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

Hashi Mohammed arrested

Officer Brown of the 40th Precinct arrested Hashi Mohammed, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, for inciting a riot and possession of a knife. Mohammed had allegedly smashed windows "along Lenox Avenue," according to a story in the Home News, the source details of the charges made against him. Born in Abyssinia, according to the New York American and New York Evening Journal and Washington Heights Magistrate's Court docket book, he lived at 4 West 128th Street, a block east of an area of Lenox Avenue that saw extensive disorder from late on March 19 and into the early hours of March 20, and may have been drawn to join the crowds on that street at some point. The combination of charges suggest that after Mohammed's arrest the police officer searched him and found the knife, "a large bread knife" according to Home News. Mohammed also appeared in lists of the injured published in the New York Evening Journal, New York Post and New York American as having "internal injuries." While he was listed among those "Less Seriously Injured" in the New York American and New York Evening Journal, he was also identified as in Harlem Hospital (however, he does not appear in any of the records the MCCH obtained from the hospital). It is possible that Brown or other police officers involved in his arrest may have been responsible for those injuries.

Mohammed was included in the list of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide as charged with inciting a riot and "also charged with, violation of Sullivan law (possession of firearms)." When Mohammed appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrate's Court he faced both charges, but the weapon he was recorded in the docket book as possessing was a knife not a gun.

Mohammed did not appear in the Washington Heights Magistrate's Court until March 22, whereas most of those arrested in the disorder had been in court on March 20. That delay may have been the result of his injury. On the charge of carrying a dangerous weapon, Magistrate Ford held him on bail of $2500 to appear in the Court of Special Sessions, significantly more than the typical bail of $500. Mohammed pled guilty, according to the docket book, but it cannot have been to a charge of riot as Ford sentenced him to thirty days in the Workhouse. He likely actually pled guilty to disorderly conduct, as the Magistrate was able to adjudicate that offense, unlike the more serious charge of riot. The only reports of Mohammed's court appearance were in the Daily Worker, which mentioned only the sentence and misreported the charge against him as burglary, and the Home News, which reported he had been convicted not pled guilty. Three weeks later, on April 17, the Magistrates in the Court of Special Sessions acquitted Mohammed of possessing a weapon, an outcome that appears only in the records of the 32nd Precinct.

The sources differ in how they record Mohammed's name. In the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide he appears as Sashi Mohammed, as Hashi Mohammed in the New York Evening Journal, New York Post and New York American, as Hashi Mohamed in the Home News and as Hashi Mohamid in the Washington Heights Magistrate's Court docket book.The records of the 32nd Precinct record his name as "Koko Mohammed."
 

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