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

Detective William Boyle assaulted

Detective William Boyle, a twenty-nine-year-old white officer, was allegedly assaulted "while attempting to rescue an unknown white man being assaulted at scene of riot,” according to the record of the ambulance that attended him. Dr. Sayet of Harlem Hospital treated Boyle at the 28th Precinct on West 123rd Street, where he was based, at 9:15 PM, indicating that that assault took place sometime earlier, around 9:00 PM. The "scene of riot" where the alleged assault occurred was likely the block of 125th Street between 8th and 7th Avenues, where the disorder was concentrated around 9:00 PM. Two alleged assaults on white men on 125th Street around that time could be the incident in which Boyle was assaulted. Both men are described as being assaulted by groups of "unknown colored men" in Hospital Admission records, Maurice Spellman on the corner of 8th Avenue and Morris Werner on the corner of 7th Avenue. Those locations fit the details in Boyle's Medical Attendance record better than the location at which a story in the New York Times put the assault, the rear of Kress' store on West 124th Street. Boyle is one of three officers listed as injured after "a barrage of missiles fell on the ranks of the police who had caught up with the crowd" after it moved from the front of the store. However, that clash occurred around two hours before Boyle attended by an ambulance. Ambulances treated the two other officers on that list, Patrolman Michael Kelly and Detective Charles Foley, around two hours before Boyle was treated, although they received treatment at the scene, while Boyle was attended at the 28th Precinct. The story also mistakenly located Harry Gordon's alleged assault on Patrolman Young at the rear of this store around the same time, rather than in front of the store around forty-five minutes before police clashed with crowds at the rear of the store. No sources mention an attack on a white man at the rear of Kress' store.

The Medical Attendance record described Boyle's injury as "contusions and abrasions of left ankle." He also appeared on lists of the injured published by the New York American, Daily News, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Evening Journal, in addition to the story in the New York Times and a story in the Daily Mirror. All but the Daily Mirror reported Boyle's injury as cuts to the left ankle, or "deep cuts" in the case of the New York Herald Tribune and New York Post. Both those lists and the stories in the New York Times and Daily Mirror included the information that Boyle had been hit by an object, a "rock," "hurled stone," "flying brick," and "thrown rock" respectively. The injury was not serious enough for Boyle to be taken to hospital; he "remained on duty," according to the Medical Attendance record. The Daily Mirror alone mistakenly reported that Boyle had "received a fracture of the left leg" and been "removed to Harlem Hospital." It seems likely given Boyle's injury that the unknown white man that he intervened to protect was the target of missiles rather than being beaten. As a detective, Boyle would not have been in uniform at the time.
 

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