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

James Thompson killed & Detective Nicholas Campo shot

Around 5.30 AM James Thompson, a nineteen-year old black man, was shot and killed by Detectives Campo and Beckler.

The officers claimed that while driving on 8th Avenue they heard breaking glass in a damaged grocery store on the southwest corner of West 127th Street. Investigating, they interrupted Thompson allegedly looting the grocery store, a branch of the James Butler chain at 2391 8th Avenue, which was across the street from his home at 301 West 127th Street. Press reports offered a variety of different accounts of what happened next. The New York American, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Post reported a gun battle between the officers and Thompson, during which he was shot in the chest and Officer Campo in the hand. The New York Evening Journal sensationally reported an even larger gunfight involving "other rioters" return the officers shots. The New York World-Telegram reported a struggle between Thompson and Campo, during which Thompson was shot; the officer then dropped his gun, causing it to go off and a bullet to hit his fingers. The New York Amsterdam News reported, several days later, that the officer’s gun went off accidentally, hitting Thompson.

The arrest report and police blotter make no mention of Thompson having a gun or struggling with the officers, merely colliding with Campo as he tried to flee the building, causing Campo’s gun to go off. As Thompson fled both officers fired at him, apparently hitting him in front of his home as he stumbled down the street. Campo and Beckler's shots also struck a white man, Stanley Dondoro, walking on the west side of 8th Avenue, in the leg. The Home News and New York Post added the detail that the bullet had passed through the trousers of a man with Dondoro without injuring him. Campo also appeared in lists of the injured published by the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, New York American. A note at the end of the hospital admission records indicate that Thompson died at Harlem Hospital at 9:30AM, four hours after the shooting, a time of death that led to him being listed as the only fatality of the disorder in newspapers published on March 20.

Police investigated the shooting after the disorder, according to the records gathered by the MCCH. A police blotter record of Captain Mulholland’s investigation identified the detectives as responsible for shooting Dondoro, specifying that Campo had shot twice at Thompson, and his partner Detective Beckler had shot three times, as well as twice in the air, a warning to stop that was required police practice. One of the bullets struck Thompson in the chest, killing him. The blotter also recorded Captain Mulholland’s conclusion that the injuries Campo sustained his injury “in proper performance of police duty and no negligence on the part of the aforesaid detective contributed thereto. Although the World-Telegram story reported Thompson as saying at the hospital that “he was hungry, “that others were stealing, anyway,” and that he was “long out of work,” there is no record of an admission in the report of the police investigation. It does include an interview with Thompson’s aunt. She reported hearing from Thompson’s landlady that he had brought home canned goods during the disorder, with the implication that he had been looting prior to the shooting. However, she also reported that he worked at a barber’s shop, in contradiction of the admission reported in the World-Telegram. There is no record of police taking any action against the officers or of Thompson’s shooting attracting attention during the Mayor’s Commission hearings, as that of Lloyd Hobbs did.
 

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