot - Many Felled by Stones," New York Times, March 20, 1935, 1.
- "Harlem Mob War. 1 Dies, 50 Hurt, 100 Arrested In Wild Night, Daily Mirror, March 20, 1935, 4.