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Elizabeth Tai arrested
Tai was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20 with two other individuals arrested by Detective Phillips, Arthur Davis and Herbert Hunter, also charged with burglary, perhaps arrested at the same time and place. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips name and precinct; the story in the Daily Worker identified him as a detective.
When Tai appeared in court again, on March 22, Magistrate Renaud convicted and sentenced her. The docket book recorded that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct, the original charge crossed out, and stories in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal reported she had been convicted of disorderly conduct, not burglary, as had Davis and Hunter. Only that lesser offense could have been dealt with in the Magistrates Court rather than as a misdemeanor in the Court of Special Sessions or a felony in the grand jury and Court of General Sessions. Had the prosecutor presented evidence Tai had stolen merchandise she would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; the charge of disorderly conduct suggests she may have allegedly broken store windows without taking anything. She is one of only three women charged with looting in the disorder.
Renaud sentenced Tai to pay a fine of $25 or serve five days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, as was Davis. He gave Hunter a longer sentence of ten days without the alternative of a fine. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter and stories in the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker record her sentence as five days in the Workhouse, making it likely that Tai was unable to pay the fine.
Tai is the name recorded in the docket book, and in the lists published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the New York Evening Journal. It is recorded differently in other sources less reliable than the legal record: as Tae in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, as Pae in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal and as Cay in the Daily Worker. If it was recorded correctly by the court clerk, Tai is a common last name among Chinese living overseas, suggesting that Elizabeth was married to a Chinese man. Given the unusual last name, the arrested woman may be the Elizabeth Tai who died in Harlem Hospital on April 20, 1945. She had been born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1905, and was a widow at the time of her death, with her husband's name transcribed as Hawley Tai. This Elizabeth Tai had been a domestic worker, and lived at 124 West 135th Street at the time of her death.
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This page references:
- "Transcripts of Police Blotter - Precinct 28, March 19 & 20, 1935," Folder "MCCH - Juvenile Delinquency - 1935-36," Correspondence (Roll 13), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945.
- "Harlem Riot Damage is Figured at Half Million," Afro-American, March 30, 1935, 1, 2.
- "List of Dead And Injured In Riot In New York City," Norfolk Journal and Gazette, March 30, 1935, 18.
- "Says Economic Conditions in Harlem Are Bad," Atlanta World, March 27, 1935, 1, 2.
- "Two More Victims of Harlem Riot Die," New York Daily News, March 23, 1935, 15.
- Harlem Magistrates Court docket book
- "List of Those under Arrest in Harlem Riot and the Charges They Face," New York Evening Journal, March 20, 1935, 3.
- "'Red Scare' Aims To Hide Negro Misery," Daily Worker, March 23, 1935, 1, 2.
- "Plan to Indict More in Riots," New York Evening Journal, March 23, 1935, 5.
- New York City Death Certificates, Borough: Manhattan; Year: 1945 (New York City Department of Records and Information Services) (Ancestry.com)