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• 1 2023-06-14T14:50:08+00:00 The police investigation 106 plain 2024-02-02T22:23:19+00:00 At 1:20 AM On March 20, Detective John O'Brien was assigned to investigate the shooting of Lloyd Hobbs. A detective based at the 28th Precinct on West 123rd Street, he was at the station at Lenox Avenue and West 118th Street at the time. Even though Harlem was still in disorder, the police department was following its procedure of investigating shootings. O'Brien immediately went to Harlem Hospital with his partner, Detective Foley. He found a stenographer from the Homicide squad who had already recorded a statement Hobbs gave to two detectives from that squad. Those officers were at the hospital when the boy arrived and, having been told someone had been shot, took the statement because the boy was seriously injured and might have died. Detective Martin's questioning of Hobbs had taken place in the x-ray room, while an attendant set up the x-ray machine. Patrolman McInerney was not present, according to the stenographer. Asked what happened, Hobbs said "Some one threw a brick into a window and I was shot by a cop." After asking about other details, the detective repeated the question. "I was standing in the street and someone threw a brick and I ran," Hobbs responded. Even though that statement had been taken, O'Brien also questioned the boy, telling a hearing of the MCCH that he thought he "would get something additional."
  
  O'Brien also talked with Patrolman McInerney, but did not write down his statement. In the Complaint Report he completed later that day, O'Brien summarized what he had been told: McInerney had seen Hobbs break a window in the automobile supply shop, take merchandise, and run north on 7th Avenue. The patrolman pursued the boy, called on him to stop, and when he did not, shot him. O'Brien did not ask about the automobile accessories Hobbs had allegedly taken, which McInerney did not have with him at the time. He was more concerned with getting to the scene of the shooting. Around fifteen minutes after he arrived, O'Brien left Harlem Hospital. Although the Hobbs family were at the hospital around that time, the detective never crossed paths with them.
  
  Arriving at 7th Avenue and 128th Street around 1:45 AM, O'Brien found bits of glass in the street, together with bricks, stones, and other heavy objects. At the automobile supply store four of the display windows were broken, as well as one of the windows in the door. What O'Brien did not find was what he was looking for, witnesses to the shooting. It seems unlikely he found no one on the street, as many in the crowd on the corner when Hobbs was shot had been there for several hours at that time. However, the detective kept no record of who he spoke to. After about thirty minutes, O'Brien called the station. At that time he was assigned another case to investigate: August Miller, a white man injured during the disorder, at Joint Disease Hospital. He should not have been investigating two cases at the same time, O'Brien later told a hearing of the MCCH. Nonetheless, that was what he had been told to do, so he and Foley went to that hospital.
  
  The next day, O'Brien returned to the scene of the shooting to again seek witnesses. He spoke to those he found in the stores and to residents, again without success. (He had equally little success finding witnesses to what had happened to August Miller, at West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue). With those efforts, O'Brien apparently decided that if there any witnesses they would "show up at the police station."
  
  By March 28, O'Brien had taken statements from McInerney and his partner Patrolman Watterson. A Supplementary Complaint Report he filed on that date quoted more detailed narratives of the shooting. McInerney stated that he had been in a patrol car when the noise of smashing glass drew his attention to the automobile supply store. After Hobbs failed to stop, the patrolman said he fired one shot only, which caused Hobbs to fall. The boy also "held in his hands objects which were later found near where he fell." Watterson's testimony put Hobbs inside the window, passing out items, when the officers' attention was drawn to the store. What Watterson did after McInerney jumped out of the car to pursue those outside the store was not included in the report. However, O'Brien did add that both officers stated that "unknown colored persons were throwing bricks and other objects at them" as Hobbs was being chased.
  
  Sometime in the following days O'Brien interviewed Louis Eisenberg, the owner of the automobile supply store. He had had to wait to speak to him; McInerney had not. Eisenberg told the detective that the patrolman had talked to him on March 20 and had him identify items that the officer claimed he found on the ground by Hobbs. That O'Brien was asked in a hearing of the MCCH, "Did McInerey get any articles or automobile accessories from the store the next morning?" indicated that others thought the patrolman had gone to Eisenberg seeking items he could use to defend himself. What O'Brien learned from Eisenberg was that when a brick had been thrown through the store window around 10:00 PM, he and three employees had fled out the rear of the store and remained in the rear yard for some time before flagging down a taxi to escape the crowds. They were gone long before McInerney shot Hobbs. Eisenberg also gave O'Brien "a long list of stuff taken," which he included in the Supplementary Complaint Report quoting the store owner's statement. Although unrecorded in that report, the detective told an MCCH hearing that he had asked shopkeepers when other windows were broken, and was told none were damaged at 10:00 PM (which is not what they later told the MCCH investigator).
  
  The death of Lloyd Hobbs on the evening of March 30 prompted O'Brien to put the case in the hands of the district attorney's office. When he called with the news, an ADA told him to have "all witnesses" at their office on April 1. O'Brien arranged for McInerney, Watterson, and Eisenberg to appear. After hearing from them, ADA Saul Price had O'Brien deliver subpoenas to Russell Hobbs and his father to appear on April 3. Price told James Tartar, the MCCH investigator, that he delayed their hearing until after Lloyd's funeral on April 2. Delivering the subpoenas was Detective O'Brien's first contact with the Hobbs family, which he later explained to the MCCH was because he was unaware that Russell had been with Lloyd and thus a witness. When Russell and Lawyer Hobbs gave their statements to the ADA, the police investigation intersected with the MCCH investigation. Lawyer Hobbs said he knew of five eyewitnesses to the shooting but that he did not know their addresses. He must also have told Price that the men would be testifying at the MCCH hearing three days later. The ADA gave O'Brien subpoenas for the witnesses and told him to go to the hearing to serve them.
• 1 2023-06-14T20:51:00+00:00 Detective John O'Brien's investigation of the killing of Lloyd Hobbs 21 plain 2024-01-22T21:25:34+00:00 The records of Detective John O'Brien's investigation of the shooting of Lloyd Hobbs are in the files of Arthur Garfield Hays. He chaired the subcommittee of the MCCH that investigated the death and had requested copies of all police records related to the boy's case. O'Brien also twice testified about his investigation in public hearings held by the subcommittee, on April 20 and May 18.
  
  The Complaint Report O'Brien filed on March 20 included only a summary of what Patrolman McInerney told him at the hospital. O'Brien filed a Supplementary Complaint Report on March 28, in which he included statements by Hobbs and a more detailed statement by McInerney and a brief statement by his partner, Patrolman Watterson. The report also briefly mentioned O'Brien's visit to the site of the shooting and inquiries in the area that failed to locate any witnesses. A Supplementary Complaint Report dated April 1 recorded O'Brien's interview with Eisenberg and a detailed list of the property stolen from the shop that he gave to the detective. The detective did not file another report until April 7. That Supplementary Complaint Report recorded activities precipitated by Hobbs' death on March 30. O'Brien informed the DA's office of the death and was told to have McInerney and all witnesses at the office on April 1. McInerney, Watterson, and Eisenberg were questioned by ADA Saul Price on April 1st. He then adjourned the hearing until April 3, subpoenaing Russell Hobbs and his father Lawyer to appear then. O'Brien recorded that Lawyer Hobbs mentioned five witnesses. The ADA sent O'Brien to the MCCH hearing on April 6 to subpeona those witnesses, adjourning the hearing until April 8.
  
  O'Brien filed the final Supplementary Complaint Report on April 11. It recorded the appearance of Howard Malloy, John Moore, and Samuel Pitts before ADA Price on April 8. Two days later, Price presented the case to the grand jury. The report included a list of those who testified. O'Brien was among them, as was Detective Thomas McCormick, the stenographer, Patrolman Watterson, Russell Hobbs and both his parents, Malloy, Moore and Pitts, and Eisenberg. Defendants were not required to testify, but McInerney waived his immunity and offered to appear. The grand jury declined to hear his testimony. They dismissed the charges — O'Brien recorded that they "exonerated" McInerney — and O'Brien closed the case.
  
  Detective O'Brien testified about his investigation before a public hearing of the MCCH first on April 20. Arthur Garfield Hays asked him about the statement he took from Eisenberg, his work for the DA's office, and what evidence he found that objects had been thrown at McInerney and Watterson. He was also questioned about the absence of any mention of the stolen items in the entry for Hobbs' arrest in the police blotter seen by the MCCH investigator. ILD lawyers then asked more hostile questions about what he did at the hospital and scene, including the failure to fingerprint the stolen items, presenting his investigation as inadequate. O'Brien attracted some of the anger from the audience that marked the testimony of Patrolman Watterson immediately before and led Hays to adjourn the hearing for ten minutes to restore order. Someone in the audience interjected, "He is trying to speak low because he is afraid." O'Brien retorted, "I am not afraid of anything, lady."
  
  O'Brien testified again on May 18. He brought the items police alleged that Hobbs had taken from the automobile supply store and dropped when McInerney shot him. He was questioned extensively about where those objects had been: O'Brien said he saw them for the first time on April 1, when McInerney appeared at the DA's office, but for the first time said that they had been recorded on the arrest report. The MCCH investigator had not seen that record. Questioned about when the items were handed into the Property Department, he said he did not know. It was not until April 8, the MCCH investigator had found, a week after O'Brien first saw them. ILD lawyers then questioned him again about his investigation, drawing out his failure to speak to the Hobbs family and that he had not seen the allegedly stolen items when he questioned McInerney at Harlem Hospital. Marshall Phifer, a witness who had just testified that he had seen nothing in Hobbs' hands when McInerney shot him, interjected to insist on what he had seen. O'Brien also testified that no fingerprints had been found on the items, only "smudges." At the end of the detective's testimony, someone in the audience called out, "I would like to request, in view of the ignorance of this man, in view of the lack of investigation, that he be recommended for dismissal."