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Leroy Gillard arrested
Sankin's store was set back from 7th Avenue and the crowds that moved up it around 9 PM, in a single story structure located between the rear of the five story building on the corner of West 128th Street and 7th Avenue and the first of a block of eight three story brownstone apartment buildings that stretched for roughly a quarter of the block. Gillard may not have come to the store from 7th Avenue as he lived at 208 West 128th Street, just four buildings west of the store. It is likely Officer Young was on the corner of 7th Avenue and West 128th Street, as police tended to take up positions on intersections. Young had been involved in the arrest of the protesters in front of Kress' store around four hours earlier, allegedly assaulted by Harry Gordon.
As Sankin did not return to his store until 8 AM, the window remained broken and the clothing inside accessible throughout the disorder. At 5.40 AM, in one of the final events of the disorder, Officer Dimao arrested a twenty-eight-year-old white chauffeur named Jean Jacquelin at the corner of West 128th Street and 8th Avenue, the opposite end of the block from Sankin's store. Jacquelin allegedly was carrying two ladies coats, values at $20 each, and two pairs of trousers, valued at $5 each. That clothing was likely bulky enough that it attracted the officer's attention; Sankin later identified it as coming from his store. Jacquelin was one of nine men known to have been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, one third (9/27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27/60). One of only ten white men arrested in the disorder, Jacquelin, like Gillard, had not traveled far to Sankin's store. He lived at 222 West 128th Street, a four story apartment building seven buildings west of Gillard. He had only lived there for a month, an unusual address for a white man by 1935. Whites resided nearby, on West 126th Street and several blocks south of West 125th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, but this block was home to Black residents.
Gillard and Jacquelin appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court one after the other on March 20, with both sent to the grand jury. On April 5, the grand jury determined that both men should only be charged with a misdemeanor not felony burglary, sending them to the Court of Special Sessions. (As both men had been charged with taking property worth more than $25, so could have been charged with grand larceny, a felony, if not burglary). According to the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, on April 11, the judges dismissed the charges against Jacquelin. It took almost two more weeks before Gillard was tried, on April 23, when the judges convicted him and sentenced him to the workhouse for three months.
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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.
- Harlem Magistrates Court docket book
- District Attorney's Closed Case Files, 204000 (1935) (New York Municipal Archives)
- District Attorney's Closed Case Files, 203999 (1935) (New York City Municipal Archives)