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

Lawrence Humphrey arrested

Around 12:40 AM, Officer Rock of the 28th Precinct arrested Lawrence Humphrey, a thirty-five-year-old Black laborer, near Jacob Solomon's grocery store at 2100 5th Avenue, on the corner of West 129th Street. The store had been closed since 9:00 PM. Rock claimed to have seen six men run out of the store, but arrested only Humphrey. He had a fifty-pound bag of rice worth $2.50 in his possession, according to a note written on the Magistrate's Court affidavit. The six men Rock allegedly saw must have been only some of those who took merchandise from the store, as when Solomon returned around 7:00 AM, he found approximately $100 of groceries missing. Humphrey lived only three blocks to the north, on 132nd Street, so likely had initially come on to the streets in response to the disorder and some time later had become a participant.



Lawrence Humphrey (misspelled Humphries) was listed among those arrested and charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, a proceeding reported only in the Home News. It was not Humphrey's first appearance in the court. He had been arrested and charged with robbery in 1927; a grand jury dismissed the case, according to his criminal record. Magistrate Renaud held Humphrey for a grand jury on bail of $1,000. There were no newspaper reports on the subsequent steps in his prosecution. The district attorney's case file for Humphrey recorded that on April 11 the grand jury sent him to the Court of Special Sessions rather than indicting him and sending him to the Court of General Sessions. Their decision to charge him with a misdemeanor rather than a felony likely reflected the low value of the goods allegedly found in his possession. According to the 28th Precinct police blotter (which also misspelled his name Humphries) the judges found Humphrey guilty and on April 17 sentenced him to thirty days in the Workhouse.
 

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