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Jack Sherloff's jewelry store looted
tossed only a few pieces back into the store when the rioters ganged him. He put up a terrific battle and got badly banged up; he's home in bed now. Somebody finally clipped him with a silver cake plate snatched from the window and I had to drag him into the store to save his life.
The newspaper story is the only source to mention the looting of Sherloff's store. Sherloff does not appear in any records of those injured during the disorder. Of the four stores mentioned in the New York Daily News, only one appears in any other source. None of the arrests for looting linked to businesses occurred during this time. While some of the other arrests may have come during this time, it seems unlikely. The New York Herald Tribune claimed "the first arrest for alleged looting" during the disorder came two blocks further north, around 10.10 PM, when Officer Irwin Young arrested Leroy Gillard. Leroy Brown had been arrested around 30 minutes earlier across the street at the southern end of the block for urging people to follow his example and break store windows. But when crowds first moved north from 125th Street in the hour or so prior to those arrests, few, if any, police appear to have been on these blocks of 7th Avenue; certainly not enough to both protect stores and make arrests, so no arrests were made to bring the events into the legal system.
Given the time, many businesses in this area would still have been open, but the struggle between Sherloff and those attacking his store is the only reported instance of a violent clash between storeowners or staff and those attacking stores. Herman Young was struck by a brick thrown through his store window, but otherwise all the others reported as being present took cover in the rear of their stores.