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Hit by Objects (18)
Almost all (10 of 12) of the civilians hit by objects appear either only in reports of hospital admissions (4 of 12) or only in newspaper reports (6 of 12); only two appear in both sources (one whose assault led to an arrest). That discrepancy did not result from reporters ignoring the hospital, as five photographs appear in the Daily News, taken both inside and outside the facility. But reporters do not appear to have been able to systematically gather the names of those being treated notwithstanding newspapers' practice of publishing lists that had the appearance of being comprehensive. Clearly the hospital records did not include everyone treated for an injury. Patricia O’Rourke appears in a photograph published in the Daily News leaving the hospital bandaged, but is not in the hospital’s admission records. Likewise, lists of the injured in newspapers recorded numerous individuals as having been treated at Harlem Hospital who do not appear in the admission records. Journalists also noted that ambulances called during the disorder treated more people than made it into their records. Of the six police officers, four appear in hospital records and in newspaper lists of the injured, while the remaining two appear only in newspaper reports.
O’Rourke’s injuries are typical of those resulting from these assaults – cuts to the eye, forehead and cheek, which most of papers described as “lacerations” rather than cuts, as hospital records did. Cuts produced by rocks, stones, bottles and shattered glass produced significant bleeding, as photos show. The impact of being hit by an object also knocked at least some off their feet, a detail missing from reports but evident in photographs. The white man being helped up by a police patrolman in this image published in the Daily News had been hit in the head with a bottle (a piece of which is identified is visible in the published photograph, highlighted with an arrow). Several cars traveling along the street are visible in this uncropped version of the image previously available in the Daily News archive. Another Daily News photograph taken sometime earlier from in the street showed the man down on the ground with a bloodied face. Two police officers suffered injuries to their legs rather than heads, and one to his hands. However, three attacks on individuals in cars did not result in reported injuries, two on Fred Campbell as he drove up 7th Avenue, and one on Detective Frank Lenahan.
It was not always clear that those hit were actually the intended targets of the objects. Rocks, stone and bottles were also being thrown at store windows. The Home News account of Isaac Daniel’s alleged assault on Herman Young explicitly identified a store window as Daniel’s target; Young, the storeowner, was not injured by the stone Daniel’s threw but by the glass sent flying when it hit and shattered a window. Young was likely behind the window, inside his store. Others hit by objects were standing in front of windows, potentially between those throwing and their targets. That was the case with Detective Henry Roge, who was in front of Kress store when hit by a rock allegedly thrown by James Hughes. Police witnesses were certain that Roge was the target, although two newspaper reports said the rock hit the store window after striking Roge. Hughes denied throwing the rock, and although convicted, received a sentence of only 3 months in the workhouse, which the Assistant District Attorney explained reflected the judge’s belief that the store window, not Roge, was his target.
In other cases, there is evidence that those throwing objects hit their targets. The Daily News photographer Ebbs Breuer and his assistant made their identity obvious by setting up to take images, prompting some members of the crowd to bombard them with rocks. Breuer suffered cuts to the head, Martin a broken nose, injuries that required a trip to Harlem Hospital. None of the black journalists on 125th Street reported being attacked.
Similarly, cars and buses traveling along Harlem’s streets were clearly the targets of the objects that hit them. Lenox and 7th Avenues were major traffic routes, with almost all of the vehicles, private and commercial, driven by whites. One Black driver, Fred Campbell, was caught up in the disorder. A brick smashed the rear window of Campbell’s car as he drove up 7th avenue at the same time as windows smashed on both sides of the street – but the width of Harlem’s avenues made it unlikely he had been hit by someone trying to throw from one side of the street at a window on the other side. In the streets rather than on the sidewalks, vehicles represented targets similarly distant from the crowd as bystanders in front of stores, police and reporters. Campbell reported being hit by more bricks before he reached his destination, and seeing cars driven by whites with broken windows, but on finishing his errand to pick up the day’s receipts from his two barber’s shops, he returned home. Likely so too did the drivers of the other cars Campbell saw. Two buses likewise were bombarded with stones as they drove through the disorder on 7th Avenue, one part of the local service, one on its way out of the city to Boston, but continued on to their destinations. Only the injured were drawn into the historical record. Joseph Rinaldi, a passenger traveling to Boston, was hit by flying glass; the bus stopped at a drug store outside Harlem so he could treat his injuries. Patricia O’Rourke was also in a car hit by bricks while traveling on 7th Avenue, toward her home in the West Bronx, but in her case the front window smashed, leaving her with cuts to her eyes, forehead and cheeks. The Daily News put a photograph of O’Rourke leaving Harlem Hospital with bandages obscuring much of her face on its front page (the caption highlighting the fur coat and wealthy father made her entirely unrepresentative of those caught up in the disorder).
Police riding on riot trucks were more exposed than passengers inside cars; at least one officer, Henry Whittington, was hit. According to the Daily Mirror, he “was “sniped” off of the emergency truck he was riding at 8th Ave and 123rd St.” No such details appear in other newspapers, which simply include Whittington in their lists of the injured, with a head wound. Police in cars do not seem to have been subject to the same attacks as other whites driving through Harlem. The only reported instance of such an attack appears only in the New York Herald Tribune, a brief note that “The automobile of Detective Lieutenant Frank Lenahan was badly battered by rocks and most of its glass shattered when Lenahan drove through a riotous section of Eighth Avenue” in the early hours of the disorder.