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James Smith arrested
Magistrate Ford convicted Smith and sentenced him to six months in the Workhouse, an outcome recorded in the docket book and reported in the New York Herald Tribune and Home News and later in the New York Age. That was the maximum prison term the Magistrate could impose for disorderly conduct, and one of the heaviest punishments given to those arrested during the disorder. Notwithstanding the decision to charge him with disorderly conduct, that outcome suggests that police did allege that Smith had been involved in looting.
There is considerable variation in Smith's age and home address in as reported in the press. The docket book recorded him as seventeen years of age and living at 125 West 123rd Street, near the heart of the disorder. The New York Evening Journal and Daily News reported that home address, but Smith as eighteen years of age. The New York Herald Tribune, Home News and New York Age reported Smith was forty-eight years of age, living at 112 West 136th Street, while the New York American reported his age as twenty-six years and his home as 158 West 123rd Street. Based on the docket book, the stories could not refer to anyone else who appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 other than James Smith.
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This page references:
- "Police Guard Against New Uprising as Mayor Acts to Probe Race Riot," Home News, March 21, 1935, 1.
- Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book
- "Riot Deaths Mounting Daily as Fourth Victim Succumbs. Extra Police Still on Duty; Many Sentenced to Workhouse Terms," New York Age, March 30, 1935, 1
- "21 of 96 Held in Harlem "War" on Home Relief," New York Herald Tribune, March 21, 1935, 2.
- "Harlem Riot Prisoners and Charges," New York American, March 20, 1935, 4.
- "Arrested in Rioting," Daily News, March 20, 1935, 3.