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• 1 2022-11-11T17:12:58+00:00 The public hearing of the MCCH's subcommittee on crime (May 18) 27 plain 2024-05-31T19:09:40+00:00 Ten witnesses testified at the hearing in the Washington Heights Magistrates court on May 18; only four provided evidence about the events of the disorder. Jackson Smith, the manager of the Kress store, testified about events in the store and on 125th Street. The MCCH had been seeking his testimony for two months, but as the last witness to what happened in the store to appear, he had little new to add to what they had already heard. While he saw Rivera take the knife, as Hurley had testified, he had remained in his office so had not seen his staff struggle with the boy. Nor was he involved in Patrolman Donahue’s decision to take Rivera into the basement and release out the store’s rear exit. Smith did make the decision not to charge the boy, but made clear that it was Hurley’s decision about whether to charge him with assault that resulted in Donahue releasing him. The new information Smith provided concerned efforts to calm shoppers and his decisions to summon an increasing police presence and ultimately to have them clear the store once he decided to close. Again, he participated only in the initial efforts to convince shoppers and did not witness how police treated them. He then remained in the store throughout the disorder and witnessed the arrests of Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators who picketed the store. While most newspaper stories mentioned Smith’s appearance, they did not treat his testimony as adding anything new. The New York Herald Tribune explicitly reported that "all of [the testimony about the events of March 19] had been gone over in previous meetings,” while the New York Sun described Smith as having “once more told” how Rivera had been apprehended. Even the MCCH members had limited interest in his testimony, with Oscar Villard suggesting that Charles Romney “was taking too much time by going over evidence already covered,” according to the New York Sun. More attention was paid to the Southern accent — the “Dixie drawl” — in which Smith delivered his testimony than its substance. The Home News, New York American, Daily News, New York Times, New York Sun, New York Post, and New York Age all referred to it. The New York World-Telegram mentioned only that Smith and several clerks had remained in the store throughout the disorder.
  
  The MCCH heard the testimony of three additional eyewitnesses to the killing of Lloyd Hobbs on May 18, as well as further information about the items the boy had allegedly stolen. Marshall Pfifer and Warren Wright testified at the hearing, while Clarence Wilson reported the testimony of John Bennett, who was too sick to attend the hearing. All three men told the same story as Malloy, Moore, and Pitts had in the earlier hearing: Hobbs was not carrying anything and McInerney had not called out for him to stop before shooting him. Pfifer had watched from the same corner as the earlier witnesses, whereas Wright and Bennett saw those events from different perspectives. Wright was at the entrance to the apartments above 2150 7th Avenue, south of the automobile supply store, while Bennett was in 201 West 128th Street, toward which Hobbs was running when McInerney shot him. While their testimony did not include any new information about the killing of Hobbs, it was new evidence that provided a basis for presenting the case to the grand jury again. Detective O’Brien testified for the second time, bringing with him the horn and socket set that police alleged Hobbs had taken from the automobile supply store but which none of the eyewitnesses had seen in his possession. O’Brien repeatedly denied knowledge of when the items were turned over to the property clerk, frustrating Hays’ efforts to elicit testimony that McInerney had them for nineteen days after he arrested Hobbs, which James Tartar, the MCCH investigator, had established. While that long interval gave the patrolman the opportunity to have obtained the items after he arrested the boy to justify the shooting, O’Brien also for the first time reported that McInerney had noted recovered items in the arrest record on March 20. (While that evidence apparently confirmed that the patrolman had not obtained the items later to help justify shooting Hobbs, Tartar would later claim that the record had been altered to add that information.) Black newspapers the New York Age and Afro-American again reported this testimony in more detail than the white press (this issue of the New York Amsterdam News has not survived), but only the New York World-Telegram mentioned all three eyewitnesses. Pfifer also appeared in the New York Age and New York Times, whereas the Home News and the New York Sun mentioned only Wright. Who had possession of the allegedly stolen items was discussed in both Black newspapers, the New York World-Telegram, New York Times, and Home News (without mentioning O’Brien in the Afro-American and New York World-Telegram). Only the New York World-Telegram dramatized that evidence, reporting, “One of the mysteries in the case is the appearance several days ago after Hobbs death of loot of which there had been no record at the time he was shot.” Which MCCH members heard this testimony was not entirely clear. MCCH records identified only Hays, Villard, Roberts, Robinson, and Randolph as being at this hearing, the smallest group to attend the subcommittee on crime’s hearings. An audience member was also recorded in the transcript as identifying Grimley as also present.
  
  The effect of the audience interventions in this hearing are more difficult to determine than in the preceding hearings. The New York Age described the audience as creating “incessant confusion,” suggesting that its journalist no longer perceived the interventions as contributing to what the MCCH learned from the testimony. The New York Herald Tribune also saw less significance in the audience’s behavior, presenting it as just the latest example of the “turbulence at almost every session.” Other white newspapers reported the hearing as similar to those that preceded it without those judgments, “one of the most stormy” according to the New York Post and the “liveliest” in the assessment of the Home News. Charles Romney’s role in disrupting the hearing was also treated as less significant, by the New York Herald Tribune, as what he had done “on several previous occasions.” MCCH members had also heard enough from Romney. Villard’s suggestion that he was taking too much time going over Smith’s testimony about when Rivera was apprehended led to an outburst from Romney attacking the MCCH for protecting witnesses (which was not recorded in the transcript). After a recess, the MCCH members decided that Romney would no longer be allowed to question witnesses, holding to that position over objections from the audience. At the same time, Hays allowed other audience members to question Smith. Just who they were is not always recorded in the transcript or reported in the press, but Fannie Horowitz and Mrs. Burroughs were identified. Rev. Robinson also took up the issue of whether Rivera was the boy who had been in the store that audience members had introduced in the hearings on March 30 and April 6. He questioned Smith about his identification of Rivera for some time before Hays declared the issue resolved. Hays did however have James Tartar, the MCCH investigator, testify that no boy ten years old or younger had been treated for injuries at Harlem Hospital to further confirm the identification of Rivera.
  
  If Hays did not adopt the suspicion of Rivera promoted by audience members, he did take up the critical stance toward Lieutenant Battle that the audience had displayed at the previous hearing. His criticism of Battle for not stopping warrantless searches brought applause from the audience, reported by the Home News and New York Age. Hays also turned to the audience to confirm allegations that police stopped residents on the street and searched them for numbers, slips from the form of gambling prevalent in Harlem. Twenty-five people stood, dramatizing the claims about harassment. Hays challenged Inspector Di Martini and Captain Rothengast about those illegal practices. As a result, criticism of police was again the headline to stories in the New York Times, Home News, New York World-Telegram, Afro-American, and New York Age. Thanks to the reactions of the audience, the role of the police in the events of the disorder would have been at the front of Hays' mind when he turned to drafting the subcommittee’s report immediately after the hearing.