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James Williams arrested
There is no mention of what caused the officer to arrest Williams. Young told police that he “was seen taking property from the store,” phrasing that suggests someone other than Young witnessed the theft. Young is unlikely to have been directly involved in the arrest. Half an hour earlier he had been in Harlem Hospital, receiving treatment for a wound to his head received when a man assaulted him during the attack on his store. Williams may be the individual in a photograph of man arrested for looting published in the New York Evening Journal carrying a large bin from which pots and pans are sticking out (the caption does not name the man).
Williams was one of nine men known to have been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, one third (9 of 29) of the arrests for which that information is known (29 of 60).
Charged with burglary the morning after the disorder, Williams appears in only the list of those arrested published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Globe and Gazette, and in one list published in the New York Evening Journal. The Harlem Magistrates Court Docket Book records him as being remanded to appear again on March 22. He was not brought before a Grand Jury until April 10. They transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions, according to the District Attorney's case file, an outcome that indicates a decision not to charge Williams with burglary, a felony which required evidence of breaking and entering. They likely instead charged him with theft, for which the goods allegedly found in his possession provided evidence, but had a value of less than $100, only sufficient to support the misdemeanor charge of petit larceny. Tried two days later, on April 12, the judges acquitted Williams, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
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This page references:
- "Transcripts of Police Blotter - Precinct 28, March 19 & 20, 1935," Folder "MCCH - Juvenile Delinquency - 1935-36," Correspondence (Roll 13), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945.
- New York Penal Law, § 404, 407: Burglary in third degree.
- "Harlem Riot Damage is Figured at Half Million," Afro-American, March 30, 1935, 1, 2.
- "List of Dead And Injured In Riot In New York City," Norfolk Journal and Gazette, March 30, 1935, 18.
- "Says Economic Conditions in Harlem Are Bad," Atlanta World, March 27, 1935, 1, 2.
- District Attorney's Closed Case Files, 204036 (1935) (New York City Municipal Archives)
- New York Penal Law, § 1298-1299: Petit Larceny
- Harlem Magistrates Court docket book
- "List of Those under Arrest in Harlem Riot and the Charges They Face," New York Evening Journal, March 20, 1935, 3.