This page was created by Anonymous.
"List of Dead And Injured In Riot In New York City," Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 30, 1935, 18.
1 2020-09-22T17:54:38+00:00 Anonymous 1 16 plain 2022-12-17T20:46:42+00:00 AnonymousThis page is cited in [these are manual links to improve the site performance]:
- Harry Gordon arrested
- Charles Alston arrested
- Charles Saunders arrested
- Thomas Jackson arrested
- Arnold Ford arrested
- James Hughes arrested
- Hezekiah Wright arrested
- Andrew Lyons killed
- Isaac Daniels arrested
- William Kitlitz assaulted & James Smitten injured
- Paul Boyett arrested
- Leroy Brown arrested
- Edward Larry arrested
- Hashi Mohammed arrested
- Lyman Quarterman shot
- Louis Cobb arrested
- August Miller killed
- Douglas Cornelius arrested
- Richard Jackson arrested
- James Williams arrested
- Frank Wells arrested
- Thomas Wijstem assaulted & killed
- Leo Smith arrested
- Margaret Mitchell arrested
- Arthur Davis arrested
- Elizabeth Tai arrested
- Detective Henry Roge assaulted
- James Smitten arrested
- John Henry arrested
- Aubrey Patterson arrested
- John Vivien arrested
- Horace Fowler arrested
- Claude Jones arrested
- Theodore Hughes arrested
- John Kennedy Jones arrested
- Robert Tanner arrested
- Arthur Merritt arrested
- James Pringle arrested
- Albert Yerber arrested
- William Ford arrested
- Viola Woods arrested
- Jean Jacquelin arrested
- Leon Mauraine arrested
- Leroy Gillard arrested
- Joseph Wade arrested
- Carl Jones arrested
- Rivers Wright arrested
- John Hawkins arrested
- Elva Jacobs arrested
- Raymond Easley arrested
- John King arrested
- James Smith arrested
- Claudius Jones arrested
- Thomas Babbitt arrested
- Arthur Killen arrested
- Milton Ackerman arrested
- Bernard Smith arrested
- Julian Rogers arrested
- De Soto Windgate shot
- Amie Taylor arrested
- James Hayes arrested
- Oscar Leacock arrested
- Louis Tonick arrested
- Rose Murrell arrested
- Emmet Williams arrested
- Henry Stewart arrested
- Loyola Williams arrested
- Jose Perez arrested
- Lawrence Humphrey arrested
- Frederick Harwell arrested
- Ernest Johnson arrested
- Louise Brown arrested
- Joseph Moore arrested
- Edward Loper arrested
- Nelson Brock arrested
- James Wrigley assaulted
- Jacob Bonaparte arrested
- David Smith arrested
- Lamter Jackson arrested
- William Jones arrested
- Wilmont Hendricks shot
- James Bright arrested
- Earl Davis arrested
- Albert Allen arrested
- David Terry arrested
- Charles Wright arrested
- Arthur Bennett arrested
- David Bragg arrested
- William Norris arrested
- Raymond Taylor arrested
- Oscar Austin arrested
- Salathel Smith arrested
- Sam Nicholas arrested
- Salvatore Nicolette injured
- Vito Capozzio assaulted
- Julius Hightower arrested
- Alonzo Greenridge arrested
- Preston White arrested
- Joseph Payne arrested
- Warren Johnson arrested
- Leo Cash arrested
- Robert Porter arrested
- Jack Williams arrested
- Archie Niles arrested
- William Grant arrested
- Reginald Mills arrested
- John Darby arrested
- Merryman McAllister arrested
- James Harris arrested
- James Mason arrested
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2020-10-22T01:27:23+00:00
Thomas Jackson arrested
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2022-12-17T19:46:10+00:00
Around 1.45 AM, Patrolmen Kalsky and Holland of the 28th Precinct saw a group of people around Jack Garmise's cigar store at 1916 7th Avenue, and then a milk can thrown through the plate glass windows. In the Magistrate Court affidavit, Kalsky alleged that he saw Thomas Jackson, a thirty-four-year-old Black man throw the milkcan. Jackson denied throwing anything at the store, or being part of an attack on it, when question by a Probation officer. Instead, he claimed he was drunk and had been walking along West 116th Street on his way to visit a prizefighter named Leo Williams to collect money he was owed when he had become caught in a crowd moving toward the store. Someone in the crowd then pushed him through the smashed window. Throwing such a large object would have been more difficult for Jackson than most in the crowd; after an accident in 1930, his left arm had been amputated above the elbow. Kalsky claimed Jackson was sober. He also alleged he saw him reach his hand through the smashed window and take merchandise from the display. He later told a Probation officer that as he approached, Jackson threw “some of the merchandise” back in the window. That phrasing suggests Jackson may not have had any merchandise on him when Kalsky arrested him, as does the district attorney's decision to offer to let him plead guilty to unlawful entry, rather than petit larceny, as others arrested for looting who made plea bargains did. The other officer, Holland, arrested Raymond Easley, a twenty-one-year-old Black man. He allegedly took cigars from the store window, according to a report in the Home News, wording that suggests the officers reported seeing him reaching into the window and found cigars in his possession. Holland also found a razor in Easley's possession. (Easley is not mentioned in the affidavit in the District Attorney’s case file in which he and Jackson are co-defendants, nor does the file include an examination of him. The only document in the case file referring to Easley is a criminal record; he had no previous prosecutions). Two arrests at the same incident of alleged looting was unusual during the disorder, suggesting that the officers were closer to the store than in other instances, perhaps only having to cross West 116th Street rather than 7th Avenue.
In addition to legal records, Jackson appeared in newspaper reports of different stages of the legal process, few of which offered any details. His name was listed among those arrested in the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. Only the Home News reported his arraignment in the Magistrates Court, and his reappearance to have his bail continued four days later was reported in only the New York Sun. Jackson's appearance in the Court of General Sessions a few days later to plead guilty attracted more coverage, in the Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, New York Post, New York Times, and New York Amsterdam News. The New York Times, New York Evening Journal, Daily News and Times Union reported his sentencing to six months in the Workhouse two weeks later, information also published in the New York Amsterdam News, New York Age and Afro-American, and recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
The Probation Department investigation conducted prior to Jackson's sentencing offers information on his life before his arrest. Born in Manhasset, Long Island, Thomas Dean was five years old when his mother left his father to live with Jonah Jackson. When they married, Thomas took Jackson as his last name. At age ten, Jackson's truancy resulted in his committal to a juvenile asylum in Chauncy for two years. After his release, he returned to live with his mother and finish his schooling in Corona. Soon after leaving school at age sixteen, around 1917, Jackson moved to Manhattan. He found work first for a moving company, and then as a driver for a bottle company on West 35th Street for eight years, before switching to driving a taxi. He told a Probation officer he was twice fined for speeding in 1923, and in 1928 served two days in prison for another traffic offense, offenses that did not appear in his criminal record and did not prevent his ongoing employment. During this time, from around 1920 until 1932, Jackson lived with Rose Repologo, an Italian woman, who the Probation Officer claimed was "an unwed mother who had been a former inmate of St Barnabas House," and who Jackson's sister described as "too good" for him. The couple lived downtown, at 414 West 36th Street, likely when Jackson worked nearby, information only in a second Probation Department investigation in 1940. He also reported being stabbed with a butcher's knife in a fight on West 36th Street in 1924, a detail in the Probation Officer's preliminary investigation not included in the report.
In 1930, Jackson was injured in a street car accident that required the amputation of his left arm below the elbow. Unable to find a job after the injury, Jackson, Repologo and her son were briefly on relief in 1932, by then living at 247 West 115th Street, until the New York Railway paid him $7800 in compensation for his injury. Sometime soon after, Repologo left Jackson. His sister told a Probation officer that after receiving the compensation Jackson "completely ignored" his family and "mistreated" Repologo, as a result of which Repologo left him for another man. The Home Relief Bureau reported Jackson told them that he had deposited $2500 in a bank account in the name of Rose Jackson, and that she had taken the money and disappeared. Early in 1933, Jackson invested $1200 in opening Tom's Confectionary Store in the basement of 270 West 115th Street, down the block from his residence. Setting up a small business was a strategy followed by many other residents of black neighborhoods in the 1930s when faced with unemployment. Jackson also joined many other small business owners in taking the opportunity to participate in Harlem's largest business, numbers gambling. In August 1933 he was convicted for collecting bets on numbers, the result he told a Probation officer in 1940 of having been found in his store with fourteen slips in his possession, sufficient only to result in a fine of $50. By the end of 1933, Jackson's business had failed. A Probation Officer reported the cause as Jackson's "neglect," recording in the preliminary investigation that Jackson claimed his "employees robbed him." The preliminary investigation also notes that the balance of Jackson's compensation payment had been spent on merchandise for the store. Jackson also said "he 'clowned' his way through life and spent most of his money having a 'big time'" in poolrooms, according to the Probation Department Investigation Report.
Soon after being forced to sell his store, Jackson moved in with his half-sister Beatrice Cooper and her family, and applied for Home Relief as part of that household. In 1934 the family lived in a series of apartments on West 118th Street, West 121st Street, and finally outside Harlem on West 99th Street. At the beginning of March 1935, Beatrice's husband John obtained a Work Relief job, and according to the Home Relief Bureau, refused to support Jackson. Jackson and his sister did not get on; a Probation Officer reported that he said that she was "too strict," while she described him as having "treated them with scorn." Relocating back to Harlem, Jackson moved into a furnished room in an apartment at 217 West 121st Street, and then, a day before the disorder, relocated to another at 253 West 121st Street. Unusually for the men arrested for involvement in the disorder, the report from the Psychiatric Clinic offered no explanation for Jackson's participation. Dr Sylvan Keiser described him as a "talkative, cheerful pleasant type of person" "of Average Intelligence."
Information survives on Jackson's life in the five years after his release from the workhouse in 1935 as a result of a subsequent conviction in 1940, which led to him again being investigated by the Probation Department, and that report being added to the file created in 1935. A few days after his release from the workhouse, in October 1935, Jackson was assigned work as a laborer by the Works Progress Administration. That job lasted almost three years, during which time Jackson lived in a furnished room in 154 West 121st Street and then in a rooming house at 2053 7th Avenue. He had little contact with his family; his sister told a Probation Officer that "he has always desired to live alone without restriction." Around 1937 Jackson contracted syphilis, he claimed from a prostitute. In August 1938 Jackson lost his WPA position, according to the Probation Department report, after he returned drunk having left the project without permission and swore at his supervisors and coworkers. A few weeks later, Jackson was arrested for slashing the tire of a taxi, and sentenced to a month in the workhouse. A year later he was back in workhouse, for 90 days, after pleading guilty to perjury and election fraud after being paid to fill in false affidavits related to a primary election. Following his release he worked briefly as an office cleaner and later as a watchman, while receiving relief payments, except for a period when an agent discontinued payments because Jackson supplied false information about his residence. He had left the rooming house for a furnished room in 135 West 119th Street. In October 1940, Jackson was charged with rape. He and two other men allegedly abducted a twenty-nine-year-old Black woman from a bar at West 119th Street and 8th Avenue and took her to his room at 152 West 119th Street, where they assaulted and robbed her. Jackson pled guilty to third degree assault. Examined again in the Psychiatric Clinic, this time Dr. John Cassity found Jackson still an "adjusted personality," although "on a low cultural level in recent months," but also "quite an aggressive individual [who] reacts with violence upon provocation." Judge Jacob Gould Schurman sentenced Jackson to the Penitentiary. He had been released by April 1943, when he registered for the draft, and was living with his sister Dorothy at 37 West 99th Street. -
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2020-10-22T02:18:54+00:00
Arnold Ford arrested
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2022-12-17T20:13:49+00:00
Around 1.50 AM, Patrolman Louis Frikser arrested Arnold Ford, a nineteen-year-old Black man, on the Third Avenue Bridge, which connected the eastern end of West 130th Street in Harlem with the Bronx. Frikser reported that he had observed Ford "walking across the bridge with a package," according to the details provided in the Probation Department investigation. Ford was likely going home; he lived just three blocks beyond the bridge, at 246 East 136th Street in the Bronx. The package he carried cannot have been large; it contained three cakes of soap, a can of shoe polish, two pairs of garters, six spools of thread, a jar of vaseline and three packets of tea, with a value of $1.15. According to Frikser, Ford admitted being part of a group of men who had entered Harry Lash's 5 & 10c store at 400 Lenox Avenue, five blocks west of the bridge on the corner of West 130th Street, and stolen goods. Later, in court, Ford stated that he had not broken the store windows, but only joined others entering the store and "helping himself to some merchandise." Eighteen months after the disorder, Ford told his Probation officer that he "found the goods in the street."
Patrolman Frikser stopped a second man crossing the bridge from Harlem, Joseph Moore, a forty-six-year-old West Indian carpenter "a few minutes" after Ford, and also arrested him for looting Lash's store. None of the reports of this case detail what caused Frikser to stop Moore or what he found in his possession. Like Ford, Moore was likely returning home; he lived at 248 East 136th Street in the Bronx, a building next door to where Ford resided. But Ford did not know Moore, according to a note in the Preliminary Investigation in his Probation Department file
Only seven other men are identified in the sources as having been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, a group making up one third (9 of 27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27 of 60).
Police charged both Ford and Moore with burglary in the Harlem Magistrate Court on March 20. Subsequently they were indicted by the grand jury and tried in the Court of General Sessions. During the trial on April 1, Ford pled guilty to petit larceny, while Moore was acquitted at the direction of the judge, an outcome for which the Daily Worker gave credit to the International Labor Defence lawyers who appeared for him (that story made no mention of Ford). Eighteen months later, Ford told his Probation officer that he pleaded guilty "because he was told to do so and that as a matter of fact he is not guilty and did not take part in the riot and that he found the goods in the street." The officer described Ford as "brooding over his conviction," suggesting he regretted the plea.
Ford (and Moore) appear in newspaper reports only in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, a list published in the New York Evening Journal, and stories in the Home News and New York Sun. The Home News story included brief summaries of the charges made in the Magistrates Court; in this case, it grouped Ford and Moore together, arrested at the same time for looting the same store, but confused the $1000 of goods stolen reported by Lash in his affidavit before the Magistrates Court for what the men were found carrying, also mistakenly identifying it as clothing. The New York Sun likewise mistakenly alleged the men had stolen $1000 of property, but did correctly identify those goods as "general merchandise," in reporting the men's pleas in the Court of General Sessions, on March 25, after their indictment by the grand jury on March 22.
Of the ten men convicted in the Court of General Sessions as a result of the disorder, judges placed only Ford and Charles Saunders on probation rather than incarcertating them (the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded this outcome as a suspended sentence). Ford remained under supervision under April 1938.
The judge's decision to place Ford on probation likely owed much to the interest shown in him by Dr. Mason Pitman, superintendent of the Colored Orphan Asylum, located north of Manhattan at Riverdale, West 261st Street. Pitman expressed surprise that Ford had been arrested, writing to the Probation Department, "I do not understand why Arnold got into this trouble but I suppose that is something none of us understand, as we have never been put on the spot," and asking for leniency - going so far as to appear at the sentencing hearing. Ford and his younger brother and sister had been placed in the institution in 1927, when a judge committed them as neglected children. His mother Susan had turned to the court saying she had been deserted by her husband, Arnold Josiah Ford, a prominent Black Hebrew rabbi. However, the Big Sisters informed the Probation Department that the couple had divorced, with Josiah marrying again and Susan having children with another man. At the hearing Josiah agreed to contribute to his ex-wife's support but "would not claim the children." (Arnold's social security record identified his father as Donold J Ford, whose name does not appear in the Probation Department file). Ford remained in the Asylum until 1933, spending the last two years at it's boarding home in Jamaica, Queens, before being discharged back into his mother's care. The summary of his records at the Colored Orphan Asylum noted "He was found to be a nice boy in every way and was well liked by all who came in contact with him." Ford and his mother lived together at several addresses before moving to 246 East 136th Street two months before the disorder. Susan worked a few days a week as a domestic servant for a household on West 77th Street, while Arnold occasionally worked as an itinerant bootblack.
During his three years on probation, Ford frustrated the efforts of the Probation Department to supervise and direct his life. He reported far less frequently than required, blaming a lack of carfare for the trip, took up few of his probation officers' suggestions for vocational training, and refused to apply for aid from the Home Relief Bureau because it required answering invasive questions. His mother did not share his objections, as she began receiving Home Relief in September 1935, and cut back her hours of domestic work. Ford did enroll in the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1936, seeking an assignment to one of the rural work relief camps, but was rejected when the medical examination revealed he had a hernia. For several months Ford traveled to Morrisania Hospital for treatment, during which he was bedridden at home for at least two months. Around his illness, Ford briefly worked as an errand boy for a grocery store on Amsterdam Ave and West 79th Street, let go because his employer did not think he was physically able to carry heavy bundles, then two days a week as a cleaner and porter for a synagogue in the Bronx at Gerard Avenue and 161st Street, and then as an errand boy for a millinery firm on West 37th Street. Soon after he got that position in March he moved out of the apartment at 258 East 148th Street that he and his mother had moved to in June 1936, and in with the mother and a cousin of the woman he had married a month earlier, Gwendolyn Jordan, a twenty-year-old housemaid, at 134 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn. He did not pass on that news to his Probation officer, who learned of the marriage from a Home Relief investigator who had visited Ford's mother.
In August 1937 Ford lost his job, fired for making an error in delivering a package. The next month he found a job as a pin boy at Williamsbridge Bowling Alley at 225th Street and White Plains Road, working from 1 PM to 1 AM for two-thirds of his previous wage and requiring a journey of more than eighteen miles. But the next month Ford was again looking for work; when his Probation officer urged him to apply for Home Relief, he recorded Arnold and Gwendolyn as refusing and saying “they did not want to answer so many questions as the Home Relief Bureau wants to know too many personal questions which they refuse to answer and they would feel like slaves to this bureau and they believe that the clients of this bureau are treated like slaves.” Gwendolyn took a similar position on medical care for her pregnancy; when the Probation officer urged her to visit the hospital, she refused, he wrote, “because they ask too many questions and also because free service is no good and that the patients are ill-treated and neglected.” Instead, she planned to have the baby delivered at home by a local physician who the family went to for care, and the couple saved about $40 for the expenses. Tragically, that doctor was not in attendance when Gwendolyn went into labor in December 1937, and the baby presented in breech position. Although an ambulance was called, the child died. The Probation officer's assessment of those events is jarring in its callousness: “It seems that the probationer, his wife and his mother-in-law are ignorant and suspicious people who cannot be advised by anybody.” In the remaining three months of his probation, Ford and his wife continued to live with his mother-in-law, her cousin, and his two adult daughters, pooling their relief payments and wages, with Ford's contribution being what he could make from odd jobs while he looked for work.
In 1940 Ford was living with his wife and their one-year-old daughter, at 863 Home Street in the Bronx, when the census enumerator called. He gave his occupation as porter, but was still without a job, as remained the case when he completed a draft registration card later that year. On the card his address is recorded as 892 Union Avenue in the Bronx, although that address was struck out and replaced successively with four other addresses in the Bronx. A note on the card indicates Ford served in the Navy, receiving an honorable discharge on October 7, 1946. -
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2020-09-30T19:34:09+00:00
James Hughes arrested
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2022-12-17T20:46:05+00:00
Detective Raymond Gill arrested James Hughes just before 10PM, not far from Kress' store on West 125th Street. The detective claimed he had seen the twenty-four-year-old Black man appear from behind the cars parked on the street, look around, and throw the rock that hit his partner, Detective Henry Roge. Gill frisked the twenty-four-year-old man, and found five stones in his pockets; Hughes insisted the stones were to defend himself, and he had not thrown the rock that struck Roge.
Instead, Hughes claimed he had been caught up in the crowd on 8th Avenue as he tried to return to his furnished room on 7th Avenue near 115th Street from 126th St and 8th Avenue. He’d begun his evening with a trip to a barber’s shop on 7th Avenue, before returning home for supper, and then heading out again at 9.30pm to go drinking, details in the Probation officer's Preliminary Investigation that were not included in the Report to the Court. When Hughes set out on 8th Avenue for home, and saw the broken glass and stones on the streets, and heard people saying “Let’s break windows,” he picked up some rocks for protection. Hughes knew 125th Street well. He worked in Koch’s Department store, a block east of Kress’, as a shoe repairer, a trade he had learned in Atlanta. He told the Probation officer who interviewed him that he followed the crowd to 125th Street to prevent them breaking the windows in the store in which he worked; in the Preliminary Report, the Probation officer noted that Hughes said that those around him were breaking windows "where no colored were employed." While several newspapers reported that businesses that employed Black staff were not spared from attack, Koch's department store did not have windows broken.
The prosecution of Hughes took a somewhat erratic path through the legal system. Hughes appears in lists of the arrested and charged with assault in the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in Home News and New York Evening Journal. After he appeared in the Magistrates Court early on March 20, the New York Post and Home News reported he was back in the court two days later, joining Isaac Daniels and Charles Saunders in being discharged as they had already been indicted by the Grand Jury and then rearrested and held for trial. (The 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded only that Hughes had been discharged, not that he had been rearrested). Hughes subsequently pled guilty to misdemeanor assault on March 28, as was reported in the New York Evening Journal, New York Times, and New York American.
When Hughes appeared for sentencing the judge allowed him to withdraw the plea as a result of letter from minister named Haynes received by Mayor’s office and forwarded to the judge. A week later Hughes was tried and quickly convicted of misdemeanor assault. The prosecutor’s notes on the trial suggest that Gill’s testimony stressed that he was certain of his identification of Hughes as the man who threw the rock. A report in the New York Times mentioned other witnesses, that "several" detectives identified Hughes. Against that evidence Hughes could offer only his denial and a series of character witnesses. In response, the prosecutor argued that Hughes “saw plenty of trouble – went right into it.”
Like all those convicted in the Court of General Sessions, Hughes was then investigated by the court’s Probation Department, which compiled a three-page report detailing his family, education, leisure, religious practice and residential and employment histories. Based on his steady employment in both Atlanta and New York City, the quality of his living arrangements, and his lack of a criminal record, the probation officer J. T. Sloane determined Hughes participation in the disorder to be “apparently attributable to the effects of mob psychology upon an ordinarily well-behaved individual of suggestible disposition.” At the sentencing hearing, the judge, perhaps influenced by the Probation Department report, expressed belief that Hughes had thrown the rock at the store window, not Roge, so sentenced him to a term of only three months in the workhouse.
Born in Macon, Georgia, Hughes had only been in the city for fourteen months when arrested. He was 5ft 6 inches, and weighed 145 pounds when arrested. He told the Probation officer J. T. Sloane that he had been raised by a single mother, one of two children she had with a married man, and completed third grade. After Hughes' mother died when he was twelve years old, he went to live with a cousin, a shoemaker, to who he became apprenticed. The Probation officer wrote to another cousin of Hughes in Macon, Fannie Holt, who confirmed those details, and added others that the officer did not include in the report: Both Hughes' father and grandfather were also shoemakers. Hughes moved to Atlanta after his sixteenth birthday, where he found work in the employ of Mr Maslia, at 399 Moreland Street, making $22 a week by 1933. Sometime that year he told his employer that he wanted to go north. By February 1934, Hughes was in New York City, working for French Shoe Repairing Company on 118th Street and Lenox Avenue and living nearby in a furnished room at 101 West 117th Street. After six months, Hughes found a better paying job at Koch's Department Store, increasing his wages from $12 a week to $18 a week. A few months later he moved residences, from 117th Street to another furnished room at 1890 Seventh Avenue, paying $4 a week. His landlady described him as quiet and unobtrusive.
Hughes admitted to a conviction for gambling in Macon, when he was aged fifteen years, which resulted in a fine. He continued to gamble occasionally in Harlem, otherwise spending his time going to the movies. The report from the Court Psychiatric Clinic concluded Hughes was "an average type of individual," who did not show "any abnormal, aggressive or antisocial traits as far as can be ascertained by the interview." In regards to the disorder, the psychiatrist recorded that Hughes gave "a rather rational explanation of his offense." -
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2020-02-25T18:07:14+00:00
Andrew Lyons killed
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2022-07-02T21:58:53+00:00
Andrew Lyons, a thirty-seven-year-old Black man, died as a result of injuries "sustained during the thick of a melee at 125th street and Seventh Avenue," according to a story in the New York Amsterdam News. A story in the Times Union, the only other source that mentioned a location, put the site of his injury a block to the east, at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. There is no information on when he was injured or by who. The medical records obtained by the MCCH provided an explanation for that lack of details. Lyons did not receive medical attention until the evening after the disorder; an ambulance was called to his home, 147 West 117th Street, at 5:10 PM on March 20, by a friend, George Harris, according to the death record issued by Harlem Hospital. When he arrived at the hospital, he was was described as "stuporous," too groggy to tell doctors what had happened to him. The doctor who completed the death record, Emanuel Hauer, wrote that Lyons was "said to have been hit on the head during riot on 3-19-35." When Hauer testified before a MCCH hearing, he gave the same information. Arthur Garfield Hays, chairman of the hearing, responded, "That is not in my report." Hauer then read the ambulance man's report, which simply recorded that Lyons had been "Struck over the head," not that he had been hit during the disorder. If the ambulance man did not provide information that Lyons had been injured in the disorder, neither did his friend Harris. Hauer testified that Harris told him Lyons "came home stuporous but doesn't know how it happened." When he returned home on the night of March 19 Lyons had gone to bed. The autopsy report completed on March 24 did not describe Lyons as injured during the disorder: "Deceased was injured in some unknown manner." Lyons died three days after being admitted to hospital, on March 23rd; the recorded cause of death was a "fractured skull, laceration of the brain, terminal pneumonia." Lyons brother James, a resident of Stem, North Carolina, is recorded in the autopsy as identifying his body on March 25.
Lyons' delayed admission to hospital explains why he was not in any lists of the injured published in newspapers on March 20 and March 21. The first mentions of Lyons in the press are mentions of his death in the New York Post and Daily News on March 23, in the Times Union, New York Times and an AP story on March 24, and in the Atlanta World on March 27. Lyons also appeared in lists of those killed in the weekly Black newspapers, the New York Age, Pittsburgh Courier, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide as well as the New York Amsterdam News, on March 30. The only source that provided any details of the circumstances of Lyons' fatal injury was the Times Union, which described him as having been "beaten over the head with a blunt instrument during the rioting on Tuesday night." That story was the only newspaper to follow the death record in describing his injury as a fractured skull. However, neither the death record nor the autopsy mentioned a blunt instrument as the cause of Lyons' injuries.
There is no indication where the reporters for New York Amsterdam News and Times Union obtained information on where Lyons was attacked. No such evidence was produced for the MCCH. If the reporters were correct, Lyons would have been in the midst of police efforts to establish a perimeter around Kress' store, and his injuries likely the product of a police nightstick. One of Communist Party-affiliated lawyers who questioned Captain Rothengast during a MCCH hearing did claim that "Andrew Lyons died of injuries inflicted by clubs of the police." Rothengast replied, "I'd have to consult records to be exact." The MCCH had its investigators gather information on those killed during the disorder. In Lyons case, the only material in their files are the death and autopsy records. The autopsy recorded "Detectives investigating." Given that Hauer told the MCCH hearing that Harris knew nothing about how Lyons had been injured, there are no avenues for investigation in those records. Likely as a result, Lyons death appears to have remained unexplained. Notwithstanding the claim made by the lawyer in the MCCH hearing that police were responsible for the death, the information accompanying Lyons name in a list of "Workers Killed in the Past Six Months" published in New Masses in July 1935: "Died of internal injuries received during the Harlem events of March 19."
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2020-02-26T18:59:50+00:00
Isaac Daniels arrested
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2022-12-06T18:47:20+00:00
Isaac Daniels, a twenty-nine-year old Black man, was arrested for assaulting Herman Young, in his hardware store at 346 Lenox Avenue. After hearing glass smashing, Young and his wife Rose had come downstairs from their apartment to the store, whose windows had been looted and encountered a man on the stoop, trying to come through the door. The man allegedly cursed at Young - "You Goddam Jew I am going to kill you if you don’t get out of here” - and then threw a stone that smashed the glass in the door. Both the stone and flying glass hit Young. Taken to Harlem Hospital, Young was being stitched by a doctor when Daniels entered to receive treatment. Young identified him as the man who had assaulted him, and an officer at the hospital arrested Daniels. (Another man, James Williams, was later arrested for looting the store; the affidavit in his case made no mention of Young being assaulted by a man, instead recording that he had come downstairs to find four men in the store stealing merchandise)
The report of the arrest in the Home News linked Daniels and Young, with the detail that Young had been cut by flying glass. Daniels also appeared in lists of those who arrested and charged with assault published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Guide, and New York Evening Journal, neither of which include the circumstances which led to his arrest. He also appeared in lists of the injured published in the Home News and New York Post, one of four men arrested for assault with injuries. In Daniels' case, the list identifies him as having "contusions" on his left arm.
Questioned in a lineup at the Manhattan Police HQ, Daniels denied throwing the stone at Young, and said he had been in the area because he was on his way home. Daniels, a native of Georgia who had come to New York City in 1928, lived with his wife only a few blocks from Young's store, at 73 W. 130th St. Later, at his trial, he added the detail that he had gone out to buy cigarettes. His wife said that he had gone to the movies, and was listening to the radio at home at 1 AM, when Young was attacked.
Daniels was one of the first of those arrested to appear in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with felonious assault. The Home News and New York Post reported he was back in the court two days later, joining James Hughes and Charles Saunders in being discharged as they had already been indicted by the Grand Jury and then rearrested and held for trial (which is likely why Daniels appears in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter as having been discharged, as did James Hughes). The indictment in the District Attorney's case file has a charge of first degree assault, with intent to kill, struck out, leaving a charge of second degree assault, with intent to cause bodily harm. That change suggests that prosecutors reduced the charge after obtaining details of what happened (Young's wife had mentioned that the man who assaulted him had used a piece of pipe, but later reports mention only him throwing a stone). Indicted for assault, Daniels was one of the handful of individuals tried for alleged offenses during the disorder. On April 9, the District Attorney's case file recorded that a jury acquitted Daniels, likely because of questions over Young's identification of him. -
1
2020-10-01T19:30:34+00:00
Paul Boyett arrested
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2022-12-09T02:34:47+00:00
Around 9:00 PM, Patrolman George Conn arrested Paul Boyett, a twenty-eight-year-old Black garage worker, for assaulting Timothy Murphy, a twenty-nine-year-old white rock driller. Conn testified in the Magistrates Court that he had come upon a crowd attacking Murphy on West 127th Street between 8th Avenue and St Nicholas Avenue. He may have been in a radio car as the New York Amsterdam News reported "police drove up." After firing his pistol into the air to scatter the crowd, he then called on Boyett to halt, and when he did not, shot him. Although the bullet struck Boyett in his back or shoulder he was able to continue running toward his home, only a few buildings away at 310 West 127th Street. Conn pursued him, eventually catching him in the building hallway. Boyett denied assaulting Murphy, testifying that he had been “an innocent onlooker” drawn to the “disturbance," the New York Amsterdam News reported, and “struck no one at that time.” In the confusion as the crowd rushed to leave when police appeared, a bullet hit him.
Conn was based at the 30th Precinct; St Nicholas Avenue was the boundary between that precinct and the 28th Precinct. Rather than taking Boyett to his own precinct, Conn took him to the 28th Precinct station on West 123rd Street, as Boyett appeared in that precinct's Police blotter. Hospital records indicate that a doctor from Knickerbocker Hospital treated Boyett's wound before he was placed in a cell. That hospital record and New York Herald Tribune, Daily News, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and Associated Press reported Boyett had been shot in the right shoulder. Several newspapers reported other locations for the injury: the Daily Mirror in the left shoulder, the New York American and Home News in the shoulder, and the New York Times, New York Sun and New York Evening Journal reported the wound was in his back.
Boyett appear in lists of the injured published in the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, Daily News, and New York American, and in a list of those shot in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and New York Herald Tribune. He also appears in the lists of the arrested published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, the Daily News, New York American, and New York Evening Journal.
Boyett appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with felonious assault. The docket book indicates that he was remanded until March 22. Unusually, Boyett did not appear in any of the newspaper stories about the legal proceedings after the disorder. Over a month later, on April 23, Boyett appeared before the grand jury, according to the District Attorney's case file records; they indicted him for first degree assault. His trial in the Court of General Sessions occurred just over a month later, on May 29, where his lawyer was William T. Andrews, a prominent member of Harlem's elite elected to the New York State Assembly in 1934. Boyett testified he had been “an innocent onlooker” drawn to the “disturbance," the New York Amsterdam News reported, and “struck no one at that time.” In the confusion as the crowd rushed to leave as police appeared, a bullet hit him. There is no mention in that story of what evidence was presented at Boyett's trial. Whatever it was, the jury acquitted Boyett, an outcome that indicated they accepted his account.
The 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded the outcome of that trial but the only source for details is that brief story in the New York Amsterdam News. Headlined "Wins Acquittal in Disturbance Charge," the story only summarized Boyett's testimony and included no details of the alleged assault on Murphy or Conn's account of the shooting. In that way it fitted with the approach Black newspapers took of not reporting alleged violence against whites during the disorder. The story mistakenly identified the complainant as Kennedy Murphy rather than Timothy Murphy, and mispelled Boyett's last name as Boyette. -
1
2021-04-28T20:40:49+00:00
Leroy Brown arrested
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2022-11-13T22:39:11+00:00
Around 9.45 PM, Officer Edward Doran watched a group assemble in front of Sam Lefkowitz's store at 2147 7th Avenue. In in his affidavit in the Harlem Magistrates Court, Doran alleged Leroy Brown threw a tailor's dummy through the window of the store, after which Doran heard him say to the rest of the group, "Go right along and get the other windows." As Doran arrested Brown, he saw the group continue north up 7th Avenue, and "heard the crash of glass and later observed other windows broken." The unclaimed laundry store at 2145 7th Avenue, on the south side of the Lefkowitz's store, also had its window broken.
Leroy Brown was a twenty-two-year-old Black man who identified himself as a bootblack in his examination in the Harlem Magistrates Court. He lived at 2493 8th Avenue, near West 133rd Street, some distance northwest of Lefkowitz's store, which was just north of West 127th Street. That address had been his home since 1932, he told the clerk in the Harlem Magistrates Court. Brown had been in the Magistrates Court once before 1935, charged with disorderly conduct in September 1934, and discharged by a Magistrate, according to his criminal record. When Brown appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, he was charged with both malicious mischief, for allegedly breaking the window, and inciting a riot, for his alleged call for the group to break other windows. He appeared in list of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, as one of those charged with inciting a riot. That was the most serious of the charges Brown faced in the Magistrates Court, so likely the one that would have been emphasized in a list of those arrested. The charge against Brown in a list published in the New York Daily News was malicious mischief (like four other men in this list he was misidentified as white). In lists published in the New York Evening Journal and the New York American the charge against Brown is disorderly conduct (and his first name mistakenly recorded as Eli). That information is almost certainly a mistake, as it was a less serious offense than either of those charged in the Magistrates Court and would only make sense if there was no evidence of him either breaking a window or inciting others. The two charges against Brown are reported in the Home News story about his appearance in the Magistrates Court.
Brown was held in custody by Magistrate Renaud on March 20, and then returned to the court on March 25, March 27, and again on April 1, appearances recorded only in the docket book. There is no information on why prosecutors needed this much time to investigate the case. On the last occasion, Magistrate Stern held Brown for the grand jury on the riot charge, and sent him to the Court of Special Sessions to be tried on the charge of malicious mischief (indicating that the value of the damage to the building was not more than $250, the level required for the charge to be a felony). Two weeks later, on April 15, Brown was brought before the grand jury, who sent him to the Court of Special Sessions to be tried for the lesser, misdemeanor form of the offense of riot. The outcome of Brown's two trials in the Court of Special Sessions are unknown. As he was charged in the Harlem Magistrates Court, he should have been in the 28th Precinct Police blotter, but he does not appear in the transcript in the MCCH records. Bernard Smith was also charged with both riot and malicious mischief, alleged, like Brown to have both broken a store window and urged others to do the same. In Smith's case, the grand jury dismissed the riot charge, and the malicious mischief charge was reduced to one of disorderly conduct, of which the Magistrate found him guilty and sentenced him to five days in the Workhouse. -
1
2021-04-21T19:10:20+00:00
Edward Larry arrested
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2022-12-03T21:49:07+00:00
At 1.00 AM Patrolman William Clements observed Edward Larry, a twenty-six-year-old Black laborer traveling in a taxi at West 123rd Street and 7th Avenue. He stopped the taxi, and found that Larry had a box containing eight shirts, with a value of $12. Not satisfied with Larry’s explanation that he had found the shirts on the street at West 129th Street and Lenox Avenue, Clements took him to the 28th Precinct for further questioning. The Magistrates Court affidavit simply described Clement as arresting Larry; the Home News report of Larry's appearance in the Magistrates Court described Clements arresting Larry "as he was about to get into a taxicab with two boxes containing a dozen shirts." The more detailed account in the Probation Department investigation described Clement stopping the cab.
Larry was one of nine men arrested away from the scene of their alleged crime, a group making up one third (9 of 27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27 of 60). He was the only one arrested in a vehicle, although a photograph published in the New York Evening Journal indicates that this was not the only instance in which police stopped vehicles. Larry told police he was returning home with the box he had found on the street, to the Salvation Army shelter at 224 West 124th Street, behind Kress' store (some reports listed the address as 218 West 124th Street; the MCCH business survey records that the Salvation Army operated in both buildings). He had lived there for a month, after spending two weeks at the Belmont Hotel on the Bowery, and the previous thirty days in the workhouse serving a sentence for pickpocketing.
At the police station, Morris Towbin saw Larry, and identified him as one of a group of men who had threatened him and robbed his haberdashery store at 101 West 125th Street at 10.30 PM the previous evening. Towbin also identified the shirts in Larry's possession as from his store, part of $2000 of merchandise stolen, $1000 of fixtures destroyed and $226.89 worth of plate glass windows smashed. Towbin's encounter with Larry is described only in the more detailed account in the Probation Department investigation. The Magistrates Court affidavit recorded only that Towbin had identified the shirts, a standard feature of a charge when an individual had not been seen stealing goods, and that he could "positively identify the defendant as one of the men" who had robbed him. In the Police Blotter the charge against Larry is burglary, suggesting that Towbin's identification came after his initial booking, and not before that information was provided to reporters, as the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list in the New York Evening Journal both include Larry among those charged with burglary. Towbin's allegation of force changed the charge to robbery, which is the charge made against Larry in the Harlem Magistrates Court. However, there is no mention of force or robbery in the story covering his court appearance in the Home News, or in reports of Towbin's statements as president of Harlem Merchants Association in the New York Daily News and Home News. Nor did police find a knife in Larry's possession, the weapon with which Tobin said he had been threatened. Nor did Larry's history suggest he would have used a weapon; none of his convictions involved the use of force.
When Larry was arraigned in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud held him without bail for the grand jury, one of only seven arrested during the disorder for which Magistrates did not set bail. Nine days later, on March 29, the grand jury indicted him for Robbery in the first degree. Rather than go to trial, Larry agreed to a plea bargain. On April 5 he appeared in the Court of General Sessions to plead guilty to Attempted Grand Larceny in the second degree, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison rather than up to twenty years, the punishment for Robbery in the first degree. Ten days later, after an investigation by the Probation Department, Judge Nott sentenced Larry to a term of between fifteen months and thirty months in the State Prison. (The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded a different sentence of six months to two years, but the Probation Department investigation and a response to the Parole Board in the District Attorney's case file both record the longer sentence). That was the longest sentence given to anyone arrested in the disorder, a reflection of the charge, and of Larry’s criminal record. He had been convicted three times for picking pockets in New York City in the three years before the disorder, and most significantly, convicted for grand larceny in West Virginia in 1928. New York's Habitual Offender statute, commonly known as the Baumes Act, required that in cases involving individuals with a previous conviction for a felony that any plea bargain be to a felony and set minimum sentences based on the previous felony conviction.
Larry had been born in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1909. His mother died when he was three years of age, leaving his father, and later stepmother to raise him. In 1921, a year after leaving school at age eleven years to work in a cotton press, Larry left home. In the only response the Probation Department received to the letters they sent inquiring about Larry's history, the Wilmington Public Welfare Commission reported an interview with his half-sister Rose, in which she said he found work in a coal mine in West Virginia. Larry himself told the Probation Department officer G. H. Royal that he first worked briefly for a transportation company, traveling to Providence, Rhode Island, where he spent two months in a fish factory, followed by time on a truck in Far Rockaway, New York, then in a steel mill in Pittsburgh and a coal mine in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. Beginning in 1924, aged fifteen, he began working irregularly for carnival companies that traveled the North in the summer and the South in the winter.
In February 1928, carnival work, or perhaps coal mining, brought Larry to Welch, West Virginia, where he was convicted of grand larceny. The court did not respond to the Probation Department's request for details of the case; Larry told them that he and another man were accused of stealing money from a drunken man in a poolroom (given Larry's record, the theft was likely accomplished by pickpocketing). Sentenced to six years in the State Prison, Larry said he served four years and eight months, which would have seen him released in June 1932. By May 28, 1933, Larry was in New York City; he also said that earlier that month, while working in a carnival, he married Cora Temple, a dancer, in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. In New York City, Larry was arrested for pickpocketing, with the criminal record in the District Attorney's case file specifying "lush," slicing open the pocket of a drunken individual, and sentenced to thirty days in the workhouse. After his release he remained in New York City for at least six months, presumably with his wife Cora, but without a home and relying on charity. According to his half sister, Larry returned to Wilmington in December 1933, and found work as a stevedore until July 1934; he told the Probation Department he did not visit until July 1934, and left his wife there while he looked for work.
Almost as soon as Larry arrived back in New York City, on July 29, police arrested him for pickpocketing, again lush according to the criminal record in the District Attorney's case file. On this occasion he was sentenced to six months in the workhouse. Released in January 1935, it was less than a month before officers from the police pickpocket squad arrested him again, and he spent a further 30 days in the workhouse. In the month between his release and the disorder, he told the Probation Department that he spent a week working on a Salvation Army project in Flushing, Long Island. -
1
2020-09-29T17:41:09+00:00
Hashi Mohammed arrested
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2022-12-07T18:44:27+00:00
Officer Brown of the 40th Precinct arrested Hashi Mohammed, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, for inciting a riot and possession of a knife. Mohammed had allegedly smashed windows "along Lenox Avenue," according to a story in the Home News, the source of details of the charges made against him. Born in Abyssinia, according to the New York American and New York Evening Journal and Washington Heights Magistrate's Court docket book, he lived at 4 West 128th Street, a block east of an area of Lenox Avenue that saw extensive disorder from late on March 19 and into the early hours of March 20, and may have been drawn to join the crowds on that street at some point. The combination of charges suggest that after Mohammed's arrest the police officer searched him and found the knife, "a large bread knife" according to Home News. Mohammed also appeared in lists of the injured published in the New York Evening Journal, New York Post and New York American as having "internal injuries." While he was listed among those "Less Seriously Injured" in the New York American and New York Evening Journal, he was also identified as in Harlem Hospital (however, he does not appear in any of the records the MCCH obtained from the hospital). It is possible that Brown or other police officers involved in his arrest may have been responsible for those injuries.
Mohammed was included in the list of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide as charged with inciting a riot and "also charged with, violation of Sullivan law (possession of firearms)." When Mohammed appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrate's Court he faced both charges, but the weapon he was recorded in the docket book as possessing was a knife not a gun.
Mohammed did not appear in the Washington Heights Magistrate's Court until March 22, whereas most of those arrested in the disorder had been in court on March 20. That delay may have been the result of his injury. On the charge of carrying a dangerous weapon, Magistrate Ford held him on bail of $2500 to appear in the Court of Special Sessions, significantly more than the typical bail of $500. Mohammed pled guilty, according to the docket book, but that must have been to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct, as the Magistrate could not adjudicate a charge of riot. Ford sentenced him to thirty days in the Workhouse. The only reports of Mohammed's court appearance were in the Daily Worker, which mentioned only the sentence and misreported the charge against him as burglary, and the Home News, which reported he had been convicted not pled guilty. Three weeks later, on April 17, the Magistrates in the Court of Special Sessions acquitted Mohammed of possessing a weapon, an outcome that appears only in the records of the 32nd Precinct.
The sources differ in how they record Mohammed's name. In the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide he appears as Sashi Mohammed, as Hashi Mohammed in the New York Evening Journal, New York Post and New York American, as Hashi Mohamed in the Home News and as Hashi Mohamid in the Washington Heights Magistrate's Court docket book.The records of the 32nd Precinct record his name as "Koko Mohammed."
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1
2020-02-25T17:19:47+00:00
Lyman Quarterman shot
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2022-07-19T15:14:02+00:00
At around 10.30 PM, Lyman Quarterman, a thirty-four-year-old Black man, was part of a crowd at 121st Street and 7th Avenue that police were struggling to disperse when he was shot in the abdomen. Around the same time, Anthony Cados, a thirty-four-year-old white man reported being assaulted nearby by "some unknown colored person or persons." While Cados lived approximately ten blocks to the south, Quarterman lived at the other end of Black Harlem, at 306 West 146th Street (in the same area as two of the other Black men shot, Clarence London and Wilmont Hendricks)
Hospital records of the ambulance called to attend Quarterman simply recorded he had a "gunshot wound of the abdomen received when shot by some unknown person at the scene of riot." The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York American, Brooklyn Citizen and Daily Mirror, and the Associated Press reported on March 20, and the Chicago Defender on March 23, that Quarterman had died, a mistake the Home News attributed to "many conflicting reports during the night," and the New York Evening Journal attributed more specifically to a "report having been sent out on the police teletype." By late on March 20 the New York Evening Journal, New York Post and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle listed Quarterman among the injured, as did the Atlanta World on March 27 and the Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide on March 30. He was one of eight men still in hospital on March 21, the New York Herald Tribune reported, and still there as late as April 8 according to the New York Age, but there are no reports that he died.
The New York Times headlined the story it published on March 20, "Police Shoot Into Rioters; Kill Negro in Harlem Mob." However, the story itself was less definitive, saying only that the "police launched an investigation to determine who fired the fatal shot." However, other white newspaper stories discounted in various ways the possibility police shot Quarterman. The New York Herald Tribune, reported that no policeman in the vicinity could remember discharging his revolver, whereas the Times Union said many had, but “only into the air to frighten the mob.” The New York Evening Journal story made an oblique reference to shots being fired into the crowd, as the culmination of a narrative justifying police actions as a response to escalating violence, in which officers from the 123rd Street station surrounded by a crowd, first drew their nightsticks “to save their own lives,” and when the crowd armed themselves with baseball bats and clubs, drew their guns and exchanged shots with the crowd. No other newspapers reproduced this narrative. The New York American simply said Quarterman had been shot by an unknown assailant, the Daily Mirror by a “stray bullet,” and the Daily News reported his assailant had escaped, stories which all implicitly assumed the police were not responsible for his death. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle explicitly expressed such an assumption in reporting Quarterman had been shot “presumably by rioters.” Only the Brooklyn Citizen stated directly that “Whether he had been shot by police or other rioters could not be determined.”
Four of the six others shot and wounded during the disorder were Black men like Quarterman, one of unknown race, and one white police officer. As in his case, no one was arrested for any of those shootings (the man with who the police officer struggled, James Thompson, was shot and killed by police).
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1
2020-02-25T18:06:03+00:00
August Miller killed
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2022-08-17T01:31:37+00:00
Around midnight, August Miller, a fifty-six-year-old white man, suffered a head injury in the midst of a crowd at 126th Street and Lenox Avenue. A cab driver took him to the Joint Disease Hospital, according to the police complaint report. It was 12.30 AM when Dr. Millbank attended Miller, so likely around midnight when he collapsed in the crowd. Millbank diagnosed him as suffering a possible skull fracture "received in some unknown manner during disorder," according to hospital records, and admitted him for treatment. Miller appeared in three of the seven newspaper lists of the injured published on March 20, those of the New York Evening Journal, New York Post and New York American, and among those the New York Herald Tribune reported still in hospital on March 21, and those listed as injured in the Atlanta World on March 27.
Miller himself never described the circumstances of his injury, dying on March 22 without regaining consciousness. His death was widely reported on March 23, in some cases with information on the how he had been killed. The most direct explanations came in stories published in the New York Herald Tribune, New York Evening Journal, and Times Union, and in the Associated Press story, which reported Miller had been "beaten by rioters." The Home News offered additional details, that Miller was "struck by several bricks, knocked down and kicked around by the mob." The New York Times and New York Sun did not attribute Miller's death to anyone, only going as far as saying Miller was "in the midst of rioters" when injured, while the Brooklyn Daily Eagle even more obliquely said his death came "during the height of the disorders." The New York Post implied he had been assaulted in a different way, noting where he had been injured, and adding "He was one of the half a dozen white men seriously hurt during the disturbance." Lists of those killed in the Daily News and stories in Black newspapers the New York Age and New York Amsterdam News, as well as the lists of those killed published in the Afro-American, Norfolk Journal and Guide and Pittsburgh Courier simply listed Miller's injuries, a fractured skull.
Police investigating the case in the aftermath of the disorder could find no witnesses to establish the circumstances in which he was injured. There is also no information on why he traveled to the neighborhood. Miller lived in the Bronx, some distance from Harlem. His employers did report Miller had been “acting peculiar for some months previous.”
An autopsy performed at the City Morgue on March 23 determined that the cause of death was a cerebral hemorrhage, “a natural cause, nothing suspicious.” Miller was included in lists of those killed in the disorder published on March 23 and 24, and in Black weekly newspapers on March 30, without mention of the autopsy. On March 31 the Home News also included him in its count of those killed in the disorder even while noting that Miller's death "was later found to have been due to heart disease, probably aggravated by exertion and excitement." The Daily News, New York American, Daily Mirror, Times Union, the Associated Press, Afro American, and Chicago Defender reported the death of Lloyd Hobbs on March 30 as the fourth death resulting from the disorder without specifying the other three individuals killed. None of those newspapers included Edward Laurie among those killed, so they also still included Miller after the autopsy, along with James Thompson and Andrew Lyons. So too did the New York Herald Tribune, which identified Hobbs as the fifth death resulting from the riot. (The Daily Worker initially reported Hobbs as the fourth death, on April 1, but a week later referred to him as the third death, while the New York Times reported his death without reference to how many others had been killed). -
1
2021-05-27T20:08:18+00:00
Louis Cobb arrested
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2022-12-09T02:18:56+00:00
Around 1.20 AM, Officer Nathaniel Carter allegedly saw several men leaving William Feinstein's liquor store at 452 Lenox Avenue carrying bottles, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit. He arrested one of those men, Louis Cobb, a thirty-eight-year-old Black laborer, with one bottle of gin and two bottles of whiskey in his possession. A crowd of thirty to forty people had attacked the closed store a few minutes earlier, according to witness testimony in the Municipal Court reported in the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune, breaking down the iron gate protecting it, then smashing the windows, taking bottles of liquor and damaging the storefront. Feinstein put his losses at $627.40 when he sued the city for failing to protect his business. The three bottles allegedly taken by Cobb amounted to just over one percent of that total, $7.
Louis Cobb appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrate's Court on March 20. However, the affidavit making the complaint against him was not taken until March 25. In the interim, Magistrate Ford held Cobb without bail. An annotation in the docket book dated March 21 records "no bail in absence of record," suggesting police had not been able to produce his criminal record. Magistrates reaffirmed the denial of bail when Cobb appeared repeatedly in court, on March 25, 26 and April 2, when he was finally sent to the grand jury. Those decisions reflected the criminal record eventually produced for him: six charges in New York City since 1920, for burglary, robbery, drug possession, homicide, procuring and possession of a firearm, resulting in two sentences to the State Prison at Sing Sing, two terms in the Penitentiary and a sentence in the workhouse, and two sentences for violating parole. Cobb appears in the list of those arrested and charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. There are no newspaper reports of his prosecution.
The grand jury did not indict Cobb; on April 10 they instead transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions to be tried for petit larceny. That decision likely reflected the lack of evidence of him breaking into the store required for a charge of burglary, and the value of the three bottles of liquor Officer Carter allegedly found on him, $7, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit, well below the $100 threshold for a felony charge for larceny. Less than a week later, on April 15, the Magistrates in the Court of Special Sessions convicted Cobb and sentenced him to the Penitentary, an outcome recorded only in the records of the 32nd Precinct.
Born in Georgia in 1897, Louis Cobb had made his way to New York City some time before January 10, 1920, when a census enumerator found him boarding at 334 53rd Street, in San Juan Hill, the city's major Black neighborhood before the rise of Harlem, and working as a porter. A series of criminal convictions though the 1920s and 1930s offer fragmentary glimpses of Cobb's life in Harlem. Just over two months after the census, his criminal record indicates that police charged Cobb with attempted burglary; he was convicted and sentenced to an indefinite term in the Blackwell Island Penitentiary. He was on parole by February 1921, when police arrested him again for violating the terms of that parole and returned him to the Penitentiary. Released again later that year, within a few months Cobb was in court, charged with robbery. Convicted of second-degree assault, the judge sentenced him to five years in Sing Sing, the state prison. The prison admissions register recorded that Cobb was unemployed at the time of the alleged crime, now living in Harlem at 30 West 135th Street; in a subsequent admission register entry he would attribute his "first crime" to being out of work. According to the admissions register, Cobb was eligible for parole in May 1925. He likely was released around this time, as in November 1925 police arrested him again, this time for a drugs offense, according to his criminal record. The judge sentenced him to another indefinite term in the Penitentiary, but the conviction violated his parole, so Cobb was returned to Sing Sing Prison to serve out his previous sentence.
Likely released in early 1926, Cobb later that year began living with Martha Nelson, who was about ten years his junior. The couple made their home at 8 West 137th Street, in the heart of Harlem. In 1930, Cobb gave his occupation as longshoreman in the 1930 census, but indicated he had not been employed in 1929. He may have been supporting himself in other ways. In May 1929, his criminal record indicates that a magistrate convicted Cobb as a procurer, supplying prostitutes, and sentenced him to sixty days in the workhouse. About five months after his release, in December 1929, police again arrested Cobb, for the murder of Bert Moore, a Black store manger, during a robbery of the candy store at 23 West 138th Street that he managed. The New York Amsterdam News and New York Age published very different accounts of the crime, neither of which explain why Cobb's criminal record indicated he was discharged in 1931 and charged instead with gun possession. The robbery of the store was the third in as many weeks. According to the New York Age, in a story accompanied by a photograph of Moore, Cobb was involved in all those robberies; on the first two occasions, he had an accomplice, John Boyle, who was arrested after the second robbery when Moore managed to subdue him with a baseball bat until police arrived. Cobb then returned on his own to rob the store again and shot Moore as he left. A customer in the store at the time identified Cobb. The New York Amsterdam News reported Doyle [Boyle] as acting alone and captured by Moore and three customers, and did not link Cobb to either previous robbery. After the third robbery, the New York Amsterdam News reported less evidence linking Cobb to the murder: Moore gave police a description before he died, based on which officers arrested Cobb on West 138th Street close by the candy store. The story also reported that police found a gun when they searched Cobb's home, but that his wife claimed it belonged to her, leading to her arrest for gun possession. The New York Amsterdam News a week later reported Cobb's arraignment and his wife's arraignment in separate stories. Neither paper published anything further about the case.
In April 1930, the census recorded that Cobb was in the Tombs Prison; a Magistrate had ordered him held without bail on the murder charge. However, at some point before early 1931 he was released; beginning in February, he worked as a laborer for a coal company, according to the Sing Sing Prison admission register. In April, police arrested him for possession of a revolver; the prison admission register recorded the date of that crime as December 13, 1929, when Cobb was arrested for Moore's murder. Police must have found a way to link Cobb to the gun found in his home that day, but not to Moore's murder; it does not seem that Martha had changed her story, as Cobb still listed her as his wife in the prison admission register. Convicted of gun possession, Cobb was sentenced to seven years in Sing Sing Prison.
Paroled in 1939, rather than returning to Harlem, Cobb settled in Albany, New York, and found work as a presser. He identifies himself as single, and his mother, rather than Martha Nelson, as his next of kin, in the Clinton Prison admission ledger in 1939. In July that year police arrested Cobb for burglary, charging him with stealing a $15 radio, a coat and a vest. The admission ledger recorded that he asserted his innocence, saying he took the property from a friend not knowing it was stolen. Nonetheless, he was found guilty and sentenced to a term of ten to twenty years. The 1940 census records him as an inmate of Clinton Prison. He was not eligible for parole until 1948.
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1
2020-02-26T15:11:31+00:00
Richard Jackson arrested
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2022-12-04T20:06:31+00:00
Officer Connelly of the 32nd Precinct arrested Richard Jackson, a twenty-seven-year-old Black man who lived at 102 West 119th Street, on March 20, perhaps for assaulting Vito Capozzio, a man of unknown race and age. Jackson appeared in the list of those arrested for assault published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Guide, with no information on the events that led to his arrest. However, the information in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book suggests Jackson may have been involved in a fight not in the disorder. When he appeared in court on March 20 charged the charge against him was the lesser offense of disorderly conduct, not assault, and was annotated "fight." That violence cannot have resulted in significant injury if the charge was disorderly conduct: the applicable section of the statute applied only to a person who used "offensive, disorderly, threatening, abusive or insulting language, conduct or behavior." The complainant was Vito Capozzio, whose address was recorded as "3764 Boulevard," perhaps in the Bronx. He was also the complainant against the man recorded after Jackson in the docket book, Salathel Smith, a forty-seven-year-old Black man also charged with disorderly conduct. Both Jackson and Smith were arrested by the same police officer. Given that evidence, Jackson and Smith may have got into a fight in a business which Capozzio either owned or worked in rather than assaulting him. Their appearance in the Washington Heights Court, and arrest by an officer from the 32nd Precinct, indicate that they were arrested north of 130th Street, an area that saw fewer incidents and arrests during the disorder. Jackson and Smith would not have been the only men who appeared in court that day not arrested as part of the disorder; eleven of the forty-four recorded in the docket book on March 20 faced charges unrelated to the disorder, such as offenses against the Sabbath Law.
Disorderly conduct was a charge that could be adjudicated in the Magistrates Court. Magistrate Ford convicted Jackson, and Smith. He sentenced both to just two days in the workhouse or a $5 fine; neither paid the fine, so would have served the time. The New York Age and Home News reported Jackson's conviction, while the New York Herald Tribune also reported the charge and sentence, in stories on legal proceedings related to the disorder. The New York Age also reported Smith's conviction, the only mention of his name in a newspaper story. The inconsistent appearance of Jackson in newspaper lists and reports of court proceedings likely reflects confusion of reporters about whether his arrest related to the disorder. -
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2020-09-28T20:32:00+00:00
Douglas Cornelius arrested
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2022-12-09T16:16:22+00:00
Around 10.30 PM, Patrolman Walter MacKenzie arrested Douglas Cornelius, a twenty-two-year old Black man, for allegedly using a rock to hit Thomas Wijstem, a thirty-year-old white carpenter, in front of the W. T. Grant store at 226 West 125th Street. Newspapers reported that a group of men had attacked Wijstem, but police arrested only Cornelius. Patrolman Walter Mackenzie appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of two other men arrested in the same area of West 125th Street around the same time: Claude Jones, also at 10.30 PM at Blumstein's department store at 230 West 125th Street, immediately west of where Cornelius was arrested; and William Ford, ten minutes later, at Kress' store at 256 West 125th Street, several buildings further west. It is not clear he actually made the arrests. There are no details of what MacKenzie said in regards to the assault on Wijstem, but in the other two incidents, which resulted in the arrests of Claude Jones and William Ford, he stated he had witnessed the men breaking windows and inciting the crowd, but made no mention of arresting them. Police had established a headquarters in front of Kress' store, and officers from throughout the city had begun arriving there before 10.30 PM, so there were likely other officers in the area who could have made the arrests.
Like the man he allegedly assaulted, Cornelius lived in East Harlem, at 52 East 118th Street, a mixed black and Puerto Rican section. He appears in the list of those arrested for assault published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Guide, but he is linked to the unidentified man with the fractured skull only in a story in the New York Times, a list of the arrested in the New York Evening Journal, and lists of the injured in the New York Herald Tribune, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and Home News. (Wijstem was named as the unidentified man in stories published by the New York Post and New York World-Telegram on March 22).
After being one of the last of those arrested in the disorder to appear in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Cornelius was charged with felonious assault. He was one of only eighteen of those arrested in the disorder to have a lawyer representing him listed in court docket book, in his case Pope Billings, a former state assemblyman and prominent member of the Elks Lodge with an office at 211 West 135th Street (both the other men arrested at same time, Claude Jones and William Ford, also had Black lawyers representing them). Magistrate Renaud held him until March 25 on bail of $1000, according to the docket book. When he appeared again, Magistrate Ford dismissed the charge against him as he had been indicted by the grand jury. The 28th Precinct Police blotter simply listed the charges as "Dism[issed]," as it did with other men dismissed in the Magistrates Court as they had been indicted. However, there was no case file for Cornelius in the District Attorney's records, and no other information on the outcome of his prosecution. Wijstem's condition may have delayed the legal process. A brief story in New York Herald Tribune in June 1935 reported Wijstem had died in Bellevue Hospital without regaining consciousness. -
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2021-12-20T20:08:38+00:00
Frank Wells arrested
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2022-11-14T19:46:27+00:00
Around 8.50 PM, Officer Henry Eppler of the 48th Precinct arrested Frank Wells, a twenty-six-year-old Black man, for allegedly "hurling an automobile hub through a cafeteria window on 125th Street," according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. Eppler was stationed in front of 207 West 125th Street, he testified in a public hearing of the MCCH; that was the address of the Willow Cafeteria, which appeared in several newspaper lists of damaged businesses. Eppler had arrived on Emergency Truck #5 about 7.15 PM, and initially was stationed on 124th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, at the rear of Kress' store. By that time the crowds that broke the store's rear windows were gone and he testified that the street was quiet, so the truck drove on to West 125th Street. At that time, police were establishing a cordon around Kress' store; around the time Eppler arrested Wells a crowd reportedly broke through that cordon on to this block of 125th Street. Wells lived near 125th Street at 155 West 123rd Street, near the corner of 7th Avenue, so could have been drawn to the noise and crowds around Kress' store early in the disorder, when store windows on 125th Street were broken.
A New York Herald Tribune story reported Wells was "locked up at West 123rd Street station," the charge against him "to depend on value of the window." That determination was necessary as malicious mischief, the offense involving damage to property that was the charge most often made against those alleged to have broken windows, was a felony if the damage was more than $25. Only the Daily News list of those arrested reported that charge against Wells. The charge was inciting a riot in the list published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Guide, assault in the list published in the New York Evening Journal, and disorderly conduct in the list published in the New York American. Wells did not appear in the 28th Precinct Police blotter, perhaps because of how early in the disorder he was arrested. On March 20, when Wells appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court, one of the last arraigned after being one of the first arrested, the charge recorded in the docket book was disorderly conduct. He appears to have been one of a small number of those arrested to be represented by a lawyer: "Ed Kuntz, 100 5th Ave." was the attorney recorded in the docket book. Edward Kuntz, a lawyer with the International Labor Defense, also represented Daniel Miller, Sam Jamison, Murray Samuels and Claudio Viabolo, the men arrested for picketing in front of Kress's store immediately before the disorder began, in the Court of Special Sessions, and questioned witnesses in hearings of the MCCH commission. That representation indicated that Wells was associated with the Communist Party. So too did the involvement of another ILD lawyer, Isidore Englander, and the inclusion of Wells in a list of possible witnesses that the CP gave to Arthur Garfield Hays of the MCCH. At the Harlem Magistrates Court Englander "found out Frank Wells was arrested," he testified in a public hearing of the MCCH. When he got access to Wells, he claimed he found "his head was bandaged, his shirt was red with blood, he could not stand on his feet." At an earlier hearing, Kuntz had tried to ask Patrolman Eppler about the claim that police had beaten Wells "on the streets," but had been prevented by the District Attorney's instruction that police officers testifying in the hearings could not reveal any evidence they would give in a pending case.
Investigating the case against Wells took an unusually long time. He returned to court on March 26, at which time his bail was set at $500. A note on the docket book appears to indicate that someone put up that bail, likely a Communist Party organization. Wells returned to court a further five times, according to the docket book, on April 9, 12, 17, 18, and finally on April 20, when he was convicted and sentenced to thirty days in the Workhouse. -
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2020-10-20T22:27:18+00:00
James Williams arrested
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2022-12-14T16:33:02+00:00
Around 2 AM, police arrested James Williams, a twenty-eight-year-old West Indian cook at Lenox Avenue and West 118th Street. He allegedly had in possession a “quantity of hardware” taken from Herman Young’s hardware store at 346 Lenox Ave, ten blocks to north, an hour earlier. It is not clear how Williams was carrying the collection of four pots of different sizes, two pans, a pitcher, two pails, a bread box and a cloth lamp. Young identified those goods as his property. With a combined value of $12.55, they represented only a small portion of the $500 of hardware reported stolen from his store. Williams may have been on route home from Young’s store. For the last two years he had lived a block further south and west at 153 West 117th Street. 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).
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).
Charged with burglary the morning after the disorder, Williams appeared in only the list of those arrested published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Globe and Guide, and in one list published in the New York Evening Journal. He was one of only eighteen of those arrested in the disorder represented by a lawyer, in his case John Lewis, a member of the Harlem Lawyers Association. The Harlem Magistrates Court Docket Book recorded 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 indicated a decision not to charge Williams with burglary, a felony which required evidence of breaking and entering. They likely instead charged him with larceny, for which the goods allegedly found in his possession provided evidence. They 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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2021-12-20T17:37:03+00:00
Leo Smith arrested
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2022-12-09T16:43:21+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Williams of the 6th Detective Division arrested Leo Smith, an eighteen-year-old white man, for allegedly "throwing a stone through a Seventh Avenue window," according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. The specific location of the damaged store is not given. However, Smith was one of three men arrested during the disorder arraigned in the Night Court, during the disorder on March 19, the New York Herald Tribune reported, so was likely arrested near 125th Street, where the initial events were concentrated. In reporting that Smith was "accused of smashing a store window," a story in the Home News gave the address as 3180 7th Avenue, a non-existent address. He lived well to the east of Harlem, at 305 East 118th Street, between Second and First Avenues, an area with only white residents.
Smith was included in lists of those arrested in the disorder charged with disorderly conduct published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, in the New York Evening Journal, and in the New York American, and without a charge in a list published in the Daily News. He was not included, however, in the transcript of the 28th Precinct Police blotter, likely because he was arrested and sent to the Night Court on March 19 (although one of the two other men arraigned in the Night Court, Claudius Jones, is in the transcript). There Magistrate Capshaw held him for the Magistrates Court, on bail of $500. On March 20, Smith appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court, charged with disorderly conduct. Magistrate Renaud tried and convicted him that day, holding him for sentence, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book and a story in the Home News. According to the Daily News, Smith had a white lawyer (although none was recorded in the docket book). The unnamed lawyer attracted the reporter's attention when he "sought to inject a question of race while a colored patrolman was testifying against" Smith. A slightly less cryptic account of what the lawyer said appeared in the Times Union, the only other newspaper to report the incident: "a lawyer for a white defendant hinted the trouble was started by Negroes and was racial in origin." According to that story, "Negroes in the jammed room muttered disapprovingly" and "Magistrate Renaud quickly reprimanded the attorney." The Daily News quoted the magistrate's words: "The patrolman in this case happens to be colored, the Judge happens to be white and the prosecutor is colored," said Renaud. "We recognize no race, color or creed here. We are looking for justice and law and order."" When Smith returned to court on March 23, it was for sentencing, stories in the Afro-American, New York Age, Daily News and New York Times reported. Magistrate Renaud sent him to the Workhouse for one month, a sentence in the middle of the range of punishments handed out to those arrested in the disorder.
Smith was recorded as white in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, in stories about his sentencing in the Afro-American, New York Age, Daily News and New York Times and in lists published in the New York Evening Journal and Daily News. Neither story about his first appearance in court, in the New York Herald Tribune and the Home News, mentioned his race. His address, well east of the areas of Black residences in Harlem, fitted with his recorded race (although the New York Evening Journal, New York Herald Tribune and Daily News mistakenly recorded his address as West 118th Street). None of the newspaper reporting offered any comment regarding Smith's race. -
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2022-02-13T21:48:02+00:00
Margaret Mitchell arrested
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2022-12-09T17:27:01+00:00
Officer Johnson of the 6th Division arrested Margaret Mitchell, an eighteen-year-old Black woman, inside Kress’ 5, 10 and 25c store, sometime around 5.00 PM on March 19. Police alleged that she was “throwing pans on floor and causing crowd to collect,” according to Inspector Di Martini’s report on the disorder. Pots and pans, and glasses, were knocked off counters and women screamed, after the store was closed and police tried to clear out those inside, Jackson Smith, the store manager, Patrolman Timothy Shannon, and Louise Thompson all testified. Only Thompson described the circumstances that produced that noise, most fully in an article in New Masses. After a woman she could not see screamed, Thompson joined part of the crowd who rushed to where the noise came from, the rear of the store. Police there pushed that crowd back and refused to answer when women asked “if the boy was injured and where he is,” Thompson wrote in New Masses. The officers also “began to get rough.” A woman with an umbrella retaliated; she either hit an officer, according to Thompson’s testimony, or “knocked over a pile of pots and pans,” according to her article. Many of those in the store left once the noise and struggles with police began, both Thompson and Smith testified. Thompson remained with the woman she described knocking over pots and pans, who was not arrested, but she was clearly not the only person who knocked over merchandise in efforts to remain in the store until they had information about Rivera. Mitchell could also have been the woman whose scream drew Thompson and others to the rear of the store.
Margaret Mitchell appeared in many newspaper stories about what happened in Kress’ store, but almost all truncated the extended standoff between the Black women and store staff and police into a rapid sequence of events, in the process mistaking what Mitchell was alleged to have done and when she was arrested. The Home News reported that Mitchell “attempted to take the Rivera boy from the department store detectives and cried cut that the guards were beating the youth.” La Prensa also reported Mitchell trying to intervene. Although the Home News went on to claim that Mitchell was arrested at that time, neither Hurley nor Donohue mentioned a woman being part of their struggles with Rivera, and Donahue testified he did not arrest anyone while at Kress’ store. The AA, AN, NYEJ (and the New York Times on 3/24) reported that Mitchell was arrested after she screamed when the boy was being beaten. However, NYT, DN, Am, NYP, PT, AW, HT, DW did not specify when she screamed (or spread rumors in the NYT story or was “a leader of the disturbance” in the HT story) – although the (Am, NYP, and DN) did elsewhere in their stories mention an unnamed woman running into street screaming at the time Rivera was grabbed. The NYS alone specified that Mitchell’s actions came later: “The woman whose cries that the boy had been murdered, rekindled the vandalism after the police had succeeded in quenching it earlier in the evening, is Margaret Mitchell, 18, of 283 West 150th street.” The next day, in reporting Mitchell’s arraignment in the Harlem Magistrate’s Court, the Home News combined its description of her trying to intervene when Rivera was grabbed with the later events mentioned in Di Martini’s report. While reiterating that she “attempted to take the Rivera boy from the department store detectives and cried cut that the guards were beating the youth,” the story added that after Rivera had been taken to the basement, she “urging other colored people in the store to demand the release of the boy, started throwing merchandise to the floor and upset many of the counter displays.” Inspector Di Martini's report, while containing few details of events in the store, did distinguish Mitchell from the woman who reacted to Rivera, whose actions he located slightly later than the newspaper stories, "upon the arrival of the ambulance [to treat Hurley and Urban]," when the "unknown female screamed that the boy had been seriously injured or killed and otherwise caused a commotion which attracted a large number of persons." Mitchell's arrest came later, after which "this commotion was soon quieted."
The more specific allegation of “throwing pans on floor and causing crowd to collect” was recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as “Disorderly in Kresses 5 & 10c Store.” That language echoed the offense with which the prosecutor charged Mitchell, disorderly conduct. She appeared in lists of those arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, the NYEJ, Am and DN. Arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Mitchell was found guilty by Magistrate Renaud, who remanded her until March 23 for investigation and sentencing. The Times Union reported that she “denied hysterically she participated in the rioting. She stood up from the witness chair screaming, then collapsed.” No other newspapers included that scene.
Mitchell returned to the court on March 23. In passing sentence Magistrate Renaud commented that “he did not believe the girl acted maliciously,” the New York Times and New York Age reported. The sentence reflected that assessment: three days in the Workhouse or a fine of $10. Mitchell was one of only three people convicted during the disorder who paid a fine. She was also one of only eighteen of those arraigned represented by a lawyer, in her case Sidney Christian, a prominent West Indian attorney.
The lawyer was likely obtained with the help of Mitchell’s father, Thomas E. Thompson. A West Indian immigrant who had arrived in New York City in 1895, Thompson had been a postal worker for thirty-five years at the time of his daughter’s arrest, and an office holder in the Prince Hall Masons. He and his family were among the earliest Black residents of Harlem, recorded in the 1910 census living in 55 West 137th Street. While not featuring on the social pages as Sidney Christian did, Thompson would have had the resources and the standing in the West Indian community to have known of and involved the lawyer. Mitchell, one of the youngest of Thompson's twelve children, had married in April 1934, and at the time of the disorder lived with her husband, David Mitchell, a handyman in an apartment building, at 287 West 150th Street. That she was in a store twenty-five blocks south of her home indicated the distance from which the businesses on West 125th Street drew their customers.
As the only person arrested in Kress’ store, and named in newspaper stories about the disorder, Mitchell was one of the few identifiable sources of information about the beginnings of the disorder for the MCCH. However, when Lt. Battle called at her home and requested that she be at the public hearing on March 30, “she refused to come.” Asked again about her testimony three weeks later, Battle reiterated that "she absolutely refuses to come to this hearing."
Margaret Mitchell and her husband still lived in the same apartment when the census enumerator called in 1940. In January 1945, she joined 200 family and friends celebrating her parents 50th wedding anniversary, photographed alongside her siblings in an image published in the New York Amsterdam News. Her husband David was not part of the celebration; he was a sergeant in the U.S. military serving overseas, as were two of Mitchell’s brothers and four nephews. -
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2021-09-06T19:20:25+00:00
Arthur Davis arrested
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2022-12-03T21:22:51+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Arthur Davis, a thirty-six-year-old Black resident of 42 West 126th Street, for allegedly stealing groceries from a grocery store at 340 Lenox Avenue. He may not have broken the store windows, as a story in the Home News specified that Davis' alleged offense occurred "after the windows had been smashed." The store's address is mentioned only in that story; both that story in the Home News and one in the Daily Worker reported the Davis had allegedly taken groceries. At the same time Detective Phillips also arrested Elizabeth Tai, a twenty-eight-year-old Black women, for allegedly taking groceries from the store.
Davis appeared in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter also recorded the charge against Davis as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot."
Davis was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 with Tai and another individual arrested by Detective Phillips, Herbert Hunter, also charged with burglary, and arrested with them according to the Home News. However, that story did not directly state that Hunter was charged with looting the same store. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips' name and precinct; the stories in the Home News and Daily Worker identified him as a detective.. Both the docket book and 28th Precinct Police Blotter gave Davis' age as thirty-six years; both lists and all the newspaper stories gave his age as thirty-two-years.
When Davis appeared in court again, on March 22, the docket book recorded no change in the charge against him, but a story in the Home News reported that "the Court" had reduced the charge from burglary to disorderly conduct, as it had for both Tai and Hunter. In Tai's case, the docket book did record that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct. Had the police presented evidence Davis had stolen merchandise he would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; had they presented evidence that he had broken windows, the charge would have been malicious mischief. The charge of disorderly conduct suggests he may only have been part of a crowd near the store. Magistrate Renaud found Davis guilty, an outcome reported in the stories in the Daily News and New York Evening Journal as well as the Home News. He also found Tai and Hunter guilty.
Renaud sentenced Davis to pay a fine of $25 or serve five days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, the same sentence he gave Tai. He gave Hunter a longer sentence of ten days without the alternative of a fine. Davis was unable to pay the fine, according to the Home News, so was sent to the Workhouse, a sentence also recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter and stories in the Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker. -
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2021-09-06T19:34:04+00:00
Elizabeth Tai arrested
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2022-11-14T00:33:04+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Elizabeth Tai, a twenty-eight-year-old Black resident of 1654 3rd Avenue for allegedly stealing groceries from a grocery store at 340 Lenox Avenue. She may not have broken the store windows, as a story in the Home News specified that Tai's alleged offense occurred "after the windows had been smashed." The store's address is mentioned only in that story; both that story in the Home News and one in the Daily Worker reported the Tai had allegedly taken groceries. At the same time Detective Phillips also arrested Arthur Davis, a thirty-six-year-old Black man for allegedly taking groceries from the store.
Tai appeared in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter also recorded the charge against Tai as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot." Her home was some way from Harlem, on the east side of Central Park between 92nd and 93rd Streets.
Tai was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 with Arthur Davis and another individual arrested by Detective Phillips, Herbert Hunter, also charged with burglary, and arrested with them according to the Home News. However, that story did not directly state that Hunter was charged with looting the same store. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips' name and precinct; the stories in the Home News and Daily Worker identified him as a detective.
When Tai appeared in court again, on March 22, the docket book recorded that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct, the original charge crossed out. The "Court" reduced the charge, according to the Home News, doing the same in the cases of Davis and Hunter. Had the police presented evidence Tai had stolen merchandise she would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; had they presented evidence that she had broken windows, the charge would have been malicious mischief. The charge of disorderly conduct suggests she may only have been part of a crowd near the store. Magistrate Renaud found Tai guilty, an outcome reported in the stories in the Daily News and New York Evening Journal as well as the Home News. He also found Davis and Hunter guilty. Tai was one of only three women charged with looting in the disorder.
Renaud sentenced Tai to pay a fine of $25 or serve five days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, as was Davis. He gave Hunter a longer sentence of ten days without the alternative of a fine. Tai was unable to pay the fine, according to the Home News, so was sent to the Workhouse, a sentence also recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter and stories in the Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker.
Tai is the name recorded in the docket book, and in the lists published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the New York Evening Journal. It is recorded differently in other sources less reliable than the legal record: as Tae in the Home News and 28th Precinct Police Blotter, as Pae in the Daily News and New York Evening Journal and as Cay in the Daily Worker. If it was recorded correctly by the court clerk, Tai is a common last name among Chinese living overseas, suggesting that Elizabeth was married to a Chinese man. Given it was an unusual last name for a resident of Harlem, the arrested woman may be the Elizabeth Tai who died in Harlem Hospital on April 20, 1945. She had been born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1905, and was a widow at the time of her death, with her husband's name transcribed as "Hawley Tai." That Elizabeth Tai had been a domestic worker, who lived at 124 West 135th Street at the time of her death. -
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2020-09-29T20:47:10+00:00
James Smitten arrested
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2022-11-17T20:38:38+00:00
Patrolman Gross of the 23rd Precinct arrested James Smitten, a twenty-five-year-old Black man, for allegedly beating William Kitlitz, a white mail clerk, in front of Kress' store on 125th Street. Dr Russell of Harlem Hospital attended Smitten at 8.45 PM at the 28th Precinct on West 123rd Street, after his arrest, a Medical Attendance record indicated, so the alleged assault took place before that, likely around 8.30 PM. Smitten’s arrest occurred early enough on March 19 that he was arraigned that evening, in the Night Court, the New York Herald Tribune reported, one of three who appeared in that court mentioned in the story. The story did not mention when the men were arrested. There are no details of the alleged violence other than the men's injuries: Kitlitz was described as "beaten on head" in a list in the New York American and having “bruises on face" in the Daily News. There is no record of an ambulance being called to attend him, so those injuries were likely minor. An ambulance was called to attend Smitten, who had "lacerations of scalp." Given that he was treated at the police station, he may have suffered those injuries at the hands of police, as had allegedly happened to Harry Gordon two hours earlier, rather than Kitlitz. The Medical Attendance record described Smitten's injuries as "lacerations of scalp which he received in some unknown manner." Other than that record there was no other evidence of his injury; he did not appear in any newspaper's list of the injured.
Only two sources connect Smitten and Kitlitz. The hospital record identified Smitten as having been arrested for assaulting Kitlitz. Only the story in the New York Herald Tribune described the assault. In addition, Smitten appeared in lists of those arrested for assault in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Guide, New York Evening Journal, and Daily News. His name was misspelled as Smith in the New York Herald Tribune and as Smithner in the Daily News. (Another man named James Smith was arrested during the disorder, for robbery. Smith lived at a different address than Smitten, and was younger, but was confused with Smitten and given Smitten’s address in reports in the New York American and Daily News).
Smitten’s arrest occurred early enough on March 19 that he was charged with assault and arraigned that evening, in the Night Court. The New York Herald Tribune reported Magistrate Capshaw remanded him for investigation until Saturday, March 23, but he was not in the Magistrates Court docket book on that day, and there is no record of the outcome of his prosecution. One of the two other men mentioned in the New York Herald Tribune as arraigned with Smitten, an eighteen-year-old white man named Leo Smith, did appear in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Magistrate Capshaw convicted and sentenced the other man, Claudius Jones, in the Night Court on March 19.
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2021-09-08T14:53:39+00:00
Aubrey Patterson arrested
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2022-12-09T04:17:49+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Baumann of the 11th Precinct arrested Aubrey Patterson, a twenty-one-year-old Black man who lived at 81 East 113th Street. Baumann charged him with burglary, with a note in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recording that Patterson "Burglarised store during riot." Patterson was named in the list of those arrested for burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the list in the New York Evening Journal. No one was recorded as the complainant against him in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and there was no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.
Police transported Patterson and ninety-five others to Police Headquarters on the morning of March 20 after the disorder. That group was then put in a line-up and questioned by detectives in front of reporters before police put them back into patrol wagons and drove them uptown to the Harlem and Washington Heights Magistrates Courts. Three of the four newspaper stories about the line-up mentioned Patterson. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle did so to make fun of him: ""I don't want to extricate myself from any guilt," said Aubery Patterson, colored, of 83 E. 113th St. Manhattan, in explaining (amid laughter) why he didn't want to discuss the charge of burglary against him." The New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun by contrast, quoted Patterson answering questions, although only the New York Sun reported the questions: ""Are you a citizen?" Capt. Dillon asked this prisoner, who had identified himself as Aubrey Patterson, of 83 East 113th Street. "I am a citizen of this great metropolis," replied Patterson. I was born in this metropolis on 132d Street." "What do you do for a living?" "I do laboring in the daytime and I go to school at nighttime."" The story framed that exchange by denigrating Patterson as having "assumed a pompous air when questioned by Acting Capt. Dillon and gave off oratory to reply to most of the questions." The New York Herald Tribune did not offer any similar judgement but did add that Patterson was "a light-skinned Negro." (The only other individual quoted in stories about the line-up was Harry Gordon, one of the white men arrested at the start of the disorder).
In the Harlem Magistrates Court, prosecutors charged Patterson with disorderly conduct, not burglary. That charge likely indicates that police had no evidence that he had either entered a store or taken merchandise, so could not charge him with burglary or even attempted burglary, or with larceny. Patterson was one of a small number of those arrested during the disorder who was recorded as having had an attorney appear for him, in his case "T. French," whose offices were at 200 West 131st Street. He told a MCCH investigator that French was "a friend," and that the ILD had also offered to defend him. Magistrate Renaud remanded Patterson in custody on $100 bail. When he appeared in court again, on March 25, Magistrate Ford discharged Patterson, an outcome also recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter.
Patterson was later interviewed by a MCCH investigator, identified as "A Militant Negro Student of the Harlem Evening High School, 116th St & Lenox Avenue." The questions focused on the existence of a united front and any interracial campaigns being carried on by the National Student League or others, as part of MCCH research into radical groups in Harlem. Patterson told the interviewer he had been a student at the evening high since 1932. "Studying" was the occupation he gave when he registered for the draft five years after the disorder, in 1940. In April of that year a census enumerator recorded Patterson and his widowed mother still living at 83 East 113th Street; by October, when he registered for the draft, their address was several buildings further east, 110 East 113th Street. -
1
2021-04-13T17:45:18+00:00
John Henry arrested
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2022-12-07T18:27:14+00:00
Patrolman Astel of the 28th Precinct arrested John Henry, a sixteen-year-old Black student, together with Oscar Leacock, a twenty-year-old Brazilian laborer, around 2.15 AM, at Lenox Avenue and 126th Street. There is no mention of what prompted Officer Astel to stop the men; the blocks of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street had been the site of attacks on stores for around two hours before he stopped Henry and Leacock. He reported that he found on them "a quantity of jewelry," which when questioned they admitted taking from Benjamin Zelvin's store at 372 Lenox Avenue. The officer then had the men take him to the store, which was only three blocks north, where they found all the windows broken - and perhaps boarded up, as a Home News story about one of the men's court appearances reported that they "pushed away one of the boards" in order to take "several articles of merchandise." Zelvin had locked his jewelry store at 372 Lenox Avenue around 11.30 PM, and did not return from his home in Brooklyn until opening time the next day. Given that there was extensive disorder in Harlem by the time Zelvin left, he may have boarded up the store as well as locking it.
Henry and Leacock were two of nine men known to have been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, one third (9 of 27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27 of 60).
Henry lived at 313 West 118th Street, near 8th Avenue. Leacock lived at the opposite end of the same street, at 39 West 118th Street, near 5th Avenue. Henry was one of the youngest people arrested during the disorder; James Hayes was also sixteen years of age (two seventeen-year-old men were also arrested, one of who, Robert Tanner, was the only other identified as a student). There is no indication how the he and Leacock came to be together on March 19.
Zelvin later identified the jewelry found on the men as coming from his store. In the charge against Henry and Leacock the value of the jewelry was initially typed as $100, but then struck out and $75 handwritten in its place. The grand jury reduced the felony burglary charge against the men to a misdemeanor, a decision that likely reflected the lack of evidence that the men had broken into the store that a charge of burglary required. Given that they had been arrested with merchandise in their possession, the grand jury likely charged them with petit larceny; a felony larceny charge was not an option as the jewelry they had allegedly taken was worth less than $100. Zelvin appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 21 to charge one additional man, a thirty-one-year-old Black man named Henry Goodwin, with burglary. That charge was reduced to petit larceny, suggesting he too had only allegedly taken jewelry worth less than $100.
There was no newspaper coverage of the looting; Henry and Leacock appeared only in the most comprehensive lists of those arrested, published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the New York Evening Journal. The details came from the District Attorney's case file; as the grand jury sent the cases to the Court of Special Sessions, the only information was from the Magistrate Court affidavit. Although arrested together, the men appeared in the Harlem Magistrate Court at different times, Leacock on March 20 with most of those arrested during the disorder, and Henry not until the next day. Despite Patrolman Astel's report that the men had confessed at the time of their arrest, they pled not guilty in court. Both men appeared again on March 22, when the Magistrate sent them to the grand jury charged with burglary. The Home News reported that appearance in court. It was not until April 2 that the grand jury heard their case, sending them to the Court of Special Sessions not the Court of General Sessions. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded that the judges convicted both men. Although they likely were tried and convicted together, Leacock and Henry appeared separately for sentencing. On April 17, Henry was sent to the House of Refuge, a juvenile reformatory on Randalls Island (which would close less than a month later, on May 11). The next day Leacock received a suspended sentence. -
1
2021-08-21T20:01:54+00:00
Theodore Hughes arrested
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2022-12-07T21:44:34+00:00
Some time during the disorder, Officer Carrington of the 32nd Precinct arrested Theodore Hughes, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, for allegedly taking two pieces of salt pork from the broken window of Frendel's meat market at 2360 8th Avenue, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune and a list in the New York American. Those are the only sources that provide any details of the charges against Hughes. Likely at the same time, Carrington arrested Emmet Williams, a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, for allegedly "breaking window," according to the New York American. The same complainant, Leo Halberg, a butcher employed in the meat market, was recorded as making the charges against both Hughes and Williams in the Harlem Magistrates Court, so it is likely that Williams was alleged to have broken the windows through which Hughes allegedly reached to take the pork.
Located between West 126th and West 127th Streets, the store was in the midst of the blocks of 8th Avenue on which there are reports of violence and police making arrests during the disorder: the arrest of James Hayes for allegedly looting the Danbury Hat store at 2334 8th Avenue near 125th Street; the arrest of Rose Murrell for breaking windows in a grocery store three buildings to the north, on the corner of 127th Street; the arrest of Thomas Babbitt for taking soap from Thomas Drug store a block north; and at the very end of the disorder, the arrest of Jean Jacquelin at 128th Street for looting and police shooting and killing James Thompson across the street from the store. Hughes lived at 50 Old Broadway, on the Upper West Side near West 131st Street, beyond the boundaries of Black Harlem. Given that he was arrested on the western boundary of the disorder, he may have come to the neighborhood from his home.
Hughes appeared in the lists of those charged with larceny published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal and Daily News. The charge of larceny rather than burglary fits with the circumstance that he did not break the store window mentioned in the New York American. He was among the first of those arrested in the disorder to appear in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20. Sent to the Court of Special Sessions by Magistrate Renaud, Hughes was held on $500 bail. There was no evidence of the outcome of his trial. He, and Emmet Williams, are some of the few who appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20 not mentioned in the Home News story on March 21 that provides brief details of those hearings. Given the location of the market, Hughes, and Williams, should have been taken to the 28th Precinct and appear in their blotter, but they do not. Carrington may have instead taken them to his own precinct, the 32nd, on West 135th Street.
There is some conflicting information about Hughes' racial identity in the sources. The list published in the Daily News identified him as white; however, that list misidentified several of the other people arrested in the disorder as white. The Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book, the one official source that included Hughes, recorded his race as "B[lack]." -
1
2021-12-09T01:50:22+00:00
Claude Jones arrested
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2022-12-09T16:08:08+00:00
At about 10.30 PM, Patrolman Walter MacKenzie told the Harlem Magistrates Court, he saw Claude Jones, a twenty-four-year-old Black musician, throw a brick that broke a window in Blumstein's department store at 230 West 125th Street. Then Jones allegedly shouted "in a loud voice "Kill the cops, the dirty mother-fucking sons of bitches," causing a large crowd to gather." By that time the large crowds that had been focused on 125th Street had broken into smaller groups, many of which scattered north and south up the avenues, but some groups remained. Ten minutes after windows were broken in Blumstein's store, William Ford allegedly threw a rock that broke a window at Kress' store several buildings to to the west, and then called on the people on the street to attack police, drawing a large crowd. Around the same time, a white man named Thomas Wijstem was hit by a rock in front of the W. T. Grant store immediately east of Blumstein's store, allegedly while being attacked by a group of Black men. Police arrested one man, Douglas Cornelius.
Patrolman MacKenzie appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of not just Jones but also the two other men arrested nearby around the same time, William Ford and Douglas Cornelius. It is not clear he actually made the arrests. In court MacKenzie stated that he had witnessed Ford and Jones breaking windows and inciting the crowd, but made no mention of arresting them (there are no details of the circumstances of the arrest of Cornelius). Police had established a headquarters in front of Kress' store, and officers from throughout the city had begun arriving there before 10.30 PM, so there were likely other officers in the area who could have made the arrests.
The address Jones gave when examined in the Harlem Magistrates Court, 170 West 121st Street, his home for only about two weeks, was four blocks south of Blumstein's store, at close enough to where the disorder began for him to have been among those drawn to 125th Street by the noise, crowds or rumors. After reporting that police had identified Jones as "an ace trombonist in Fletcher Henderson's orchestra," the New York Amsterdam News published a story on April 6 in which the trombonist denied he was man arrested. The trombonist, now "connected with Cab Calloway's Band," had been out of the city on tour at the time of the disorder.
Jones appeared among those charged with inciting a riot in the list of those arrested during the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide and in the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The same charge is recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter and the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, a consistency unusual for the men reported as both breaking windows and inciting crowds. When Jones appeared in court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud remanded him in custody. He was one of only eighteen of those arrested in the disorder to have a lawyer representing him listed in the court docket book. Only the lawyer's first name and initial, James W., are legible, together with his address, 200 West 135th Street, an office building in the heart of Harlem that housed the offices of many Black lawyers (both the other men arrested at same time, William Ford and Douglas Cornelius, had prominent Black lawyers recorded as representing them).
Returned to court a week later, Jones was held for the grand jury on bail of $1000 by Magistrate Ford, an appearance reported in the New York Herald Tribune and New York Times. Jones was to have appeared before the grand jury on April 8, the same day as William Ford, but Patrolman MacKenzie was not present. It was not until April 12 that the grand jury heard the case against Jones, deciding then to transfer him to the Court of Special Sessions, likely to be tried for the offenses written in a note on the Magistrates Court affidavit, both the misdemeanor forms of inciting a riot, and malicious mischief, an offense involving damage to property used in the prosecution of those who allegedly broke windows during the disorder (as the malicious mischief charge was not recorded in the docket book Jones is not categorized as being charged with that offense). Convicted, Jones received a suspended sentence on April 16, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
Three days after his release, on April 19, Jones obtained a license to marry twenty-one-year-old Erma (or Emma) Harris, a marriage reported in the New York Age on May 4, 1935. -
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2020-10-22T01:47:08+00:00
John Vivien arrested
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2022-12-04T18:35:39+00:00
Around 11 PM, Officer Peter Naton of the 28th Precinct claimed he saw John Vivien, a twenty-seven-year-old Black laborer, reach through the smashed window of Regal Shoes and take a pair of shoes from the display. Edward Wittleder, the assistant manager, had closed the store, on the corner of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue, at 10 PM, before it was damaged, according to his Magistrate's Court affidavit. However, he would have known that it was likely to be attacked. By that time store windows had been smashed the length of the block of 125th Street to the west, between 7th and 8th Avenues. Police trying to clear people from the street had pushed them toward the intersection on which Regal Shoes sat, creating large crowds, as well as concentrating officers and riot control trucks there. After 10 PM, small groups had begun to attack businesses north and south of the intersection on 7th Avenue and further east on 125th Street. When Naton (and Officer Redmond, according to the Criminal Record) arrested Vivien, he claimed he found shoes which Wittleder identified as coming from the store in Vivien's possession. They had a value of $5.50, according to the affidavit. (Naton made two other arrests around this time, of John King, thirty minutes earlier, at the intersection of 7th Avenue and West 125th Street, and of James Pringle fifteen minutes later, two blocks south on 7th Avenue at West 123rd Street).
Vivien lived at 483 Manhattan Avenue, two blocks west of Regal Shoes, near the corner of West 120th Street, on margins of the Black neighborhood. He is listed among those arrested and charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and New York Evening Journal, his name, misspelled Vivian. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, where Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury on bail of $1000. It was not Vivien's first time in court; he had been arrested for robbery in 1929, a charge dismissed by a Magistrate according to his Criminal Record. The Home News reported those proceedings, also misspelling his name Vivian; the remainder of his prosecution is recorded only in legal records and police records. Vivien appeared before the grand jury on April 4, according to his District Attorney's case file; they sent him to the Court of Special Sessions rather than indicting him. That outcome indicates a lack of evidence that he had broken into the store, a requirement for a charge of burglary; the charge Vivien instead faced was likely petit larceny, a misdemeanor, as the value of the items he had taken were well below the $100 required for a charge of felony theft. The judges in that court then convicted him and suspended his sentence, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. -
1
2020-10-22T02:08:11+00:00
Horace Fowler arrested
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2022-12-03T22:05:06+00:00
Around 1:30 AM, Detective George Booker arrested Horace Fowler, a thirty-two-year-old Black laborer who lived at 362 Lenox Avenue, after he allegedly saw Fowler break the window of Nicholas Peet's tailor's shop at 2063 7th Avenue, reach inside, and take several articles of clothing. Fowler did admit stealing the clothing in his possession when Booker arrested him, a man's suit and a lady's coat, according to the Probation Department investigation, but denied "breaking the window or knowing how it was broken." In the Magistrate's Court affidavit, Booker describes Fowler breaking the window with a club. The Probation Department investigation reports Booker as saying that he saw Fowler break the window "by throwing a missile through it." If Fowler smashed the window to gain entry, he had committed burglary; if he did not, he had only committed theft.
Fowler told the Probation Department officer that "he mingled with the crowds on the streets of Harlem following the disturbances and that when he observed the looting taking place, he stole the articles indiscriminately." The Probation Officer's notes suggest the theft was not entirely at random: "fell in with mob - needed a suit." As Detective Booker would have been in plainclothes, Fowler may have been unaware that there were police in the vicinity of the store. Fowler was certainly not the only person to steal goods from the store, and unlikely one of the first. Peet put his total losses during the disorder at $452.25 of secondhand suits, coats and pants, and an addition $133 of suits, overcoats, women's coats and dresses belonging to customers, according to the Probation Department investigation. The items found in Fowler's possession had a value of only $25. It is not clear how much of the other clothing was stolen before Fowler's arrest. It could not all have been in the display windows, so people must have entered the store, which required that the windows be broken. If Fowler had to break a window, that looting was unlikely to have happened before his arrest. However, Peet's store was located only two blocks south of West 125th Street, so crowds would have been on this section of 7th Avenue for several hours by 1:30 AM, making it unlikely that the windows remained intact that long. It is more likely that Peet did not have to break the window, and was following in the wake of other looters.
Fowler appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, charged with burglary. He appears in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, a list published in the New York Evening Journal, and a story in the Home News that included brief summaries of the charges made in the Magistrates Court. Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury on $1000 bail. The criminal record provided by the Police Department in the District Attorney’s case file showed no arrests, but the Probation Department found a conviction for disorderly conduct, for loitering in the subway, for which Fowler served five days in the workhouse in 1930. Indicted on April 5, Fowler agreed to plead guilty to petit larceny on April 8. After being investigated by the Probation Department, he returned to the Court of General Sessions on April 22, where Judge Wallace sentenced him to three months in the workhouse, according to both the 28th Precinct Police Blotter and the Probation Department case file.
Born in Cooleemee, North Carolina, Fowler had lived in New York City since around 1930. At the time of the 1920 census he was still living with his mother, stepfather and their seven children in Jerusalem, North Carolina, working as a card hand in a cotton mill (his name misrecorded as Horris). Fowler appears to have left home soon after, working around North Carolina before relocating to Philadelphia around 1924. He told a Probation officer he worked as a porter in two different bakeries and the Baltimore and Ohio station restaurant, details that could not be confirmed in the time available for the investigation.
When Fowler arrived in New York City sometime in 1930, he found work as an assistant janitor in a series of apartment buildings – but likely not immediately. His arrest for loitering in the subway was in February 1930; he also mentioned an unconfirmed arrest for vagrancy in Baltimore a month earlier, when he had traveled from Philadelphia looking for work. In both cases he appears to have been seeking shelter. Work as a janitor came with onsite accommodation, first at 1955 Grand Concourse in the Bronx, then 144 West 144th Street in Harlem, and finally, from October 1931 to January 1933, back in the Bronx at 1756 Taylor Avenue, according to the information he gave the Probation officer. Sometime in 1932, Fowler also began working part-time as a porter at a drug store at 1758 East Tremont Avenue, close to the apartment building where he worked. In January 1933 he suffered a hernia which prevented him from working as a janitor. He subsequently rented a room in the apartment of Walter Stevenson and his family at 362 Lenox Avenue, while continuing to work at the drug store almost seven miles away. The owner told the Probation officer he would be glad to give Fowler on his release, as he considered him “a reliable, industrious and honest person.” His industry extended to his leisure time, much of which he spent attending adult education classes at P.S. 89.
At some point after his release in 1935, Fowler left New York City and returned to Philadelphia. In 1940, a census enumerator found him living in a Salvation Army Men’s Hostel. He had been unemployed for over two months, and reported only four weeks of work in 1939. When Fowler registered for the draft two years later, in 1942, he was still living in Philadelphia, and without a job.
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1
2021-06-02T20:59:41+00:00
Arthur Merritt arrested
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2022-12-09T17:03:26+00:00
About 1.30 AM, Officer George Nelson of the 15th Precinct was “on duty” near Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store at 343 Lenox Avenue when he saw a group of about five people gathered around the store, he later told a Probation officer. As he watched, Arthur Merritt, a forty-two-year-old Black painter, allegedly broke the store window with a hammer. The group then climbed through the windows and took 126 pounds of butter, 90 dozen eggs, eight cartons of cigarettes, a ham and other food products, as well as $14 from the cash register. By the time Nelson got to the store, the group had run back out, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit; he told a Probation officer he arrested Merritt “a short distance away.” He found two cans of beans, a can of mile and a can of tuna in Merritt's possession, as well as a hammer. Those details of what was allegedly found on Merritt are not included in the affidavit, although that evidence is crucial to the charge made against him. Notes on the affidavit do record the total stock lost, with calculations that seem to be an effort to establish the value of that stock.
Merritt denied looting the store or participating in the disorder, telling a Probation officer he was on his way home after visiting his sister, Pauline. She lived at 108 West 130th Street; he lived at 134 West 121st Street. Both address were between 7th and Lenox Avenues, so his route home could have taken him down Lenox Avenue. He would been walking through the blocks north of 125th street that saw the most extensive reported looting of the disorder, much of which occurred around the time Nelson arrested him. As Merritt was the only one of the group Officer Nelson claimed he saw that was arrested, it was likely he was on his own or with another officer. That Nelson saw the attack on the store without being able to prevent it suggests he was some distance away, most likely on one of the corners of Lenox Avenue and West 127th Street, allowing some possibility that he misidentified Merritt among the crowds milling about.
Arthur Merritt appeared in the Harlem Magistrate’s Court on March 20. A lawyer, Albert Halperin, represented him; only seventeen others arrested in the disorder had lawyers appear for them. No information could be found on the lawyer. Merritt was in the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. His criminal record showed an arrest for grand larceny in 1920, which resulted in a suspended sentence, so Magistrate Renaud ordered him held without bail. Returned to the court on March 22, Merritt was sent to the grand jury, an appearance reported in the Home News, Daily Worker, Daily News, and New York Evening Journal. After the grand jury indicted him on April 9, he agreed to plead guilty to Petit Larceny on April 12. Ten days later, Judge James Garrett Wallace sentenced him to three months in the workhouse, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter as well as the Probation Department case file.
Born in New Jersey, Merritt had lived in Harlem for fifteen years, likely arriving after his discharge from the US Army in 1919. His Probation Department case file provides fragmentary information on his life. He had married twenty-one-year-old Blanche Morris two months before arriving in the city, in Newport News, Virginia, where he was stationed. Blanche had a six-year-old son, Charles. At the beginning of 1920, Merritt started work as a porter for Weingarten Bros., at 151 West 30th Street, living at 434 Lenox Avenue. After nine months he lost that job after being caught stealing dresses from his employers; twenty-four dresses worth $700 were found in a trunk in his apartment, but he allegedly stole clothing worth $2000. No other details of the circumstances are recorded by the Probation officer, but Merritt and his wife pled guilty to Petit Larceny and received a suspended sentence, a lenient punishment for a theft of that scale. The Probation Investigation records May 1922 as the date of arrest, but based on the criminal record that appears to be the date the couple were discharged from Probation. There is no mention that they had jobs during those years, but their first daughter was born in 1922.
Around 1923, Merritt began working as a painter, and as a janitor at 1027 Avenue St John in the Bronx until 1926, living in the building, according to the Probation Department case file. However, the family appears in the 1925 New York State census living at 906 Intervale Avenue, in a large household that now included three children, and also Arthur's sister and brother-in-law, and two of Blanche's brothers, aged nineteen and twenty years. After the janitorial job ended, Merritt, his wife and children relocated first to 200 West 128th Street, and then to 109 West 144th Street, where a census enumerator found them in 1930.
Later in 1930, Arthur and Blanche separated, a result of his heavy drinking, according to the Probation Department investigation. For three years, the three children lived with Merritt, in apartments at 2170 7th Avenue for two years and then 34 West 132nd Street. He worked sporadically as a painter for a contractor based at 160 East 116th Street. However, in 1932 he was discharged as they had insufficient work for him. Several months later Merritt found work for a real estate agent, but it was seasonal. By the beginning of 1934 he was evicted from his apartment after falling two months behind in the rent, and became unable to support his children. Found to be neglected children, they were put in their mother's care, after which Merritt appears to have had limited contact with them and did not contribute to their support. He moved to a furnished room at 112 West 113th Street, leaving after a year for the room at 134 West 121st where he lived at the time of the disorder. Merritt remained in Harlem, and estranged from his family, after the disorder. When he registered for the draft, he gave his sister's address as his home, and an employer in the Bronx. -
1
2021-09-17T00:24:45+00:00
Albert Yerber arrested
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2022-11-13T20:52:25+00:00
Near the end of the disorder, at 5:00 AM on March 20, Patrolman Jerry Brennan arrested Albert Yerber, Charles Alston, Edward Loper and Ernest Johnson for allegedly shooting at police stationed at Lenox Avenue and West 138th Street. No police officers were reported injured, but Alston suffered a fractured skull as the men fled police. Trying to escape by leaping from the roof of a six-story-building to the adjoining building, Alston fell to a second-floor ledge. He was a twenty-one-year-old Black man, as was Loper, Yerber was twenty years of age, and Johnson was twenty-two years of age. Yerber lived on the other side of Harlem at 106 Edgecombe Ave, as did Loper, at 298 West 138th Street and, even further west, Alston at 512 West 153rd Street, while Johnson lived close to where they were arrested, at 206 West 140th Street. Only a small proportion of those involved in the disorder lived above 135th Street.
Newspaper stories contained few details of the shooting, even as they employed a range of dramatic and emotive language - for example, the New York World Telegram and Times Union reported a “nest” of snipers “trying to pick off” a "lone policeman." Stories in the New York World Telegram and Brooklyn Daily Eagle did offer the name of the officer allegedly targeted by Yerber and his companions, Patrolman Jerry Brennan of the Morrisiana station, and the same dramatic account that a bullet whistled past his ear as he stood on post at Lenox Ave and 138th Street. Taking cover, he saw the men on the roof of the six-story building at 101 West 138th Street. Soon after police reinforcements arrived and rushed to the roof to arrest the men. One other story, in the Home News, identified Brennan, but cast him not as the target of the shooters but as one of the police who responded. In a radio car assigned to the area with his partner Patrolman McGrady, Brennan “heard the shots and sped to the scene. At the radio car's approach the four snipers [standing in the doorway] ran to the roof of the building.” This story provides the key detail that no guns were found on Yerber and his companions.
On March 20 Yerber, Loper and Johnson were charged with disorderly conduct, according to the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book, which identified Brennan as the arresting officer for all three men. (Alston did not appear in court, likely because of his injury). The clerk annotated that charge with the word "annoy." Under that section of the statute, a person is guilty if they act "in such a manner as to annoy, disturb, interfere with, obstruct, or be offensive to others." A separate clause punishes disorderly or threatening conduct or behavior, so based on that annotation, the men were not charged with attacking Brennan. That charge fits better with the circumstances described in the Home News. Whatever the patrolman alleged, Magistrate Ford did not find sufficient evidence of the men's guilt and acquitted Yerber and his two companions. Given that outcome, it is possible Brennan mistook some other noise for gunfire. Without any evidence of an assault in the sources, these events are treated here only as arrests.
Yerber, and Loper and Johnson, are among those charged with disorderly conduct in the list of the arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. They are not mentioned in stories about the proceedings in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 in the New York Age and New York Herald Tribune, which listed only those convicted. -
1
2021-12-07T17:37:45+00:00
John Kennedy Jones arrested
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2022-11-13T23:06:12+00:00
Around 12.30 AM, Patrolman James Lamattina of the 66th Division allegedly saw "large number" of people gather in front of William's Shoe Store at 333 Lenox Avenue. Then John Kennedy Jones "motioning with his hand, said to the others "come on," and threw a rock that "broke the plate glass window" of the store. Other people in the crowd also threw "stones and sticks" at the window, Lamattina alleged in his Magistrates Court affidavit. At some point Lamattina arrested Jones, a twenty-four-year-old Black laborer; the affidavit made no mention of the circumstances of the arrest. No other members of the crowd were arrested. The shoe store had been attacked at least twice earlier in the disorder. A display window had been smashed and merchandise stolen sometime between 9.45 PM and 11.20 PM, and another window allegedly kicked in and three shoes taken at 11.20 PM, when a patrolman arrested Julian Rogers. In the half hour before Lamattina arrested Jones, other police officers arrested three men for breaking windows near West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue, Leon Mauraine and David Smith at 318 Lenox Avenue and Bernard Smith at 317 Lenox Avenue. Multiple arrests by different officers indicates that a number of police were stationed at the intersection at that time. All three of the arresting officers came from precincts outside Harlem.
Jones lived at 135 West 119th Street according to the information he gave in his examination in the Harlem Magistrates Court. Some distance from the shoe store, this block between Lenox and 7th Avenue was in an area south of 125th Street with a mix of Black and white residents.
Jones appears in the lists of those arrested and charged with "inciting to riot" published in Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. Similarly, the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded the charge against him as "inciting to riot. When Jones was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, the docket book recorded the charge against him as riot, for leading others in the crowd to attack the store. Crossed out is an additional charge of malicious mischief, for damage to the store window. That charge does appear on the Magistrate Court affidavit, in a handwritten note that also listed the forms of riot being charged. Reporting the proceeding in the Magistrates Court, a story in the Home News mixed the two charges together, describing Jones as having "urged the crowd to smash windows," but being held for the Grand Jury "on a charge of malicious mischief," an offense for which urging a crowd was not relevant. That garbled account likely indicates that Jones faced both charges, as did the six other men who allegedly both urged crowds to break windows and broke windows themselves, although only two of those men, Leroy Brown and Bernard Smith, had both charges recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book.
On March 20, Magistrate Renaud held Jones for the grand jury and set bail at $1000. A week later, Jones appeared before the grand jury, which transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions for trial on misdemeanor forms of the charges (as the malicious mischief charge is not recorded in the docket book Jones is not categorized as being charged with that offense). The judges convicted Jones and on April 1 gave him a suspended sentence, recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. -
1
2021-08-12T23:53:03+00:00
James Pringle arrested
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2022-11-14T02:44:48+00:00
Around 11.15 PM, Detective Peter Naton of the 28th Precinct was watching a crowd of twenty-five to thirty people at West 123rd Street and 7th Avenue when that he allegedly heard James Pringle, a shout to the group, “Let's go cross the way and scale rocks at the cops, they are coming down our side of the street.” Naton's affidavit in the Harlem Magistrates Court then records that the detective arrested Pringle, a twenty-eight-year-old Black laborer, and found a rock in his right hip pocket. His statement held Pringle responsible for what the other members of the crowd did after his arrest, "acts of force and violence committed to several persons and the property of others, in said vicinity." A handwritten note below the typewritten charge presents a different narrative, in which "Deft led others who smashed windows." The windows of the grocery store on the northwest corner of West 123rd Street and 7th Avenue were broken sometime during the disorder. A patrolman from the 28th Precinct arrested David Bragg for breaking that window; he may have been part of the crowd on the corner around 11.15 PM. The shoe repair store directly across 7th Avenue from the grocery store was also looted sometime during the disorder. But that looting likely came an hour or more after Naton arrested Pringle, the time when two other looted stores near the intersection were looted, Sarah Refkin's delicatessen at 2067 7th Avenue at 12:30 AM, and then Nicholas Peet's tailors store at 2063 7th Avenue at 1:30 AM. (Naton made two other arrests around this time, of John Vivien fifteen minutes earlier, and John King, forty-five minutes earlier, at 10.30 PM, both at the intersection of 7th Avenue and West 125th Street).
Pringle's address was recorded in his examination in the Harlem Magistrates Court as 101 West 115th Street, southeast of where Naton arrested him, in an area with a mix of Hispanic and Black residents. The 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded the charge against Pringle as burglary, with the note "Burglarized store during riot." He appeared only in the list of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, among those charged with riot. That was the charge recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book when Pringle appeared in court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud held until March 27, when he returned to court and was sent to the grand jury, on bail of $1000, by Magistrate Ford. That court appearance was mentioned in stories in the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune, with the later newspaper reporting the charge against Pringle as malicious mischief. Although not recorded in the docket book, the handwritten note on the affidavit listed that charge, as well as riot, suggesting it was a secondary charge related to what the crowd did rather than what Pringle himself did, that he "led others who smashed windows." Almost two weeks later, on April 8, Pringle appeared before the grand jury, which transferred his case to the Court of Special Sessions, reducing the charges against him from felonies to misdemeanors. A week later the judges in that court convicted Pringle and suspended his sentence, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter. -
1
2020-10-22T02:13:07+00:00
Robert Tanner arrested
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2022-12-04T19:51:33+00:00
Around 3 AM, Officer Charles Necas of the 28th Precinct reported seeing Robert Tanner, a seventeen-year-old Black student, put his hand in the broken window of Jack Garmise's cigar shop at 1916 7th Avenue and take a pipe, according to the Magistrates Court affidavit. Necas then arrested Tanner. The store window had been broken a little over an hour earlier, when two police officers allegedly saw someone in a crowd throw a milk can. At that time officers arrested two men, Thomas Jackson and Raymond Easley. That Tanner allegedly took a single pipe suggests that there was little merchandise in the window by that time, that most of the $100 of pipes, clocks, watches, razors and other goods that Garmise reported stolen had been taken earlier. While it does not appear that police officers guarded the damaged store, as they did on West 125th Street, it was in a likely location for police to be stationed: on the corner of West 116th Street, the business district south of West 125th Street, and Harlem's busiest avenue. Tanner lived on West 116th Street only three buildings west of 7th Avenue, at 218 West 116th Street. He was likely one of the many Harlem residents drawn to the streets by the disorder. There is no mention of others in the area at the time, but there are a scattering of reported events nearby around this time.
Tanner was one of only two of those arrested identified as a student, along with John Henry, and one of only four under eighteen years of age. His name is in the lists of those arrested for burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the New York Evening Journal. When he was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrate Court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury on $1000 bail, according to the Magistrates Court docket book. The Home News published the only report of that appearance, which grouped Tanner with Thomas Jackson, one of the men arrested for the earlier attack on Garmise's shop who the docket book indicates had been arraigned shortly before Tanner. The story mistakenly reversed the timing of the men's alleged crimes described in the legal records, reporting that Tanner smashed a side window an hour before Jackson broke the front window. A grand jury indicted him on a charge of burglary on March 22nd. Three days later the New York Sun reported that Tanner appeared in the Court of General Sessions, at which time he did not offer a plea, unlike the other men who appeared with him, and the judge continued his bail. When he appeared again in the court, he pled not guilty. By April 4, he had agreed to plead guilty to petit larceny, an outcome which went unreported in the press but was noted in the District Attorney's case file and the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. The district attorney offered that plea bargain to most of those indicted for burglary. The blotter provided the only evidence of his sentence, to the New York City Reformatory, as a result of being a youthful first offender.
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2021-12-09T01:50:40+00:00
William Ford arrested
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2022-12-09T16:50:00+00:00
At 10:40 PM, Patrolman Walter MacKenzie told the Harlem Magistrates Court, he saw William Ford, a seventeen-year-old Black laborer throw a brick through a large display window in Kress' 5, 10 & 25c store at 256 West 125th Street. Ford then allegedly shouted, "in a loud tone of voice "Shed white blood, kill the cops, there has been enough black blood shed now." A "very large and threatening crowd" gathered in response to Ford's shouts, according to MacKenzie. By that time the large crowds that had been focused on 125th Street had broken into smaller groups, many of which scattered north and south up the avenues, but some groups remained. Ten minutes before windows were broken in Kress' store, Claude Jones allegedly threw a rock that broke a window at Blumstein's department store several buildings to to the east, and then called on the people on the street to attack police, drawing a large crowd. Around the same time, a white man named Thomas Wijstem was hit by a rock in front of the W. T. Grant store immediately east of Blumsteins, allegedly while being attacked by a group of Black men. Douglas Cornelius was arrested for allegedly throwing the rock.
Patrolman MacKenzie appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of not just Ford but also the two other men arrested nearby around the same time, Claude Jones and Douglas Cornelius. It is not clear he actually made the arrests. In court MacKenzie stated that he had witnessed Ford and Jones breaking windows and inciting the crowd, but made no mention of arresting them (there are no details of the circumstances of the arrest of Cornelius). Police had established a headquarters in front of Kress' store, and officers from throughout the city had begun arriving there before 10.30 PM, so there were likely other officers in the area who could have made the arrests.
William Ford gave his address as 263 West 130th Street in his examination in the Harlem Magistrates Court, saying he had lived there for about four years. That address was five blocks directly north of Kress' store, just east of the intersection with 8th Avenue, so Ford could have been among those drawn to 125th Street by the noise and rumors circulating after the store closed. He was one of only four individuals under the age of eighteen years arrested during the disorder. Ford appeared in lists of those arrested in the disorder, but the charge made against him is different in each list: in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide he appeared among those charged with inciting a riot; in the list published in the New York Evening Journal the charge is disorderly conduct; and in a list published in the New York Daily News, Ford is charged with assault. On March 20, when he appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court, the docket book records the charge as inciting a riot, although the arresting officer's affidavit describes Ford breaking a window and calling on the crowd to attack police. Magistrate Renaud remanded him in custody.
Ford was returned to the Harlem Magistrates Court a week later and held on bail of $1000. He was one of only eighteen of those arrested in the disorder to have a lawyer representing him listed in the court docket book, in his case West-Indian born Hutson Lovell, prominent in the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity and the Elks Lodge, with an office at 240 Broadway (both the other men arrested at same time, Claude Jones and Douglas Cornelius, also had Black lawyers representing them). Two days later Ford appeared again, when Magistrate Ford sent him to the grand jury. After MacKenzie was not present for Ford's first schedule appearance on April 8, it would be two weeks before he appeared before the grand jury. On April 12 the grand jury transferred Ford to the Court of Special Sessions, with a note on the Magistrates Court affidavit recording both the misdemeanor forms of inciting a riot, and malicious mischief, an offense involving damage to property used in the prosecution of those who allegedly broke windows during the disorder (as the malicious mischief charge is not recorded in the docket book Ford is not categorized as being charged with that offense). There was no information on the outcome of that trial. Ford did not appear in the transcript of the 28th Police Precinct blotter that provides outcomes for most of those prosecuted in the Harlem Magistrates Court. No newspapers reported his appearances in court. -
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2021-09-07T21:35:13+00:00
Viola Woods arrested
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2022-12-09T16:14:15+00:00
Officer St. Louis of the 28th Precinct arrested Viola Woods, a twenty-eight-year-old Black woman, for allegedly smashing the window of a vacant store at 2314 8th Avenue with an umbrella sometime during the disorder. There is no information on when during the disorder the arrest took place. Only a New York Amsterdam News story identified the store as vacant; a list in the New York American and stories in the Home News and New York Times provided only the address. The vacant store was in the block between 125th and 124th Streets, where four other stores had windows broken, including two other empty stores at 2320 8th Avenue and 2324 8th Avenue, the Arrow Sales 5 & 10c store at 2318 8th Avenue and Andy's Florist on the southeast corner of 125th Street. Those other damaged stores were all included in a list of those with broken windows made by a reporter for La Prensa who walked west along 125th Street and and up and down 8th Avenue a block north and south of the intersection on the day after the disorder. It is possible the store whose window Woods allegedly broke was not on that list because it suffered only minor damage; the La Prensa reporter concluded their list by noting they had not included others as they had only suffered minor damage ("y otras mas que por ser los danos ocasionados relativamente pequeños no creimus de interes catalogar entre los establecimientos ya mencionados").
Woods name is misrecorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as Viola Williams, a mistake repeated in the list of those arrested during the disorder published in in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. The New York American misreported Woods' name as Loyola Williams. Another woman named Loyola Williams was arrested during the disorder and charged with burglary. Both women were recorded as being twenty-eight-years of age and living at 301 West 130th Street. While these overlapping details might indicate the reports refer to a single woman, both Loyola Williams and Viola Williams [Woods] appear in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal, with Viola Williams [Woods] charged with malicious mischief, an offense involving the destruction of property used in the prosecution of those alleged to have broken windows during the disorder. That is the charge recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter, with a note reading "Broke window with umbrella." However, when that woman appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court, the docket book, and stories about her two appearances in court in the New York Amsterdam News, Home News and New York Times, recorded her name as Viola Woods.
When Woods appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 the charge against her was disorderly conduct, a lesser offense than malicious mischief, and one that could be adjudicated in the Magistrates Court. Woods was ordered held on bail of $100 by Magistrate Renaud, an appearance reported in the Home News. Unusually, she was represented by a lawyer, future alderman Eustace Dench of 207 West 125th Street. Dench was one of several prominent members of the Harlem Lawyers Association who represented those arrested during the disorder. When Woods was returned to the court on March 28, Magistrate Ford discharged her, the New York Amsterdam News reporting that she "was freed for lack of evidence." The New York Times story simply reported that she had been discharged, the outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
The woman arrested may be the Viola Woods a census enumerator found at 123 West 133rd Street on April 16, 1940. She was the same age and had been in Harlem in 1935. Born in South Carolina, in Hilton Head she gave birth to a son, William, in 1923, and a second son, Samuel, in 1925, according to their draft registrations. At that time her last name was Bligen. She arrived in Harlem sometime between 1925 and 1930, when she was recorded in the census living at 255 West 143rd Street, with a cousin, working as a domestic servant (both her sons are recorded as living with their father, William Bligen and his wife in Hilton Head until at least 1940). In 1931, she married Chester Woods, a West Indian longshoreman. At the time of the 1940 census, they had four children, aged between ten and two years. When her sons William and Samuel registered for the draft in 1942, Viola Woods was living at 49 West 133rd Street. -
1
2021-12-08T18:54:47+00:00
Leon Mauraine arrested
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2022-11-13T23:08:51+00:00
At 12:05 A.M., Officer Anthony Barbaro of the 25th Precinct arrested Leon Mauraine, a twenty-two-year-old Black window washer, and David Smith, a twenty-two-year-old Black clerk, in front of 322 Lenox Avenue. Barbaro had been standing on the corner of Lenox Avenue and 126th Street when he saw a group of people gather in front of the Rex Drug store at 318 Lenox Avenue, according to the statement he gave in the Harlem Magistrates Court. He then allegedly heard two of the men, Mauraine and Smith, say, "Com[e] on gang, here's two more windows, let's break them." Those men then threw stones at the store windows, breaking them, after which they ran north on Lenox Avenue. Barbaro chased them, catching and arresting both men two buildings north of the drug store. As the drug store was on the northeast corner of Lenox Avenue and West 126th Street, Barbaro must have been standing across 126th Street, on the southeast corner, as he would not have been able to hear the men or catch them so quickly from across the much wider Lenox Avenue. In the half hour after Barbaro arrested Mauraine and Smith, other police officers arrested two men for breaking windows near West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue, John Kennedy Jones at 333 Lenox Avenue and Bernard Smith at 317 Lenox Avenue. Multiple arrests by different officers indicates that a number of police were stationed at the intersection at that time. All three of the arresting officers came from precincts outside Harlem.
Mauraine had lived for the last nine months at 52 West 128th Street, two blocks north and a block east of the store, according to his examination in the Magistrates Court. He may have been drawn to Lenox Avenue by the noise of windows being broken earlier in the disorder. While both he and Smith could have thrown stone at the windows, as Barbaro stated, it is unlikely they said exactly the same words. It may be that only one of the them urged on the group, or that they expressed similar sentiments that the officer chose to report in the same words (The Home News story about the proceedings in the Harlem Magistrates Court reported they had said "Come on. Let's bust some more windows," a difference in wording from the affidavit likely produced by a reporter's difficulty hearing what was said in the courtroom). The list of those arrested in the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal, did distinguish the men in a way Barbaro's affidavit did not. Mauraine was listed among those charged with inciting a riot and Smith among those charged with malicious mischief, an offense which involved damaging property used in other cases involving broken windows. However, that distinction is not replicated in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter or in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, which recorded both men as charged with inciting a riot. So too did the story in the Home News about the proceedings in the court, which did not mention that Mauraine or Smith had broken the store windows, only what they had been "overheard saying to companions." A note on the Magistrates Court affidavit did, however, include malicious mischief alongside three sections of the riot law, indicating that both men faced both charges at some point in their prosecution.
When Mauraine, and Smith, appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud held them for the grand jury, on bail of $1000. A week later both men appeared before the grand jury, which transferred them to the Court of Special Sessions for trial. It is likely that the note on the Magistrates Court affidavit was the charges they faced in that court, malicious mischief (as the malicious mischief charge is not recorded in the docket book Mauraine is not categorized as being charged with that offense) and the three misdemeanor forms of inciting a riot. Convicted in that court, on April 2, Mauraine, and Smith, received suspended sentences, according to the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. -
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2020-10-01T19:25:21+00:00
Rivers Wright arrested
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2022-12-08T16:15:26+00:00
Detective Doyle of the 5th Division arrested Rivers Wright, a twenty-one-year-old Black man for allegedly being part of a group of men who attacked an unnamed white man at 125th St and Lenox Avenue at some point in the disorder. Wright lived at 2137 7th Avenue, a block west and two blocks north of the site of the alleged assault, and in the heart of the disorder.
Only one source provided any details of the circumstances of his arrest. The Home News reported on March 21 that Wright was arrested "after he and a number of others are said to have attacked a white man at 125th St and Lenox Ave." Wright appeared in lists of those arrested during the disorder in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Guide, the New York American, New York Evening Journal, and Daily News. His sentencing several days later is also reported in the Afro-American, New York Age, Daily News, and New York Times.
Among the first arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Wright was charged with disorderly conduct, not assault, as was the case with half of those arrested for assault. The attack cannot have resulted in significant injury if the charge was disorderly conduct: the applicable section of the statute applied only to a person who used "offensive, disorderly, threatening, abusive or insulting language, conduct or behavior." It could also have been the case that police did not have evidence that Wright participated in the assault; he may have been part of a crowd nearby, caught up in police efforts to arrest those responsible for the assault. Those circumstances fitted the definition of the offense. Disorderly conduct was also an offense that could be adjudicated in the Magistrates Court. Magistrate Renaud convicted Wright and remanded him for sentence on March 23. On that date, he sent Wright to the Workhouse for 10 days. -
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2020-12-05T17:58:29+00:00
Jean Jacquelin arrested
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2022-11-14T02:07:32+00:00
At 5.40 AM, in one of the final events of the disorder, Officer Di Maio arrested a twenty-eight-year-old white chauffeur named Jean Jacquelin at the corner of West 128th Street and 8th Avenue. Jacquelin allegedly was carrying two ladies coats, values at $20 each, and two pairs of trousers, valued at $5 each. There is no mention of what caused Dimao to arrest him, but the clothing was likely bulky enough that it attracted the officer's attention; Morris Sankin later identified it as coming from his tailor's store at 200 West 128th Street, the opposite end of the block from where Dimao arrested Jacquelin.
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).
Jacquelin would not have had to travel far to Sankin's store. He lived at 222 West 128th Street, a four story apartment building ten buildings west of the store. He had only lived there for a month. That block was home to Black residents, making it an unusual address for Jacquelin, one of only ten white men arrested in the disorder. There were areas occupied by white residents nearby, on West 126th Street and several blocks south of West 125th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.
The evidence that Jacquelin was white comes from the Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book. It is the only legal record that collected information on an individual's race. The Magistrate's Court examination recorded only birthplace. So too did the Police Blotter. Jacquelin may have been Canadian. His birthplace is recorded as Nova Scotia in the Magistrate's Court examination, but as the United States in both the docket book and the 28th Precinct Police Blotter (although the blotter also mistakenly identifies Jacquelin as a woman). He had been in New York City since at least 1932, when his criminal record shows he was arrested for assault with a knife, an incident that does not seem to have involved significant violence as the charge was reduced to disorderly conduct, for which the Magistrate convicted him but gave him a suspended sentence. No newspapers reported Jacquelin's race. He appears in the list of those arrested published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide and the list published by the New York Evening Journal (both of which misspelled his first name as Kean). He also appears in the Home News story on hearings in the Magistrate Court, his first name reported as Gene, with Leroy Gillard, a forty-six-year old Black man also charged with burglary of Sankin's store, but arrested earlier, at 10.10PM, at the store. The story reported that they stole all $800 of clothes taken from Sankin's store, rather than the clothing allegedly found on them.
Jacquelin appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, immediately after Gillard. The Magistrate sent Jacquelin to the grand jury, along with Gillard. On April 5, the grand jury determined that both men should only be charged with a misdemeanor not felony burglary, likely petit larceny in Jacquelin's case as the clothing he had allegedly taken had a value of less than $100, so too little for a charge of grand larceny. Sent to the Court of Special Sessions, he appeared before the judges on April 11, according to the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, when they dismissed the charges against him.
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2021-04-16T19:59:19+00:00
Leroy Gillard arrested
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2022-12-04T20:29:12+00:00
Patrolman Irwin Young alleged that around 10.10 PM, he "saw the window of the [Morris Sankin's tailor's] store being broken" and then saw a forty-six-year-old unemployed Black man named Leroy Gillard go into the store through the broken window and emerge with two suits of clothing, each valued at $25. The phrasing of the affidavit implies that Gillard did not break the window, suggesting there may have been others there at the time who escaped arrest. Certainly more clothing was stolen, to the value of $800, than Gillard allegedly had in his possession. The affidavit left those possibilities open by including the stock phrasing that Gillard's alleged crime was committed "while acting in concert with a number of others not yet 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 one of the officers in front of Kress' store four hours earlier, during which he was allegedly assaulted by Harry Gordon as he arrested him for trying to speak to the crowd.
Leroy Gillard appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, immediately before Jean Jacquelin, a twenty-eight-year-old white chauffeur arrested near the end of the disorder, at 5.40 AM, allegedly in possession of two ladies coats, values at $20 each, and two pairs of trousers, valued at $5 each, identified by Morris Sankin as also coming from his store. As Sankin had not returned to his store until 8.00 AM that morning, its contents would have been accessible through the broken window throughout the disorder. Jacquelin had been arrested away from the store, at the 8th Avenue end of West 128th Street, and like Gillard, lived on the same block as the store. A story in the Home News reported that the two men stole all $800 of clothing taken from Sankin's store, rather than the items worth $100 allegedly found on them.
Gillard appears in more newspapers than most of those arrested for looting. That is likely because police arrested him early in the disorder, so would have been able to provide his name to reporters for several hours. The New York Herald Tribune singled out Gillard as "the first arrest for alleged looting" during the disorder, describing the arrest as taking place inside the store (misspelling his last name as Gilliard as all the newspapers but the Home News did). As well as appearing in the Home News story, the list of those arrested and charged with burglary published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide and the list published by the New York Evening Journal, he was included in a list in an earlier edition of the New York Evening Journal (which mistakenly listed the charge against him as disorderly conduct), a list in the New York American, and a list in the Daily News (which mistakenly identified him as a white man in one edition).
The Magistrate sent both Gillard and Jacquelin to the grand jury. On April 5, the grand jury determined that Gillard should only be charged with a misdemeanor not felony burglary, sending him to the Court of Special Sessions. The grand jury disposed of Jacquelin's case in the same way. Those decisions indicate a lack of evidence that the men had broken into the store, a requirement for a charge of burglary. That likely left a charge of larceny for taking the clothing; as those items were valued at less than $100, the men could only be charged with petit larceny. 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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2021-08-05T19:48:50+00:00
Carl Jones arrested
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2022-12-03T21:27:47+00:00
Around 1.45 AM, Officer Raymond Early arrested eighteen-year-old Carl Jones in front of 391 Lenox Avenue. From across the street he had allegedly seen Jones pick up an object and throw it through the window of the stationary store owned by Harry and Morris Farber located at that address. Early must also have alleged that Jones reached into the window or trying to climb through it, as he charged Jones with attempted burglary, rather than the offense employed when windows were smashed, disorderly conduct. Jones, who lived several blocks to the north, in a furnished room at 84 West 134th Street, admitted that he smashed the window, but denied trying to steal any merchandise from the window. However, given that Early had some distance to cover (across the four lanes of Lenox Avenue), Jones evidently did not immediately flee after the window smashed. The Probation Officer investigating Jones appears to have sought another motive for Jones attack other than theft, recording that Jones "had been a regular customer of the complainant's store, but denies that he had any personal grievance against the complainant." The explanation to Probation Officer settled on was that Jones had become "imbued with the mob psychology prevalent at the moment," echoing the conclusion of Dr. Charles Thompson after examining Jones in the Court Psychiatric Clinic.
Morris Farber told the Probation officer that he wanted "the leniency of the Court be extended to [Jones]." The District Attorney's case file for Jones is missing, producing some confusion about his prosecution. Jones appears in the lists of those arrested during the disorder, as charged with burglary, published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. The docket book records that Jones appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with attempted burglary. Magistrate Renaud held him on bail of $1000 and then on discharged him on March 25, an outcome also recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter, evidently because he had already been indicted, which the Home News reported. On March 29, he pled guilty to unlawful entry, the Probation Department investigation report recorded, and was sentenced to the workhouse for four months on April 9. The plea bargain the district attorney offered Jones is in line with that offered to others not allegedly found with stolen goods in their possession, as is the sentence. Other offenders around eighteen years of age were sentenced to institutions for youthful offenders, but the Probation Department investigation raised questions about Jones' age that seem likely to worked against such an outcome in his case. While noting that Jones "claims to be 18 years, four months of age," a Probation officer wrote that he "appears to be several years older than he claims." The department was unable to obtain any evidence of his date of birth in the eleven days it spent investigating Jones.
It was not only Jones' statement about his age that the Probation Officer considered unreliable. Jones said he had been born in St Louis, Missouri, leaving at age fourteen to travel to New York City. The only response to the department's inquiries about Jones that appears in his file is a letter dated April 5 from the St Louis Juvenile Court, reporting that the court could find no mention of Jones in its files, nor anyone at the address Jones gave for his father who knew him or his family. A Probation officer was able to confirm that Jones had lived at a furnished room at 84 West 134th Street for six months prior to his arrest, with eighteen-year-old Black woman named Georgia Harris. Jones' statements about his employment proved less reliable. The bakery on East 103rd Street that Jones named as his employer at the time of his arrest did not exist. Prior to that he said he worked for a year at a shoe repair store at 395 Lenox Ave, in the same building as the Farber's store; the owner said Jones had been employed only for several months, about three years earlier. The neckwear manufacturer Jones identified as his employer for nine months had no recollection of him. The Probation officer's frustration with Jones is evident in his conclusion that "the manner in which he has lived during this time is decidedly questionable." He was more direct in the preliminary investigation, scrawling "Liar" across the section of the form relating to manner and "etiology of maladjustment." Dr Charles Thompson's psychiatric examination report did not offer similar assessments. He found Jones neither psychotic nor mentally defective, but merely "an immature youth" of "low average intelligence." The explanation of his alleged crime lay in outside forces: "he seems to have acted together with other individuals under the influence of mob spirit, with no purpose in his action." -
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2020-04-09T18:04:11+00:00
De Soto Windgate shot
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2022-04-18T17:41:20+00:00
At 1. 15 AM “some unknown person” shot a twenty-four-year-old black man named De Soto Windgate as he walked along West 144th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues. Only five other events in the disorder occurred north of 135th Street, none within six blocks of this shooting. Three of those events were also assaults, two on white men on 8th Avenue north of 145th Street before midnight, and shots fired at police at 138th Street and Lenox Avenue at 5 AM. An equally small number of events occurred off the avenues, on cross streets, as this shooting did. Aside from assaults in front and behind Kress’ store, there are only two assaults, south of 125th Street.
There is no information on the circumstances of the shooting. Windgate lived at the opposite end of Harlem at 7 East 114th Street, a section mostly occupied by Puerto Ricans and whites. He may have come north to frequent one of the theaters on West 145th Street; the Roosevelt was on the corner of 7th Avenue. Or he may have been visiting friends. There is no evidence of any disorder nearby that might have attracted his attention or brought police into the area. So while the other black men shot and wounded in the disorder seem likely to have been hit by police shooting in response to looting that does not seem to have been the case with Windgate. Given the location and limited evidence, there is some question about whether this shooting is part of the disorder.
The shot hit Windgate in the abdomen (only the New York Post located the wound elsewhere, in his right shoulder), and was serious enough for him to be admitted to Harlem Hospital – and be included in the list of those “near death” in the New York American, Afro-American, Atlanta World, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the New York Evening Journal’s list of the “dying.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and New York Herald Tribune simply described his condition as “serious.” His injury is different from others shot in the disorder; only one is hit in the abdomen, with the remainder suffering injuries to the legs or hands.
Being admitted to Harlem Hospital might explain Windgate’s consistent appearance in newspaper lists. However, he does not appear in the hospital records provided to the MCCH.
Windgate does appear in another record gathered by the MCCH, information extracted from the Aided Cases book of the 32nd Precinct, based on West 135th Street. Procedure required police to record all incidents reported to them in that book. Only three other cases appear in the 32nd Precinct book for the period of the disorder, the assault on a white man, Julius Narditch, by a group pf black men at 8th Avenue and 147th Street, the assault on Thomas Suarez on 134th Street and the injury of Herbert Holderman on 132nd Street.
The police record does not identify Windgate’s race, but newspapers do. The New York American, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Home News, New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Times and New York Sun all include his race; the New York Herald Tribune and New York Evening Journal do not. Four of the six others shot and wounded in the disorder were Black men, one of unknown race, and one white police officer.
No one was arrested for shooting Windgate, as was the case with all of those shot and wounded (Detective Campo’s alleged assailant was shot and killed).
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1
2021-08-30T21:01:15+00:00
Milton Ackerman arrested
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2022-12-05T18:15:37+00:00
Officer Brown of the 40th Precinct arrested Milton Ackerman, a twenty-four year old Black man, some time during the disorder. According to the New York Times, Ackerman was charged with "taking two rolls of paper, worth 5 cents, and 8 cents' worth of napkins from a Lenox Avenue store." Harry Lash was recorded as the complainant in the Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book, so it seems likely Lash's store at 400 Lenox Avenue was the location referred to in the story. Ackerman lived at 33 West 130th Street, only a few buildings east of that store and Lash's other store in Harlem was at 2530 8th Avenue, near the corner of West 135th Street, not on Lenox Avenue. There was no mention of where or when police arrested Ackerman.
Ackerman appeared in the lists of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, and was held until March 25. When he returned to the Magistrate's Court he was discharged as he had been indicted by the grand jury, an outcome reported only in a story in the Home News, rearrested and held on $1000 Bail. Three days later he appeared in the Court of General Sessions, an appearance reported only in the New York Times. Judge Donnellan dismissed the indictment and released him. Neither that story nor the 28th Precinct Police blotter provided any explanation for the judge's decision. -
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2021-12-02T20:47:06+00:00
Arthur Killen arrested
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2022-11-14T04:04:39+00:00
Officer Platt of the 40th Precinct arrested Arthur Killen, a forty-three-year-old Black man, allegedly "after he threw a stone through the window" of the Truss Shop at 2136 7th Avenue, according to a Home News story. After the arrest, that story went on, police found an "open knife" in his possession. Just south of the intersection with West 127th Street, the store was in the midst of the three-block section of 7th Avenue north of West 125th Street that saw multiple reported broken windows and looting, and three assaults on whites, including both James Wrigley and a Fifth Avenue Coach Company bus being hit by objects, but no other arrests.
Killen lived at 277 West 127th Street, at the western end of the block that intersected with 7th Avenue near the Truss Shop. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, charged with both malicious mischief and possession of a knife. Magistrate Renaud transferred Killen to the Court of Special Sessions, and held him on bail of $500, for each charge. Renaud's decision indicated that the value of the damage to the window was not more than $250, the level required for the charge of malicious mischief to be a felony, and that Killen did not have a previous conviction, which would have made possession of the knife a felony. The outcome of his prosecutions are unknown.
A story in the Home News about Killen's appearance in the Magistrates Court is the only evidence connecting him to 2136 7th Avenue. Killen appeared in lists of those arrested during the disorder, with the charges against him variously recorded as inciting a riot in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, disorderly conduct in the New York American, "concealed weapons" in the Daily News, and disorderly conduct and possession of a weapon in the list in the New York Evening Journal. That Killen was one of a small number of those arrested charged with more than one offense likely produced that inconsistent reporting. Given that he appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court, Killen should have been in the 28th Precinct Police blotter, which would have included information on the outcome of his prosecution. However, Killen was missing from that record.
The Daily News identified Killen as a white man, but the Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book recorded him as a Black man. The Daily News misidentified several of those arrested as white. -
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2021-08-18T21:11:39+00:00
James Hayes arrested
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2022-12-03T22:15:48+00:00
Some time during the disorder, Detective Balkin of the 5th Division arrested James Hayes, a sixteen-year-old Black youth, for allegedly taking a baseball bat from the window of a store at 2334 8th Avenue, according to a report of his appearance in the Magistrates Court in the Home News. The name of the store is provided by the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, which recorded the complainant against Hayes as Wilbur Montgomery, living at 951 Woodycrest Avenue. Montgomery is identified in the 1933 City Directory as the manager of Danbury Shoes. He is also the complainant against another man arrested by Detective Balkin, likely at the same time, David Terry. There are no details of the circumstances of Terry's arrest, but the charge against him in the Harlem Magistrates Court, malicious mischief, was made against those arrested in the disorder who had allegedly broken windows. The nearby intersection of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, only a few buildings from Kress' store, saw some of the earliest crowds and violence of the disorder, and a concentration of police, who sought to clear West 125th Street by pushing people on to the avenue. Windows were also broken in stores either side of Danbury shoes, the branch of the Liggett drug store chain on the corner of West 125th Street and a seafood restaurant at 2338 8th Avenue.
James Hayes is named among those charged with burglary in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, where the charge was recorded as petit larceny not burglary. That charge did not require evidence that Hayes had entered the store to take the bat, as a charge of burglary did. While the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, which misspelled his name as Hazel, included a note that he "Broke store window," the different charge in court indicates that that information had been reassessed by the time of his arraignment. The Home News story reporting the court proceeding mentioned only that "he is said to have stolen a baseball bat from a store window." Magistrate Renaud transferred Hayes to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on $500 bail. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter is the only source for the outcome of that proceeding: a conviction and suspended sentence on April 1.
The Home News story gave Hayes' age as seventeen years, while the blotter and the list in the New York Evening Journal gave his age as sixteen years (the list published in the Black newspapers did not include age or home address). The age in the Magistrates Court docket book is difficult to decipher, appearing to be "10," but is likely a hastily written "16." Hayes was one of the youngest arrested during the disorder, together with John Henry, also aged sixteen years. Hayes lived at 476 West 141st Street, on Black Harlem's northwest boundary, further from the location of his arrest than most of those caught in the disorder, most of whom lived south of 125th Street or near Lenox Avenue south of 135th Street. -
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2020-10-22T01:57:28+00:00
Lawrence Humphrey arrested
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2022-12-17T19:03:49+00:00
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. He claimed to have seen six men run out of the store, which had been closed since 9 PM. Humphrey was the only one of those men Rock arrested; he allegedly had a 50 pound bag of rice worth $2.50 in his possession, according to a note written on the Magistrate's Court affidavit. When Solomon returned to his store around 7 AM he found the door and windows broken and approximately $100 of groceries missing.
Lawrence Humphrey (misspelled Humphries) is 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, together with its outcome. 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 $1000. There are no newspaper reports on the subsequent steps in his prosecution. His District Attorney's case file records that 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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2021-12-15T20:00:50+00:00
Rose Murrell arrested
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2022-11-13T21:27:14+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Rose Murrell, a nineteen-year-old Black woman, for allegedly having "stoned a store window," in the grocery store at 2366 8th Avenue, a story in the Home News reported. There is no information on the time or circumstances of the arrest. Libman also appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of another woman, Louise Brown and two men, Henry Stewart and Warren Johnson, who, with Murrell, had all been arrested at 8th Avenue and West 127th Street, according to a story in the Daily Mirror. While the grocery store was located at this intersection, on the southeast corner of 127th Street, the location of Brown and Johnson's alleged offenses are not mentioned in any sources, and the store in which Stewart allegedly broke a window was two and half blocks north of where the story reported his arrest. It is possible that the intersection was where police were stationed, where those arrested were initially brought, rather than the site of their arrest.
The grocery store at 2336 8th Avenue was in the midst of the blocks of 8th Avenue on which there are reports of violence and police making arrests during the disorder: the arrest of James Hayes for allegedly looting the Danbury Hat store at 2334 8th Avenue near 125th Street; the arrest of Emmett Williams and Theodore Hughes for allegedly breaking windows and looting Frendel's meat market three buildings south at 2360 8th Avenue; the arrest of Thomas Babbitt for allegedly taking soap from Thomas Drug store at 2374 8th Avenue, across 127th Street; and at the very end of the disorder, the arrest of Jean Jacquelin at 128th Street for allegedly looting and police shooting and killing James Thompson across 8th Avenue from the store. Murrell lived at 260 West 126th Street, just east of 8th Avenue a block south of the grocery store, so may have been drawn to the noise and crowds on the avenue in the early evening of March 19. All six of the men and women arrested by police on 8th Avenue lived either west of the avenue or in the block between 8th and 7th Avenues.
Rose Murrell is recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge is reported in a list in the Daily News and a story in the Daily Mirror. However, the list of those arrested in the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the list published in the New York Evening Journal, include her among those charged with malicious mischief, an offense involving damage to property used in the prosecution of individuals arrested for allegedly breaking windows during the disorder. That was the charge recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20, when Murrell appeared in court, and reported in the Home News story about those proceedings. Police appear to have initially charged many of those arrested during the riot with inciting a riot, and then revised those charges to fit the specific act that an individual was alleged to have committed before their arraignment in court. Magistrate Renaud transferred Murrell to the Court of Special Sessions, and set bail at $500, indicating that the value of the damage to the building was not more than $250, the level required for the charge to be a felony. Almost two weeks later, on April 1st, the judges in that court convicted Murrell, and sentenced her to one month in the Workhouse, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
Murell's name is spelled in different ways in the sources: as Murrell in the 28th Precinct Police blotter and Harlem Magistrates Court docket, book, and the Daily News, New York Evening Journal; as Murelle in the Daily Mirror; as Murell in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide; and as Morrell in the Home News. -
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2021-09-07T19:32:37+00:00
Louis Tonick arrested
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2022-12-07T19:29:59+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Cusberita [?] of the 28th Precinct arrested Louis Tonick, an eighteen-year-old white man who lived at 1052 Bryant Avenue in the Bronx. The charge against Tonick recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter was robbery, with the note "Robbed store during riot," while he was named as one of those charged with burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. Robbery required taking merchandise from someone, while burglary required taking merchandise from an unoccupied store. Tonick was also recorded as charged with robbery in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, with John Masdaym of 237 West 111st Street as the complainant and likely victim of the robbery. In this case the address did appear to be Masdaym's residence, as there are no business identified on the street in the MCCH Business survey. There was no evidence of the location of the store in which the robbery took place.
Tonick was one of only eight men identified as white arrested during the disorder; he and Jean Jacquelin were the only members of that group arrested for looting. His identity was recorded as white in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book and in the list published in the New York Evening Journal. Neither the 28th Precinct Police blotter nor the the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide include information on an individual's race. While Jacquelin lived in Harlem, at 222 West 128th Street on the same block as the business he allegedly looted, Tonick lived in the Bronx, well beyond the neighborhood's boundaries.
Tonick appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Like Edward Larry, the only other person charged with robbery after the disorder, Tonick was held without bail by Magistrate Renaud. The Magistrate continued that custody when Tonick returned to court on March 25, and again on March 28. When Tonick appeared in a court on April 1, Renaud dismissed the charges against him, an outcome also recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter. That the Magistrate released Tonick indicates a lack of evidence rather than evidence only of taking merchandise or damaging a store, which would have resulted in reduced charges. In other cases it was the inability to locate a complainant that led to the discharge of defendants.
While the docket book records the name as Tonick, the newspaper lists record it as Tunick, and the 28th Precinct Police blotter as Tonisle (the later an error made when the blotter was transcribed for the MCCH). A man named Louis Tonick of the correct age appeared in census schedules in 1930 and 1940 living at different addresses in the Bronx. The child of Russian immigrants who worked as a fruit peddler, he lived with his parents and four siblings in 1930. By 1940 his three older sisters were no longer recorded in the household, which included only his parents, Louis and his (twin?) brother, and an uncle who also worked as a peddler. Tonick was unemployed at the time of that census and also when he registered for the draft in 1943. -
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2021-12-10T21:34:11+00:00
Emmet Williams arrested
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2022-11-18T17:23:20+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Carrington of the 32nd Precinct arrested Emmet Williams, a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, for allegedly breaking a window in Frendel's meat market at 2360 8th Avenue. There are no sources that clearly describe what Williams allegedly did. He is identified as "breaking window" in a list in the New York American, which fits the charge made against him in the Harlem Magistrates Court, malicious mischief. That offense involved damage to property, and all those arrested during the disorder who faced that charge had allegedly broken windows. Leo Halberg, a butcher employed in the meat market is recorded as the complainant against Williams in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, by " marks that refer to his details in the row above, the record of the appearance of Theodore Hughes. The clerk used the same marks to identify Carrington as the arresting officer. He arrested Hughes, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, for allegedly taking two pieces of salt pork from the broken window of the meat market, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune and a list in the New York American. The later source specified that Hughes had taken the pork from an already broken window; Williams likely allegedly broke the window.
The home address recorded for Williams in the docket book, 242 West 127th Street, was only half a block west of 8th Avenue. The meat market was midway between 127th and 126th Streets, on the east side of 8th Avenue. He was likely drawn to the area by the multiple incidents of attacks on windows, looting, and violence reported there during the disorder: the arrest of James Hayes for allegedly looting the Danbury Hat store at 2334 8th Avenue near 125th Street; the arrest of Rose Murrell for breaking windows in a grocery store three buildings to the north, on the corner of 127th Street; the arrest of Thomas Babbitt for taking soap from Thomas Drug store a block north; and at the very end of the disorder, the arrest of Jean Jacquelin at 128th Street for looting and police shooting and killing James Thompson across the street from the store.
Williams appears in the list of those charged with inciting a riot published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. A list published in the New York Daily News, which misreported his name as "Emmet Hughes" and his race as white, listed the charge against him as disorderly conduct. In the court docket book, Williams was recorded as Black. Arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, directly after Hughes, the charge against Williams was malicious mischief. Several of the other people arrested during the disorder charged with breaking windows likewise were reported as charged with inciting a riot or disorderly conduct, but were then charged with malicious mischief in court. Like Theodore Hughes, Magistrate Renaud sent him to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on bail of $500 (indicating that the value of the damage to the building was not more than $250, the level required for the charge to be a felony). There is also no evidence of the outcome of his trial. Williams, and Hughes, are two of the few of those who appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court not mentioned in the Home News story on March 21 that provides brief details of the charges against those arrested in the disorder. Given the location of the market, Williams, and Hughes, should have been taken to the 28th Precinct and appear in their blotter, but they do not. Carrington may have instead taken them to his own precinct, the 32nd, on West 135th Street.
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2021-09-07T21:04:31+00:00
Loyola Williams arrested
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2022-11-14T02:58:49+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Loyola Williams, a twenty-eight-year-old Black woman who lived at 301 West 130th Street was arrested and charged with burglary. Williams' name appears among those charged with burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide and the list in the New York Evening Journal, which also included her age, race and address. However, Williams does not appear in 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that she allegedly looted. That is also the case with nine men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police released them after questioning them the next day.
In the case of Loyola Williams, it is also possible that whoever compiled the list had confused her with another Black woman arrested during the disorder, Viola Woods, who was identified as Viola Williams in several sources. Both women were recorded as being twenty-eight-years of age and living at 301 West 130th Street. However, both Loyola Williams and Viola Williams appear in the list published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal, with Viola Williams charged with malicious mischief. Viola Williams also appears in the 28th Precinct Police blotter with the same age and address, where a note records her alleged offense as using her umbrella to break a store window. However, when that woman appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court, the docket book, and stories about her two appearances in court in the New York Amsterdam News, Home News and New York Times, recorded her name as Viola Woods. -
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2021-12-15T20:01:46+00:00
Henry Stewart arrested
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2022-11-14T15:54:25+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Henry Stewart, a thirty-three-year-old Black man, for allegedly having thrown a bottle through a window in the meat market at 2422 8th Avenue, a story in the Home News reported. There is no information on the time or circumstances of the arrest. Libman also appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of another man, Warren Johnson, and two women, Louise Brown and Rose Murrell, who, with Stewart, had all been arrested at 8th Avenue and West 127th Street, according to a story in the Daily Mirror. The broken window in 2422 8th Avenue was the northern-most report of disorder on 8th Avenue, on the block between 130th and 131st Streets, two and half blocks north of where the story reported Stewart's arrest. While the grocery store whose window Murell allegedly broke was located at that intersection, on the southeast corner of 127th Street, the location of Brown and Johnson's alleged offenses are not mentioned in any sources. It is possible that the intersection was where police were stationed, where those arrested were initially brought, rather than the site of their arrest. The other reported broken windows and looting on 8th Avenue were south of 128th Street. Stewart lived at 268 West 132nd Street, east of 8th Avenue a block and a half north of the meat market, so may have been drawn to the noise and crowds on the avenue in the early evening of March 19. All six of the men and women arrested by police on 8th Avenue lived either west of the avenue or in the block between 8th and 7th Avenues.
Henry Stewart is recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge is reported in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, in the New York Evening Journal, and the Daily News and a story in the Daily Mirror. However, malicious mischief was the charge recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20, when Stewart appeared in court, and reported in the Home News story about those proceedings. Police appear to have initially charged many of those arrested during the riot with inciting a riot, and then revised those charges to fit the specific act that an individual was alleged to have committed before their arraignment in court. The others arrested by Libman were all charged with malicious mischief, although Brown and Johnson later had that charge reduced to disorderly conduct. Magistrate Renaud transferred Stewart to the Court of Special Sessions, and set bail at $500, indicating that the value of the damage to the building was not more than $250, the level required for the charge to be a felony. On March 25, the judges in that court discharged Stewart, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter. -
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2022-01-09T21:45:26+00:00
Jose Perez arrested
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2022-12-04T21:34:50+00:00
Officer Ramos of the Alien Squad arrested Jose Perez, a twenty-three-year-old white man born in Cuba, for allegedly having a gun in his possession. There are no details of the circumstances that led to the arrest or where or when Perez was arrested. The only sources which connected him to the disorder are the list of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. In both lists the charge against Perez was identified as "Sullivan Law," the name by which the offense of possession of a weapon was known. The Harlem Magistrates Court docket book recorded the weapon alleged to be in his possession as a "gun."
Notwithstanding the appearance of Perez in newspaper lists, it is not certain that he was involved in the disorder. His name was not in the transcript of the 28th Precinct Police blotter. While Perez did appear in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, among those arrested during the disorder, so too did a handful of individuals charged with offenses unrelated to the disorder. His address is recorded as 25 South Street, on the southern end of Manhattan, far from Harlem, although he may have come to the Puerto Rican neighborhood around West 116th Street at the time of the disorder. The three other men arrested during the disorder charged with possession of a weapon had been arrested for riot, breaking windows or looting, after which a police officer allegedly found a weapon on them.
Perez pled guilty, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions for sentencing. There is no information on the decision of the judges in that court.
Both lists and the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book recorded Perez's race as "white;" unlike most of those recorded as white, he was likely Hispanic rather than European in ethnicity. -
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2021-09-17T00:28:51+00:00
Ernest Johnson arrested
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2022-11-18T21:06:11+00:00
Near the end of the disorder, at 5:00 AM on March 20, Patrolman Jerry Brennan arrested Ernest Johnson, Albert Yerber, Charles Alston, and Edward Loper for allegedly shooting at police stationed at Lenox Avenue and West 138th Street. No police officers were reported injured, but Alston suffered a fractured skull as the men fled police. Trying to escape by leaping from the roof of a six-story-building to the adjoining building, Alston fell to a second-floor ledge. He was a twenty-one-year-old Black man, as was Loper, Yerber was twenty years of age, and Johnson was twenty-two years of age. Johnson lived close to where they were arrested, at 206 West 140th Street. Yerber lived on the other side of Harlem at 106 Edgecombe Ave, as did Loper, at 298 West 138th Street and, even further west, Alston at 512 West 153rd Street. Only a small proportion of those involved in the disorder lived above 135th Street.
Newspaper stories contained few details of the shooting, even as they employed a range of dramatic and emotive language - for example, the New York World Telegram and Times Union reported a “nest” of snipers “trying to pick off” a "lone policeman." Stories in the New York World Telegram and Brooklyn Daily Eagle did offer the name of the officer allegedly targeted by Johnson and his companions, Patrolman Jerry Brennan of the Morrisiana station, and the same dramatic account that a bullet whistled past his ear as he stood on post at Lenox Ave and 138th Street. Taking cover, he saw the men on the roof of the six-story building at 101 West 138th. Soon after police reinforcements arrived and rushed to the roof to arrest the men. One other story, in the Home News, identified Brennan, but cast him not as the target of the shooters but as one of the police who responded. In a radio car assigned to the area with his partner Patrolman McGrady, Brennan “heard the shots and sped to the scene. At the radio car's approach the four snipers [standing in the doorway] ran to the roof of the building.” This story provides the key detail that no guns were found on Alston and his companions.
On March 20, Johnson, Yerber, and Loper were charged with disorderly conduct, according to the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book, which identified Brennan as the arresting officer for all three men. (Alston did not appear in court, likely because of his injury). The clerk annotated that charge with the word "annoy." Under that section of the statute, a person is guilty if they act "in such a manner as to annoy, disturb, interfere with, obstruct, or be offensive to others." A separate clause punishes disorderly or threatening conduct or behavior, so based on that annotation, the men were not charged with attacking Brennan. That charge fits better with the circumstances described in the Home News. Whatever the patrolman alleged, Magistrate Ford did not find sufficient evidence of the men's guilt and acquitted Johnson and his two companions (Alston was later discharged when he appeared in court on April 9, presumably after he recovered from his injuries). Given that outcome, it is possible Brennan mistook some other noise for gunfire. Without any evidence of an assault in the sources, these events are treated here only as arrests.
Johnson, and Loper and Yerber, are among those charged with disorderly conduct in the list of the arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. They are not mentioned in stories about the proceedings in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 in the New York Age and New York Herald Tribune, which listed only those convicted. -
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2021-09-07T15:18:04+00:00
Frederick Harwell arrested
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2022-12-09T16:28:22+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Murphy arrested Frederick Harwell, a nineteen-year-old Black man, for allegedly having "Burglarised store during riot," according to the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. There is no evidence identifying the store. Harwell appears in the list of the names of those arrested for burglary in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the list in the New York Evening Journal, which added his age and home address. No complainant is recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Harwell lived at 2075 8th Avenue, between West 137th and West 138th Street.
Harwell appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, and was held on bail of $1000. He was one of only eighteen of those who appeared in court represented by a lawyer, E. D. Watson of 2297 7th Avenue. With an office in the heart of Harlem, Watson was likely a Black lawyer; no other information could be found about him. When he returned to the court on March 22, the clerk crossed out the charge of burglary in the docket book and wrote "Red[uced] to Pet[it] Larceny," recording a decision the prosecutor would have made, and Magistrate Renaud sent Harwell to the Court of Special Sessions for trial, reducing his bail to $500. The amended charge suggests that police did not have evidence that Harwell had broken into a store, only evidence that he had taken merchandise. However, that trial did not take place. Almost two months later, on May 13, Harwell was released, according to the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. That outcome indicates a lack of evidence against Harwell; commonly that resulted from a failure to locate a witness.
The docket book and newspaper lists record the name as Harwell; the blotter records it as Horwell. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter has his address at 2578 8th Avenue; the New York Evening Journal has him living at 2175 8th Avenue. -
1
2020-10-22T02:20:21+00:00
Joseph Moore arrested
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2022-11-16T23:16:14+00:00
Around 1.50 AM, Patrolman Louis Frikser arrested Joseph Moore, a forty-six-year-old West Indian carpenter, on the Third Avenue Bridge, which connected the eastern end of West 130th Street in Harlem with the Bronx. Frikser charged that Moore had been part of a group of men who had entered Harry Lash's 5 & 10c store at 400 Lenox Avenue, five blocks west of the bridge on the corner of West 130th Street, and stolen goods. None of the reports of this case detail what caused Frikser to stop Moore or what he found in his possession. Moore was likely returning home; he lived just three blocks beyond the bridge, at 248 East 136th Street in the Bronx.
"A few minutes" earlier Frikser had observed Arnold Ford, a nineteen-year-old Black man "walking across the bridge with a package," according to the details provided in the Probation Department investigation of Ford. Ford was also likely going home; he lived in a building next to Moore's residence, at 246 East 136th Street in the Bronx. The package he carried cannot have been large; it contained "soap, garters, thread and notions" with a value of $1.15. According to Frikser, Ford admitted he had stolen goods from Harry Lash's 5 & 10c store, joining others entering the store and "helping himself to some merchandise," but denying breaking the store windows. But Ford did not know Moore, according to a note in the Preliminary Investigation in his Probation Department file.
Only seven other men are identified in the sources as having been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, a group making up one third (9/27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27/60).
While the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded the charge against Moore as "Acc'd stolen goods during the riot" not "Burglarized store during riot" as in Ford's case, police charged both Moore and Ford with burglary in the Harlem Magistrate Court. The first charge suggested Moore had not obtained whatever goods he had allegedly stolen directly from the store, a version of events not mentioned anywhere else. Subsequently they were indicted by the grand jury and tried together in the Court of General Sessions. During the trial on April 1, Moore was acquitted at the direction of the judge, an outcome for which the Daily Worker gave credit to the International Labor Defense lawyers who appeared for him (that story made no mention of Ford, who pled guilty to petit larceny). The story gave no indication of the basis of the successful defense, noting only that the attorneys "had riddled the framed-up case against the worker." The involvement of the ILD suggests Moore may have had ties to the Communist party; the only others arrested during the disorder they represented were the men who picketed Kress' store.
Moore (and Ford) appear in newspaper reports only in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, a list published in the New York Evening Journal, and stories in the Home News and New York Sun. The Home News story included brief summaries of the charges made in the Magistrates Court; in this case, it grouped Moore and Ford together, arrested at the same time for looting the same store, but confused the $1000 of goods stolen reported by Lash in his affidavit before the Magistrates Court for what the men were found carrying, also mistakenly identifying it as clothing. The New York Sun likewise mistakenly alleged the men had stolen $1000 of property, but did correctly identify those goods as "general merchandise," in reporting the men's pleas in the Court of General Sessions, and those of four others charged with third degree burglary, on March 25, after their indictment by the grand jury on March 22.
Moore had arrived in the United States from Barbados in 1917, perhaps initially living in Pennsylvania, as the 1930 Census reported his eldest daughter had been born there around 1920. By around 1926, he and his family were in New York City as another daughter is listed as having been born there. In 1930 the census enumerator recorded Moore living in an apartment at 213 West 142nd Street with his wife Olive, three daughters and a son, working as a carpenter for building contractors, but unemployed at that time, April 3. At some point between 1930 and his arrest in 1935 the family relocated to the Bronx, and were still at the same address when a census enumerator called on April 2, 1940. Moore's eldest daughter, twenty years old by this time, is not part of the household, but Moore and his wife had two more children, both boys. Still working as a carpenter, Moore was now employed by the Parks Department. -
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2021-12-15T20:01:28+00:00
Louise Brown arrested
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2022-11-13T21:23:15+00:00
Sometime during the riot, Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Louise Brown, a twenty-three-year-old Black woman. There is no information on Brown's alleged offense, or the time or circumstances of the arrest. Libman also appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of another woman, Rose Murrell, and two men, Henry Stewart and Warren Johnson, who, with Brown, had all been arrested at 8th Avenue and West 127th Street, according to a story in the Daily Mirror. Murrell and Stewart were alleged to have broken windows in two different stores, at 2366 8th Avenue and 2422 8th Avenue. Brown, and Johnson, likely also allegedly broke store windows, based on the charges made against them in the Harlem Magistrates Court. All four faced the charge of malicious mischief, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. An offense involving damage to property, malicious mischief was used by prosecutors after the disorder only against individuals arrested for allegedly breaking windows, so Brown has been treated as having been arrested on that charge, even though there are no details of her alleged act.
While the story in the Daily Mirror suggested Brown and Johnson had been arrested at the intersection, so likely were alleged to have broken windows nearby, the store in which Stewart allegedly broke a window was two and half blocks north of where the story reported his arrest. It is possible that the intersection was where police were stationed, where those arrested were initially brought, rather than the site of their arrest. Brown lived at 251 West 128th Street, just east of 8th Avenue, a block north of where she was reported arrested, so may have been drawn to the noise and crowds on the avenue in the early evening of March 19. All six of the men and women arrested by police on 8th Avenue lived either west of the avenue or in the block between 8th and 7th Avenues.
Louise Brown is recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge is reported in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, in the New York Evening Journal and in the Daily News, as well as in the story in the Daily Mirror. Police appear to have initially charged many of those arrested during the riot with inciting a riot, and then revised those charges to fit the specific act that an individual was alleged to have committed before their arraignment in court. Prosecutors had changed the charge against Brown to malicious mischief by the time she appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud held Brown in custody until March 25, on bail of $500. When she was returned to court, the charge against Brown was reduced to disorderly conduct, malicious mischief crossed out in the docket book, "Red." written above it, and "DISORDERLY CONDUCT" stamped in its place. That change, to a lesser offense that did not involve damage to property, likely indicated a lack of evidence that Brown had broken a window. Disorderly conduct was also an offense that could be adjudicated by a Magistrate. Magistrate Ford convicted Brown and gave her a suspended sentence. Warren Johnson, arrested with her and prosecuted in the same way, also received a suspended sentence. -
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2021-09-01T12:13:14+00:00
Nelson Brock arrested
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2022-12-04T18:47:30+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Redmond of the 28th Precinct arrested Nelson Brock, a thirty-two-year-old Black man, likely near 1974 7th Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 119th Street. The charge Redmond made against Brock recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter is burglary, together with the note "Burglarized store during riot," indicating that he had allegedly looted a business. There are no details of circumstances of the arrest in the other sources. Redmond arrested two other Black men, Reginald Mills and William Grant, in relation to the same location, also charging them with burglary, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Brock and Mills are also identified as having been charged with inciting a riot in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide (but not the list in the New York Evening Journal). That charge requires others to have been involved in the looting, and suggests that police alleged Brock and Mills had somehow contributed to the group attacking the store. However, burglary was the only charge brought against them in the Harlem Magistrates Court.
The address recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for James Marshall, the complainant in the prosecutions against three Black men, is likely the location of the looted store. Although that column of the docket book is headed "Residence" clerks commonly put the address related to the charge in that space rather than the home of the complainant. A branch of the white-owned James Butler Food Market chain occupied that location between 1939 and 1941 when the Tax Department photograph was taken, and was likely there at the time of the disorder as chain stores were an established part of the neighborhood's business landscape. (That side of the street is missing from the MCCH Business Survey conducted in the second half of 1935). Brock lived at 219 West 121st Street, just west of 7th Avenue two blocks north of 1974 7th Avenue. He could have been drawn to the street by the noise and crowds on 7th Avenue after 10 PM.
Brock, Mills and Grant appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, when Magistrate Renaud remanded them in custody. When they were returned to court on March 25, Magistrate Ford discharged them so they could be rearrested as they had been indicted by the grand jury, and then held them on $1000 bail. No further records mention the outcome of those prosecutions. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the discharge on March 25. -
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2021-09-17T00:25:21+00:00
Edward Loper arrested
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2022-07-04T21:19:31+00:00
Near the end of the disorder, at 5:00 AM on March 20, Patrolman Jerry Brennan arrested Edward Loper, Charles Alston, Albert Yerber and Ernest Johnson for allegedly shooting at police stationed at Lenox Avenue and West 138th Street. No police officers were reported injured, but Alston suffered a fractured skull as the men fled police. Trying to escape by leaping from the roof of a six-story-building to the adjoining building, Alston fell to a second-floor ledge. He was a twenty-one-year-old Black man, as was Loper, Yerber was twenty years of age, and Johnson was twenty-two years of age. Loper lived on the other side of Harlem at at 298 West 138th Street, as did Yerber, 106 Edgecombe Aveand, even further west, Alston at 512 West 153rd Street, while Johnson lived close to where they were arrested, at 206 West 140th Street. Only a small proportion of those involved in the disorder lived above 135th Street.
Newspaper stories contained few details of the shooting, even as they employed a range of dramatic and emotive language - for example, the New York World Telegram and Times Union reported a “nest” of snipers “trying to pick off” a "lone policeman." Stories in the New York World Telegram and Brooklyn Daily Eagle did offer the name of the officer allegedly targeted by Alston and his companions, Patrolman Jerry Brennan of the Morrisiana station, and the same dramatic account that a bullet whistled past his ear as he stood on post at Lenox Ave and 138th Street. Taking cover, he saw the men on the roof of the six-story building at 101 West 138th. Soon after police reinforcements arrived and rushed to the roof to arrest the men. One other story, in the Home News, identified Brennan, but cast him not as the target of the shooters but as one of the police who responded. In a radio car assigned to the area with his partner Patrolman McGrady, Brennan “heard the shots and sped to the scene. At the radio car's approach the four snipers [standing in the doorway] ran to the roof of the building.” This story provides the key detail that no guns were found on Alston and his companions.
On March 20 Loper, Yerber, and Johnson were charged with disorderly conduct, according to the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book, which identified Brennan as the arresting officer for all three men. (Alston did not appear in court, likely because of his injury). The clerk annotated that charge with the word "annoy." Under that section of the statute, a person is guilty if they act "in such a manner as to annoy, disturb, interfere with, obstruct, or be offensive to others." A separate clause punishes disorderly or threatening conduct or behavior, so based on that annotation, the men were not charged with attacking Brennan. That charge fits better with the circumstances described in the Home News. Whatever the patrolman alleged, Magistrate Ford did not find sufficient evidence of the men's guilt and acquitted Loper and his two companions. Given that outcome, it is possible Brennan mistook some other noise for gunfire. Without any evidence of an assault in the sources, these events are treated here only as arrests.
Loper, and Yerber and Johnson, are among those charged with disorderly conduct in the list of the arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. They are not mentioned in stories about the proceedings in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 in the New York Age and New York Herald Tribune, which listed only those convicted.
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2020-02-25T03:33:10+00:00
James Wrigley assaulted
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At some point during the disorder, forty-nine-year-old James Wrigley, a white security guard from Teaneck, New Jersey, suffered a serious head injury.
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2022-04-18T20:55:14+00:00
At 12.45am, forty-nine-year-old James Wrigley, a white security guard from Teaneck, New Jersey, suffered a serious head injury. Several newspaper reports identified Wrigley as an employee of the Holmes Protective Agency, which apparently provided private police officers (security guards) for one or more of the stores on 125th Street.
Press reports offered conflicting accounts of how he came to be injured that put the case in different categories of assault. As only the New York Times provided a specific time for the assault on Wrigley, and a detailed account of his injuries, Wrigley has been categorized as having been hit by rocks. The newspaper’s story included Wrigley among the victims of “stone-throwers,” “struck by a stone at 126th Street and Seventh Avenue, receiving cuts about both eyes and a serious head injury, possibly a concussion of the brain.” The Home News likewise cast him as “another victim of the rock hurlers,” but then proceeded to report Wrigley was “set upon by several colored men [and] beaten into unconsciousness before he was able to draw his gun.” The New York Evening Journal also reported Wrigley had been “seized and beaten,” an attack that apparently did not draw attention as the story went on recount that “Radio patrol cars found him lying on the pavement, unconscious, suffering from concussion of the brain.” The Daily News, which published no details of the assault, is the only other publication to report Wrigley was found unconscious in an alley. The AP reporter’s brief summary opted for this second narrative, reporting that Wrigley had been attacked by a gang. The New York American, Daily News, New York Post, New York Evening Journal, and Home News only included Wrigley in their lists of the injured. He also appeared in lists of the injured in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, and Norfolk Journal and Guide. Wrigley's injury was apparently serious enough that he was one of the eight men that the New York Herald Tribune reported as still in hospital on March 21.
The area where Wrigley was struck down saw a cluster of assaults on whites throughout the disorder, including other civilians and police hit by rocks, as well as crowds breaking windows and looting. Those hit by objects commonly suffered head injuries, as Wrigley did, although no others are reported as having been knocked unconscious.
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2021-08-21T16:25:07+00:00
Raymond Taylor arrested
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2022-12-16T18:18:24+00:00
Officer D. Conn of the 24th Precinct arrested twenty-eight-year-old Raymond Taylor some time during the disorder for "stealing a quantity of groceries from a chain store at 135th St. and Lenox Ave," according to a story in the Home News. The store was likely the A & P grocery store at 510 Lenox Avenue, the only chain grocery store near that intersection in the MCCH Business survey. The only reference to the looting is a Home News report of the appearance in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court of Taylor and two other Black men three Black men, forty-two-year-old Preston White and fifty-year-old Joseph Payne. White and Payne allegedly smashed the store window and took food. All three men were arrested "in the store." Officer Archbold of the 30th Precinct, not Officer Conn, is recorded as having arrested White and Payne in the Magistrates Court docket book. There is no mention of the value of the merchandise the men allegedly stole. Only one other reported event occurred on Lenox Avenue north of West 135th Street, the arrests of Charles Alston, Edward Loper, Albert Yergen and Ernest Johnston for allegedly shooting at police at 138th Street at the very end of the disorder. Taylor lived at 2228 5th Avenue, a block east of the grocery store.
Taylor, White and Payne appeared in the lists of those charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. When they appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge against them was originally recorded as burglary, with Payne and White denied bail, and Taylor held on bail of $1000. The Home News mistakenly reported different bail decisions for Taylor and Payne: $500 for Taylor and $1500 for Payne. No complainant was listed in the docket book.
The three men returned to the Magistrates Court on March 26, at which point all had the charge against them reduced from burglary to disorderly conduct. That change is recorded in the docket book in the same handwriting as the outcome of the case, a quite different hand than the original entry. Magistrate Ford convicted all three men, and suspended Taylor's sentence while sending White and Payne each to the Workhouse for five months and twenty-nine days. There is no information on why Taylor received a different sentence. -
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2021-08-31T16:33:51+00:00
Jacob Bonaparte arrested
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2022-12-09T18:23:05+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, an officer from the 28th Precinct arrested Jacob Bonaparte, a twenty-four-year-old Black man (the clerk's handwriting in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book is too messy to decipher the officer's name). The arrest likely occurred near the Romanoff Drug Store at 375 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of West 129th Street. J. Romanoff of that address is recorded as the complainant when Bonaparte is arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court.
Just what Bonaparte allegedly did is uncertain. He appeared among those listed as being arrested for burglary, the charge used in cases of alleged looting, in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, the 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded the charge against him as attempted burglary, suggesting that he was not arrested with any merchandise in his possession. In the Magistrate's Court, Bonaparte was charged with disorderly conduct. That offense punished various forms of breach of the peace, so the charge suggests that he may have allegedly broken the store windows but not attempted to take any merchandise. However, Magistrate Renaud acquitted Bonaparte, indicating that there was no compelling evidence linking him to whatever damage was done to the store (the 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded that Bonaparte was discharged). The Romanoff Drug store was located in the midst of the area of Lenox Avenue that saw multiple arrests and reports of looting and violence, likely after midnight. Bonaparte may have been among the crowds drawn to the street by the noise. He lived 123 West 128th Street, midway down the block between Lenox and 7th Avenues, relatively close to the store.
J. Romanoff was also the complainant in the case of Oscar Austin, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man, and Sam Nicholas, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, both arrested by the same police officer, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Both men's prosecution followed the same pattern as that of Bonaparte, ending in Magistrate Renaud acquitting them. They lived a little further from the store than Bonaparte, Austin at 204 West 128th Street, just west of 7th Avenue, and Nicholas at 224 West 124th Street. -
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2020-04-09T17:57:19+00:00
Wilmont Hendricks shot
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2022-04-19T16:10:54+00:00
Wilmont Hendricks, a twenty-five-year-old Black man, was shot on Lenox Avenue near 128th Street. Dr Payne attended Hendricks at Harlem Hospital, eight blocks north on Lenox Avenue, at 1.30 AM, the hospital staff recorded, so he was likely injured sometime around 1.00 AM, not around 2.00 AM, as a New York Times story reported. No details survive of the circumstances of Hendricks’ injury: the hospital record noted that he had been shot in “in some unknown manner,” while newspapers only reported he had been shot. There was considerable disorder on the blocks of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street around this time, including other assaults and looting. The outbreak of looting led police to begin shooting more indiscriminately than earlier in the disorder, and it is likely that Hendricks was shot by police.
After being seen by Dr Payne, Hendricks' injury was sufficiently serious for him to be admitted to the hospital, and to still be there a day later, according to the New York Herald Tribune. While the hospital recorded his wound as being in his left shoulder, only the list of injured in the Home News echoed that report. The lists in the New York American, New York Post, Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide instead locating the gunshot in his chest, and the lists in the Daily News and New York Evening Journal, and story in the New York Times reporting it was in in his back.
The hospital record did not identify Hendricks' race, but the newspaper lists in the New York Post, Home News, New York American and New York Evening Journal did. Four of the six other men shot and wounded in the disorder were black, one of unknown race, and one white police officer. When he was shot Hendricks was some distance from his home at 214 West 146th Street, which was almost twenty blocks to the north on 146th Street.
No one was arrested for shooting Hendricks, as was the case with all of those shot and wounded (Detective Campo’s alleged assailant was shot and killed).
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2021-12-02T17:25:14+00:00
James Bright arrested
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2022-12-04T19:23:28+00:00
Sometime during the disorder Detective Perretti of the 6th Division arrested James Bright, a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, for allegedly breaking windows in the drug store at 339 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of 127th Street. Perretti likely arrested a second man, Arthur Bennett, also a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, at the same time, also for breaking the store's windows. There was no information on the circumstances of the arrests. While other stores in the surrounding blocks of Lenox Avenue had windows broken and goods taken, police made few arrests as they lacked the numbers to control the many crowds on the streets. However, other officers made arrests for alleged looting at Frank De Thomas' candy store next to the drug store on West 127th Street and at Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store two buildings north on Lenox Avenue, suggesting that officers were stationed at this intersection.
A story in the Home News was the only evidence that connected Bright, and Arthur Bennett, to 339 Lenox Avenue. Bright appeared in lists of those charged with disorderly conduct published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. Inexplicably, the 28th Precinct Police blotter records "Annoyed pedestrians" as the charge against him; no one else arrested during the disorder other than Bennett was charged with that offense. Bright appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with disorderly conduct, with Detective Perretti recorded in the docket book as the arresting officer. Bright had allegedly thrown "stones through the window of the store at 339 Lenox Ave.," according to the Home News story on those proceedings. He did not live close to the store, but five blocks north, at 43 West 133rd Street. Magistrate Renaud convicted Bright of disorderly conduct. He returned to the court for sentencing on March 23, and received a term of one month in the workhouse "for breaking windows" from Magistrate Renaud in proceedings reported in the Afro-American, New York Age, Daily News, and New York Times. None of those stories gave an address for the store whose windows Bright had allegedly broken. -
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2021-08-20T19:16:43+00:00
Lamter Jackson arrested
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2022-12-04T18:54:57+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Jackson of the 32nd Precinct arrested Lamter Jackson, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing a rock that shattered the window of a store selling unclaimed laundry at 1 West 131st Street, and then taking a bag of laundry from the store. The only source of details of the event was the report of Jackson's appearance in the Magistrates' Court published by the Home News. Officer Jackson is identified as the arresting officer in Magistrates Court docket book. Lamter Jackson lived at 78 West 135th Street. There are multiple lootings and assaults on the stretch of Lenox Avenue between his home and the laundry store, noise and crowds which could have brought Jackson on to the streets. Several other men arrested in this area - Lawrence Humphrey, Carl Jones, Raymond Taylor, and Preston White, likewise lived in the blocks of 135th-132nd Streets between Lenox and 5th Avenues.
Jackson is listed among those charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the New York Evening Journal. Both those lists flip his name, identifying him as Jackson Lamter; the Home News and the docket book record him as Lamter Jackson. He appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with petit larceny not burglary. That charge did not require the evidence of breaking in and entering a store to take merchandise that burglary did. Magistrate Ford sent him to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on $100 Bail. For some reason just over two months passed before Jackson's trial took place. On May 27, the Magistrates convicted him and sent him to the Workhouse for thirty days, an outcome found only in the 32nd Precinct records. -
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2021-12-21T20:46:19+00:00
William Jones arrested
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2022-12-09T02:25:32+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Patrolman Murphy of the 28th Precinct arrested William Jones, a twenty-five-year-old Black man. There is no information on Jones' alleged offense, or the time or circumstances of the arrest. He was charged with malicious mischief, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. An offense involving damage to property, malicious mischief was used by prosecutors after the disorder only against individuals arrested for allegedly breaking windows, so Jones has been treated as having been arrested on that charge, even though there are no details of his alleged act.
William Jones is recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge is reported in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. Police appear to have initially charged many of those arrested during the riot with inciting a riot, and then revised those charges to fit the specific act that an individual was alleged to have committed before their arraignment in court. Prosecutors had changed the charge against Jones to malicious mischief by the time he appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud held Brown in custody until March 22, on bail of $1000. When he was returned to court, the charge against Jones was reduced to a misdemeanor, "Red. to Misd." written above the original charge in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. That change would have reflected information on the value of the window that Jones allegedly broke: it had to be more than $25 for Jones to be charged with felony malicious mischief. Magistrate Ford then transferred Jones to the Court of Special Sessions for trial. On March 28 the three judges of that court convicted Jones, and gave him a suspended sentence, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter. -
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2021-12-08T18:55:05+00:00
David Smith arrested
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2022-11-13T23:11:19+00:00
At 12:05 A.M., Officer Anthony Barbaro of the 25th Precinct arrested David Smith, a twenty-two-year-old Black clerk, and Leon Mauraine, a twenty-two-year-old Black window washer in front of 322 Lenox Avenue. Barbaro had been standing on the corner of Lenox Avenue and 126th Street when he saw a group of people gather in front of the Rex Drug store at 318 Lenox Avenue, according to the statement he gave in the Harlem Magistrates Court. He then allegedly heard two of the men, Smith and Mauraine, say, "Com[e] on gang, here's two more windows, let's break them." Those men then threw stones at the store windows, breaking them, after which they ran north on Lenox Avenue. Barbaro chased them, catching and arresting both men two buildings north of the drug store. As the drug store was on the northeast corner of Lenox Avenue and West 126th Street, Barbaro must have been standing across 126th Street, on the southeast corner, as he would not have been able to hear the men or catch them so quickly from across the much wider Lenox Avenue. In the half hour after Barbaro arrested Smith and Mauraine, other police officers arrested two men for breaking windows near West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue, John Kennedy Jones at 333 Lenox Avenue and Bernard Smith at 317 Lenox Avenue. Multiple arrests by different officers indicates that a number of police were stationed at the intersection at that time. All three of the arresting officers came from precincts outside Harlem.
Smith had lived for the last fourteen months at 2094 5th Avenue, three blocks north and a block east of the store, according to his examination in the Magistrates Court. He may have been drawn to Lenox Avenue by the noise of windows being broken earlier in the disorder. While both he and Mauraine could have thrown stone at the windows, as Barbaro stated, it is unlikely they said exactly the same words. It may be that only one of the them urged on the group, or that they expressed similar sentiments that the officer chose to report in the same words (The Home News story about the proceedings in the Harlem Magistrates Court reported they had said "Come on. Let's bust some more windows," a difference in wording from the affidavit likely produced by a reporter's difficulty hearing what was said in the courtroom). The list of those arrested in the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal, did distinguish the men in a way Barbaro's affidavit did not. Smith was listed among those charged with malicious mischief, an offense which involved damaging property used in other cases involving broken windows, and Mauraine among those charged with inciting a riot. However, that distinction is not replicated in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter or in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, which recorded both men as charged with inciting a riot. So too did the story in the Home News about the proceedings in the court, which did not mention that Smith or Mauraine had broken the store windows, only what they had been "overheard saying to companions." A note on the Magistrates Court affidavit did, however, include malicious mischief alongside three sections of the riot law, indicating that both men faced both charges at some point in their prosecution.
When Smith, and Mauraine, appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud held them for the grand jury, on bail of $1000. A week later both men appeared before the grand jury, which transferred them to the Court of Special Sessions for trial. It is likely that the note on the Magistrates Court affidavit was the charges they faced in that court, malicious mischief (as the malicious mischief charge is not recorded in the docket book Smith was not categorized as being charged with that offense) and the three misdemeanor forms of inciting a riot. Convicted in that court, on April 2, Smith, and Mauraine, received suspended sentences, according to the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. -
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2021-12-12T03:19:41+00:00
David Terry arrested
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2022-11-14T15:56:46+00:00
Some time during the disorder, Detective Balkin of the 5th Division arrested David Terry, a twenty-four-year-old homeless Black man. Wilbur Montgomery, living at 951 Woodycrest Avenue, recorded as the complainant against Terry in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, was identified in the 1933 City Directory as the manager of Danbury Shoes, at 2334 8th Avenue. The nearby intersection of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, only a few buildings from Kress' store, saw some of the earliest crowds and violence of the disorder, and a concentration of police, who sought to clear West 125th Street by pushing people on to the avenue. Windows were also broken in stores either side of Danbury shoes, the branch of the Liggett drug store chain on the corner of West 125th Street and a seafood restaurant at 2338 8th Avenue. Montgomery was also the complainant against another man arrested by Detective Balkin, likely at the same time, James Hayes. There are no details of the circumstances of Terry's arrest, but the charge against him in the Harlem Magistrates Court, malicious mischief, was made against those arrested in the disorder who had allegedly broken windows. Hayes had allegedly taken a baseball bat from the hat store, according to a story about his appearance in the Magistrates Court in the Home News, which gave only the address of the store. Police appear to have initially charged Hayes with breaking a window as well as taking the bat. He appeared in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, his name misrecorded as Hazel, with the note "Broke store window, burglarized store." In line with that entry, Hayes was among those charged with burglary in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, when Hayes appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge was recorded as petit larceny not burglary. That charge did not require evidence of breaking in and entering a store as burglary did, indicating a reassessment of the information in the blotter by the time of his arraignment.
Instead, it appears that it was Terry who police alleged had broken the hat store windows, as he was charged in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 with malicious mischief. Magistrate Renaud held Terry in custody so his case could be investigated. When he was returned to court on March 26, the charge against him was reduced to disorderly conduct, the previous charge crossed out in the docket book, "Red. to" written above it, and the new charge stamped in its place. That change likely indicates a lack of evidence that Terry had broken windows. It is that reduced charge of disorderly conduct that appeared as the charge against Terry in lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. A different charge recorded against him in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, inciting a riot, appears to have frequently been used by police as the initial charge against those arrested during the disorder, and was often replaced by other charges in the Magistrates Court. As disorderly conduct was a charge that Magistrates had the power to adjudicate, Magistrate Ford tried and convicted Terry and fined him $500 or five days in the workhouse. Terry served the time in the workhouse, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
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2021-12-03T21:46:41+00:00
Charles Wright arrested
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2022-11-14T16:00:15+00:00
Officer Phillips of the 28th Squad arrested Charles Wright, together with William Norris, for allegedly having "thrown an ashcan through the window" of the Lokos Clothes store at 2275 8th Avenue, according to a story in the Home News. Located just north of West 122nd Street, on the west side of 8th Avenue, the store was in an area with no other reported activity during the disorder other than rocks hitting Patrolman Harry Whittington as he traveled on an Emergency truck, and no other arrests. There are no details of the time or circumstances of the arrests.
Wright, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, is recorded as having "no home" in the 28th Precinct Police blotter and the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, but with an address in Philadelphia in the Home News. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with malicious mischief. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions for trial, and held him on bail of $500 (indicating that the value of the damage to the building was not more than $250, the level required for the charge to be a felony). The judges convicted him, and on April 1st sentenced him to three months in the Workhouse. The prosecution of Norris followed the same process, with the same result. Phillips was also the arresting officer of three other individuals, Arthur Davis, Herbert Hunter and Elizabeth Tai.
Pauline Lokos of 2275 8th Avenue was identified as the owner of the store whose windows Wright allegedly broke in the Home News and recorded as the complainant in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book when he appeared in court on March 20. Wright appeared in the lists of those arrested during the disorder published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal, but the two lists differed in the charge made against him. The Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide included him among those charged with burglary, while the New York Evening Journal listed the charge against Wright as inciting a riot. The charge recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter was inciting a riot. In the Magistrates Court the charge made was malicious mischief, recorded in the docket book and reported in the Home News. That charge involved damage to property not required for the charge of riot, so the change in charge in effect shifted from treating the men as part of a crowd to as having attacked the store. There is no information on why that change was made. -
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2021-12-02T17:24:56+00:00
Arthur Bennett arrested
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2022-11-14T15:38:32+00:00
Sometime during the disorder Detective Perretti of the 6th Division arrested Arthur Bennett, a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, for allegedly breaking windows in the drug store at 339 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of 127th Street. Perretti likely arrested a second man, James Bright, also a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, at the same time, also for breaking the store's windows. There is no information on the circumstances of the arrests. While other stores in the surrounding blocks of Lenox Avenue had windows broken and goods taken, police made few arrests as they lacked the numbers to control the many crowds on the streets. However, other officers made arrests for alleged looting at Frank De Thomas' candy store next to the drug store on West 127th Street and at Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store two buildings north on Lenox Avenue, suggesting that officers were stationed at this intersection.
A story in the Home News is the only evidence that connects Bennett, and James Bright, to 339 Lenox Avenue. Bennett appeared in lists of those charged with disorderly conduct published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. Inexplicably, the 28th Precinct Police blotter records "Annoyed pedestrians" as the charge against him; no one else arrested during the disorder other than Bright was charged with that offense. Bennett appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with disorderly conduct, with Detective Perretti recorded in the docket book as the arresting officer. He had allegedly thrown "stores through the window of the store at 339 Lenox Ave.," according to the Home News story on those proceedings. He did not live close to the store, but eight blocks south, at 48 West 119th Street. Magistrate Renaud convicted Bennett of disorderly conduct. He returned to the court for sentencing on March 23, and received a term of one month in the workhouse "for breaking windows" from Magistrate Renaud in proceedings reported in the Afro-American, New York Age, New York Daily News, and New York Times. None of those stories gave an address for the store whose windows Bennett had allegedly broken. -
1
2021-09-01T14:06:32+00:00
Earl Davis arrested
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2022-12-03T19:13:12+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer William Butler of the 18th Precinct arrested Earl Davis, a twenty-six-year-old Black man. The arrest likely took place near 531 Lenox Avenue as that is the address listed for the complainant against him in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court, Philip Jaross. Although that column of the docket book was for the complainant's residence, clerks commonly instead recorded instead the address of looted or damaged stores. The address, on the block between West 135th and West 136th Streets, opposite Harlem Hospital, was the location of Jaross' Merchant Tailors, which the MCCH Business survey described as a "Store operated by two Jewish men. Carry a cheap line of tailor made clothes. Been here 3 1/2 years."
Davis is among those named as charged with petit larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide (he is not in the list published in the New York Evening Journal). A charge of petit larceny suggests that Davis was not alleged to have broken the store window or otherwise gained entry to the building, but rather to have stolen merchandise of low value. There is no mention of this event in any other sources. It is the northernmost reported looting of the disorder, one of a small number of events north of West 135th Street. Davis lived at 110 West 127th Street, between Lenox and 7th Avenues, to the south of the store.
When Davis appeared in Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, Magistrate Ford held him for the Court of Special Sessions, on bail of $100. When he appeared in that court on March 22, the Magistrates convicted Davis and sentenced him to ten days in the Workhouse, an outcome found only in the 32nd Precinct records. -
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2021-12-10T19:49:14+00:00
David Bragg arrested
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2022-11-14T15:40:20+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Patrolman Leahy of the 28th Precinct arrested David Bragg, a thirty-three-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing a rock through the window of Ben Salcfas' grocery store at 2061 7th Avenue, according to a story in the Home News. The window could have been broken around 11.15 PM, when a group of twenty-five to thirty people gathered at the intersection. Another officer from the 28th Precinct, Patrolman Peter Naton, arrested one member of that group, James Pringle, for allegedly urging the others to cross the street so they could throw rocks at police. The group continued on despite the arrest, smashing store windows, according to Naton. Bragg may have been part of that group. Later, two stores close to the grocery store were looted. First, Sarah Refkin's delicatessen at 2067 7th Avenue at 12:30 AM, and then Nicholas Peet's tailors store at 2063 7th Avenue at 1:30 AM. The shoe repair store directly across 7th Avenue from the grocery store was also looted sometime during the disorder. Bragg lived at 235 West 135th Street, over ten blocks north of the store, between 7th and 8th Avenues.
"Ben Salcfas" of 2061 7th Avenue is recorded as the complainant against David Bragg in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. A story in the Home News is the only other source that links Bragg to 2061 7th Avenue. The information that Bragg through a rock at the store window is also only found in that story, a report of his appearance in the Harlem Magistrates Court. The charge made against Bragg when he was arraigned, malicious mischief, involves the destruction of property, and was used in other prosecutions involving broken windows. However, police initially charged him with inciting a riot, which is the charge recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter, and in the list of those arrested during the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. When Bragg appeared in court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on bail of $1000. Convicted by the judges of that court, he was sentenced on April 1 to three months in the workhouse, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter. -
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2021-08-31T01:42:33+00:00
Albert Allen arrested
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2022-12-07T18:23:17+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Albert Allen was arrested and charged with Burglary. Allen's name appeared among those charged with Burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. However, Allen did not appear in the list published in the New York Evening Journal (which included an person's age, race and address), the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there was no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.
The same lack of information existed for eight other men who appeared only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, seven of who were charged with Petit Larceny. Six of those men were found in 32nd Precinct "Police Reports" gathered by the MCCH was Disorderly Conduct. Those index cards appeared to be transcribed from the Police Blotter. In the case of those other men, the outcome recorded was "Final Disposition ?." The other man, Archie Niles, like Allen was also missing from those records. Given the men's absence from the court docket book, that evidence suggests that for some reason Allen and the others were not arraigned. That they did not appear in court could mean that police questioned and released them the next day. -
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2021-12-03T21:46:21+00:00
William Norris arrested
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2022-11-14T15:49:25+00:00
Officer Phillips of the 28th Squad arrested William Norris, together with Charles Wright, for allegedly having "thrown an ashcan through the window" of the Lokos Clothes store at 2275 8th Avenue, according to a story in the Home News. Located just north of West 122nd Street, on the west side of 8th Avenue, the store was in an area with no other reported activity during the disorder other than rocks hitting Patrolman Harry Whittington as he traveled on an Emergency truck, and no other arrests. There are no details of the time or circumstances of the arrests.
Norris, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, is recorded as residing at 201 West 122nd Street in all the records of his arrest, only a block east of the clothing store. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with malicious mischief. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions for trial, and held him on bail of $500, indicating that the value of the damage to the building was not more than $250, the level required for the charge to be a felony. The judges convicted him, and on April 1st sentenced him to three months in the Workhouse. The prosecution of Wright followed the same process, with the same result. Phillips was also the arresting officer of three other individuals, Arthur Davis, Herbert Hunter and Elizabeth Tai.
Pauline Lokos of 2275 8th Avenue was identified as the owner of the store whose windows Norris allegedly broke in the Home News and recorded as the complainant in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book when he appeared in court on March 20. Norris appeared in the lists of those arrested during the disorder published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal, but the two lists differed in the charge made against him. The Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide included him among those charged with burglary, while the New York Evening Journal listed the charge against Norris as inciting a riot. The charge recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter was inciting a riot. In the Magistrates Court the charge made was malicious mischief, recorded in the docket book and reported in the Home News. That charge involved damage to property not required for the charge of riot, so the change in charge in effect shifted from treating the men as part of a crowd to as having attacked the store. There is no information on why that change was made. -
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2021-08-31T16:32:04+00:00
Oscar Austin arrested
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2022-12-04T20:35:40+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, an officer from the 28th Precinct arrested Oscar Austin, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man (the clerk's handwriting in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book is too messy to decipher the officer's name). The arrest likely occurred near the Romanoff Drug Store at 375 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of West 129th Street. J. Romanoff is recorded as the complainant when Austin is arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court.
Just what Austin allegedly did is uncertain. He appeared among those listed as being arrested for burglary, the charge used in cases of alleged looting, in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, the 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded the charge against him as Attempted Burglary, suggesting that he was not arrested with any merchandise in his possession. In the Magistrate's Court, Austin was charged with disorderly conduct. Such a charge suggests that he may have allegedly broken the store windows but not entered the store or taken any merchandise. However, Magistrate Renaud acquitted Austin, indicating that there was no compelling evidence linking him to whatever damage was done to the store (the 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded that Austin was discharged). The Romanoff Drug store was located in the midst of the area of Lenox Avenue that saw multiple arrests and reports of looting and violence, likely after midnight. Austin may have just been among the crowds drawn to the street by the noise. He lived relatively close to the store, at 204 West 128th Street, just west of 7th Avenue.
J. Romanoff was also the complainant in the cases of two twenty-four-year-old Black men, Jacob Bonaparte and Sam Nicholas arrested by the same police officer, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Their prosecution followed the same pattern as that of Austin, ending in acquittal. Bonaparte lived even closer to the store than Austin, at 123 West 128th Street, midway down the block between Lenox and 7th Avenues, while Nicholas lived further away, on West 124th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. -
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2022-06-13T16:54:29+00:00
Salathel Smith arrested
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2022-12-04T20:04:31+00:00
Officer Connelly of the 32nd Precinct arrested Salathel Smith, a forty-seven-year-old Black man somewhere north of West 130th Street some time during the disorder, perhaps for assaulting Vito Capozzio, a man of unknown race and age. Smith, who lived at 246 West 121st Street, appeared in lists published in the Home News and New York Age of those arrested during the disorder who were found guilty in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court and sentenced to the Workhouse for two days on March 20. The story included no information on the events that led to his arrest. No other newspaper lists or stories mention Smith, including the other reports of those court proceedings. He did appear in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book, where the charge against him was recorded as disorderly conduct.
The other information in the docket book suggests Smith may have been involved in a fight not in the disorder. Check marks indicate that the charge, complainant and arresting officer in his case were the same as those of the man who appeared above him in the docket book, Richard Jackson, a twenty-seven-year-old Black man who lived at 102 West 119th Street. The charge was annotated "fight." Like Smith, Jackson was found guilty by the Magistrate and sentenced to only two days in the Workhouse. That violence cannot have resulted in any injury if the charge was disorderly conduct: the applicable section of the statute applied only to a person who used "offensive, disorderly, threatening, abusive or insulting language, conduct or behavior." Vito Capozzio was the complainant, his address recorded as "3764 Boulevard," perhaps in the Bronx. Given that evidence, Smith and Jackson may have got into a fight in a business which Capozzio either owned or worked in. Their appearance in the Washington Heights Court, and arrest by an officer from the 32nd Precinct, indicate that they were arrested north of 130th Street, an area that saw fewer incidents and arrests during the disorder. While neither list in which Smith was includedSmith and Jackson would not have been the only men who appeared in court that day not arrested as part of the disorder; eleven of the forty-four recorded in the docket book on March 20 faced charges obviously unrelated to the disorder, such as offenses against the Sabbath Law.
Disorderly conduct was a charge that could be adjudicated in the Magistrates Court. Magistrate Ford convicted Smith, and Jackson. He sentenced both to just two days in the workhouse or a $5 fine; neither paid the fine. Jackson did appear in two sources that Smith did not: the list of those arrested for assault published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Guide; and a New York Herald Tribune story that reported the charge and sentence. However, he, like Smith, is missing from most sources that provided information on those arrested. The presence of Smith in the New York Age story likely reflects the reporter's confusion about whether his arrest related to the disorder, given that the charge against him was one made against others arrested in the disorder. -
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2020-03-11T21:52:56+00:00
Salvatore Nicolette injured
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2020-09-29T02:00:07+00:00
Salvatore Nicolette, a thirty-two-year-old white resident of the Bronx, suffered a fractured skull during the disorder. There is no information on how, when or where he was injured. As with a number of those listed only as having been injured, Nicolette had similar head injuries to those who had been assaulted and could himself have been attacked.
Nicolette appears only in the lists of the injured published by the New York American, New York Herald Tribune and New York Post, and the lists of the “Critically Injured” or those “Near Death" published in the Black newspapers the Afro-American, Atlanta World, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. Only the New York Herald Tribune identifies Nicolette as white, in a list of “Five Negroes and three white men [who] were still in Harlem Hospital” on March 21. However, he does not appear in records of those admitted to hospital.
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2021-12-13T16:22:07+00:00
Julius Hightower arrested
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2022-12-04T20:11:28+00:00
Patrolman Carter of the 32nd Precinct arrested Julius Hightower, an eighteen-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing a brick through the window of Moskowitz's tailor shop at 2310 7th Avenue, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. The complainant recorded in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book is L. Hackner, with the address 2310 7th Avenue, confirming the location of Hightower's alleged offense published in the New York Herald Tribune. The tailor shop was operated by a father and son, so Hackner was likely a manager or staff member. Located between 135th and 136th Streets, the shop was one of the northernmost businesses damaged during the disorder, in an area where most of the other businesses had Black owners.
Hightower lived at 204 West 148th Street, more than ten blocks north of the tailor store. He appeared among those charged with disorderly conduct in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, when Hightower appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 the charge recorded in the docket book was malicious mischief, an offense involving the destruction of property used in cases of individuals who allegedly broke windows during the disorder. During his arraignment, that charge was reduced to disorderly conduct, an offense that a Magistrate could adjudicate. Magistrate Ford convicted Hightower, and sentenced him to five days in the workhouse or a fine of $25. He served the time. That sentence was reported in the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Age, and without the duration in the Home News. -
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2020-10-29T15:01:55+00:00
Vito Capozzio assaulted
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2022-06-13T19:36:34+00:00
Vito Capozzio may have been assaulted somewhere north of West 130th Street during the disorder. He was recorded as the complainant in the prosecution of Richard Jackson, a twenty-seven-year-old Black man, and Salathel Smith, a forty-seven-year-old Black man, in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20. No details of the case appear in any sources, but the men's arraignment in that court indicated they had been arrested within its jurisdiction, which began above 130th Street. Jackson appeared in the list of those arrested for assault in the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Guide, which included only his name and the charge. Smith was not included in that list. However, his name was recorded directly beneath Jackson in the docket book, with check marks indicating that the complainant, charge and arresting officer were the same in both cases. Although his name suggests Capozzio was likely a white man, there is no evidence of his race. The docket book recorded his address as "3764 Boulevard," which appears to be an incomplete address, perhaps referring to Southern Boulevard in the Bronx.
Other evidence in the docket book, and Jackson and Smith's absence from most newspaper reports of those arrested during the disorder, suggest that this incident was not part of the disorder. When Jackson and Smith appeared in court on March 20 the charge against them was the lesser offense of disorderly conduct, not assault, annotated with the word "fight." The reduced charge could simply indicate that Capozzio's injuries did not warrant a charge of assault. However, this is the only instance in which the charge was annotated with "fight." Another possible interpretation is that Jackson and Smith may have got into a fight in a business which Capozzio either owned or worked in rather than assaulting him. The area north of 130th Street where the men were arrested saw fewer incidents and arrests during the disorder. Jackson and Smith would not have been the only men who appeared in the court that day not arrested as part of the disorder; eleven of the forty-four recorded in the docket book on March 20 faced charges unrelated to the disorder, such as offenses against the Sabbath Law. While stories in New York Age and New York Herald Tribune reported Jackson's appearance in court, only the New York Age also mentioned Smith, the only time he appeared in the newspapers. That inconsistency, and the absence of the men from other stories about the court proceedings, suggest at least some confusion about whether their arrests related to the disorder. Magistrate Ford did convict both Jackson and Smith, but sentenced them to just two days in the workhouse or a $5 fine. -
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2021-09-08T21:16:11+00:00
Sam Nicholas arrested
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2022-12-04T20:49:25+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, an officer from the 28th Precinct arrested Sam Nicholas, a twenty-four-year-old Black man (the clerk's handwriting in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book is too messy to decipher the officer's name). The arrest likely occurred near the Romanoff Drug Store at 375 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of West 129th Street. J. Romanoff of that address is recorded as the complainant when Nicholas is arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court.
Just what Nicholas allegedly did is uncertain. He appears among those listed as being arrested for burglary, the charge used in cases of alleged looting, in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, the 28th Precinct Police blotter records the charge against him as Attempted Burglary, suggesting that he was not arrested with any merchandise in his possession. In the Magistrate's Court, Nicholas was charged with Disorderly Conduct, an offense not used in cases of alleged looting. Such a charge suggests that he may have allegedly broken the store windows but not attempted to take any merchandise. However, Magistrate Renaud acquitted Nicholas, indicating that there was no compelling evidence linking him to whatever damage was done to the store (the 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded that Nicholas was discharged). The Romanoff Drug store was located in the midst of the area of Lenox Avenue that saw multiple arrests and reports of looting and violence, likely after midnight. Nicholas may have been among the crowds drawn to the street by the noise. He lived at 224 West 124th Street, midway down the block between 7th Avenue and Eighth Avenue, five blocks south of the store.
J. Romanoff was also the complainant against Oscar Austin, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man, and Jacob Bonaparte, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, both arrested by the same police officer, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Both men's prosecutions followed the same pattern as that of Nicholas, ending in acquittal. They lived closer to the store, on West 128th Street. -
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2021-09-08T00:07:32+00:00
Alonzo Greenridge arrested
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2022-11-17T16:44:40+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Alonzo Greenridge, a forty-three-year-old West Indian, was arrested in the 32nd Precinct, which covered the area north of 130th Street. His name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. However, the charge recorded in the 32nd Precinct "Police Reports" gathered by the MCCH was Disorderly Conduct. Those records, which appeared to be transcribed from the Police Blotter, provide his age, birthplace and address, 982 Union Avenue, together with a notation, "out of Harlem Area." Greenridge was not recorded in the docket book of the Washington Heights Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.
For the outcome of Greenridge's prosecution, the 32nd Precinct Police Report recorded "Final Disposition ?." That was the same outcome recorded in the Police Report cards for five other men who appeared only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, all also charged with Petit Larceny. (One other man, Archie Niles, named only in that list as charged with Petit Larceny was not found in the Police Reports). Together with the men's absence from the court docket book, that evidence suggests that for some reason Greenridge and the others were not arraigned. -
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2021-08-23T20:04:00+00:00
Preston White arrested
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2022-12-04T20:21:04+00:00
Officer Archbold of the 30th Precinct arrested forty-two-year-old Preston White some time during the disorder for smashing the store window and taking food from "a chain store at 135th St. and Lenox Ave," according to a story in the Home News. The store was likely the A & P grocery store at 510 Lenox Avenue, the only chain grocery store near that intersection in the MCCH Business survey. The only reference to the looting is a Home News report of the appearance in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court of White and two other Black men, twenty-eight-year-old Raymond Taylor and fifty-year-old Joseph Payne. Like White, Payne allegedly smashed the store window and took food, whereas Taylor was arrested for "stealing a quantity of groceries." All three men were arrested "in the store." While Officer Archbold also arrested Payne, Officer D. Conn of the 24th Precinct is recorded as having arrested Taylor in the Magistrates Court docket book. There is no mention of the value of the merchandise the men allegedly stole. Only one other reported event occurred on Lenox Avenue north of West 135th Street, the arrests of Charles Alston, Edward Loper, Albert Yergen and Ernest Johnston for allegedly shooting at police at 138th Street at the very end of the disorder. White lived at 26 West 134th Street, a block south and east of the grocery store.
White, Payne and Taylor appeared in the lists of those charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. When they appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge against them was originally recorded as burglary, with White and Payne denied bail, and Taylor held on bail of $1000. The Home News mistakenly reported different bail decisions for Taylor and Payne: $500 for Taylor and $1500 for Payne. No complainant is listed in the docket book.
The three men returned to the Magistrates Court on March 26, at which point all had the charge against them reduced from burglary to disorderly conduct. That change is recorded in the docket book in the same handwriting as the outcome of the case, a quite different hand than the original entry. Magistrate Ford convicted all three men, sending White and Payne to the Workhouse for five months and twenty-nine days, and suspending Taylor's sentence. There is no information on why Taylor received a different sentence. -
1
2021-08-23T20:04:27+00:00
Joseph Payne arrested
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2022-12-04T20:22:01+00:00
Officer Archbold of the 30th Precinct arrested fifty-year-old Joseph Payne some time during the disorder for smashing the store window and taking food from "a chain store at 135th St. and Lenox Ave," according to a story in the Home News. The store was likely the A & P grocery store at 510 Lenox Avenue, the only chain grocery store near that intersection in the MCCH Business survey. The only reference to the looting is a Home News report of the appearance in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court of Payne and two other Black men, twenty-eight-year-old Raymond Taylor and forty-two-year-old Preston White. Like Payne, White allegedly smashed the store window and took food, whereas Taylor was arrested for "stealing a quantity of groceries." All three men were arrested "in the store." While Officer Archbold also arrested White, Officer D. Conn of the 24th Precinct is recorded as having arrested Taylor in the Magistrates Court docket book. There is no mention of the value of the merchandise the men allegedly stole. Only one other reported event occurred on Lenox Avenue north of West 135th Street, the arrests of Charles Alston, Edward Loper, Albert Yergen and Ernest Johnston for allegedly shooting at police at 138th Street at the very end of the disorder. Payne lived at 28 East 128th Street, on Harlem's eastern boundary and far further from the grocery store than Taylor or White.
Payne, White and Taylor appeared in the lists of those charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. When they appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge against them was originally recorded as burglary, with Payne and White denied bail, and Taylor held on bail of $1000. The Home News mistakenly reported Payne as younger, twenty-three years-of-age, and different bail decisions for Payne and Taylor: $1500 for Payne and $500 for Taylor.
The three men returned to the Magistrates Court on March 26, at which point all had the charge against them reduced from burglary to disorderly conduct. That change is recorded in the docket book in the same handwriting as the outcome of the case, a quite different hand than the original entry. One explanation for the reduced charge is that, although arrested in the store, there was no evidence that the men had broken windows to gain entry or taken any merchandise. Magistrate Ford convicted all three men, sending Payne and White to the Workhouse for five months and twenty-nine days, and suspending Taylor's sentence. There is no information on why Taylor received a different sentence. -
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2021-12-15T20:02:06+00:00
Warren Johnson arrested
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2022-11-14T15:28:58+00:00
Sometime during the riot, Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Warren Johnson, an eighteen-year-old Black man. There is no information on Johnson's alleged offense, or the time or circumstances of the arrest. Libman also appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of two women, Rose Murrell and Louise Brown, and another man, Henry Stewart, who, with Johnson, had all been arrested at 8th Avenue and West 127th Street, according to a story in the Daily Mirror. Murrell and Stewart were alleged to have broken windows in two different stores, at 2366 8th Avenue and 2422 8th Avenue. Johnson, and Brown, likely also allegedly broke store windows, based on the charges made against them in the Harlem Magistrates Court. All four faced the charge of malicious mischief, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. An offense involving damage to property, malicious mischief was used by prosecutors after the disorder only against individuals arrested for allegedly breaking windows, so Johnson has been treated as having been arrested on that charge, even though there are no details of his alleged act.
While the story in the Daily Mirror suggested Johnson and Brown had been arrested at the intersection, so likely were alleged to have broken windows nearby, the store in which Henry Stewart allegedly broke a window was two and half blocks north of where the story reported his arrest. It is possible that the intersection was where police were stationed, where those arrested were initially brought, rather than the site of their arrest. Johnson lived at 206 West 121st Street, a block east of 8th Avenue and six blocks north of where he was reported arrested. All six of the men and women arrested by police on 8th Avenue lived either west of the avenue or in the block between 8th and 7th Avenues, but the others lived north of 125th Street, considerably closer than Johnson.
Warren Johnson is recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge is reported in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, in the New York Evening Journal and in the New York Daily News, as well as in the story in the Daily Mirror. Police appear to have initially charged many of those arrested during the riot with inciting a riot, and then revised those charges to fit the specific act that an individual was alleged to have committed before their arraignment in court. Prosecutors had changed the charge against Johnson to malicious mischief by the time he appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud held Johnson in custody until March 25, on bail of $500. When he was returned to court, the charge against Johnson was reduced to disorderly conduct, malicious mischief crossed out in the docket book, "Red." written above it, and "DISORDERLY CONDUCT" stamped in its place. That change, to a lesser offense that did not involve damage to property, likely indicated a lack of evidence that Johnson had broken a window. Disorderly conduct was also an offense that could be adjudicated by a Magistrate. Magistrate Ford convicted Johnson and gave him a suspended sentence. Louise Brown, arrested with him and prosecuted in the same way, also received a suspended sentence. -
1
2021-09-08T00:02:47+00:00
Leo Cash arrested
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2022-11-14T03:02:34+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Leo Cash, a twenty-five-year-old Black man who lived at 235 West 120th Street, was arrested and charged with Burglary. Cash's name appears among those charged with Burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the list published in the New York Evening Journal (which included his age, race and address). He does not appear the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.
That lack of information is also the case with eight other men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, seven charged with Petit Larceny, and one woman who appeared in that list and the list in the New York Evening Journal as Cash did. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police questioned and released them the next day. -
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2021-12-13T16:48:29+00:00
Robert Porter arrested
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2022-11-14T15:51:19+00:00
Patrolman Rappel of the 30th Precinct arrested Robert Porter, a forty-two-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing an ashcan through the window of a shoe repair store at 2360 7th Avenue, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. That story is the only information on the location of Porter's alleged crime; there is no complainant recorded in the court docket book. Located on the northwest corner of West 138th Street, the shop was the northernmost business damaged during the disorder.
Porter lived only three blocks north of the store, at 221 West 141st Street. He appeared among those charged with disorderly conduct in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. That was also the charge recorded in the docket book when Porter appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20. The offense of disorderly conduct was one that a Magistrate could adjudicate. Magistrate Ford convicted Porter, and sentenced him to five days in the workhouse or a fine of $25. "Porter went to jail," the New York Herald Tribune reported, an outcome also reported in the New York Age. -
1
2021-09-07T21:42:08+00:00
Jack Williams arrested
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2022-11-17T17:01:10+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Jack Williams, a thirty-two-year-old man, was arrested in the 32nd Precinct, which covered the area north of 130th Street. His name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. However, the charge recorded in the 32nd Precinct "Police Reports" gathered by the MCCH was Disorderly Conduct. Those records, which appeared to be transcribed from the Police Blotter, provide his age, birthplace and address, 220 West 130th Street. Williams was not recorded in the docket book of the Washington Heights Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.
For the outcome of Williams' prosecution, the 32nd Precinct Police Report recorded "Final Disposition ?." That was the same outcome recorded in the Police Report cards for five other men who appeared only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, all also charged with Petit Larceny. (One other man, Archie Niles, named only in that list as charged with Petit Larceny was not found in the Police Reports). Together with the men's absence from the court docket book, that evidence suggests that for some reason Williams and the others were not arraigned. -
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2021-09-08T00:14:02+00:00
Archie Niles arrested
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2022-12-07T18:22:20+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Archie Niles was arrested and charged with Petit Larceny. Niles' name appeared among those charged with Petit Larceny only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. There was no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.
Six other men who appeared only in the list of those charged with Petit Larceny published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide were found in 32nd Precinct "Police Reports" gathered by the MCCH was Disorderly Conduct. Those index cards appeared to be transcribed from the Police Blotter. In the case of those other men, the outcome recorded was "Final Disposition ?." Albert Allen, together with Niles, was also missing from those records. Given the men's absence from the court docket book, that evidence suggests that for some reason Niles and the others were not arraigned. -
1
2021-09-01T12:18:04+00:00
William Grant arrested
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2022-12-04T18:44:20+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Redmond of the 28th Precinct arrested William Grant, a thirty-year-old Black man, likely near 1974 7th Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 119th Street. The charge Redmond made against Grant recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter is burglary, together with the note "Burglarized store during riot," indicating that he had allegedly looted a business. There are no details of circumstances of the arrest in the other sources. Redmond arrested two other Black men, Reginald Mills and Nelson Brock, in relation to the same location, also charging them with burglary, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. All three men were also identified as having been charged with burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide (but not the list in the New York Evening Journal).
The address recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for James Marshall, the complainant in the prosecutions against three Black men, was likely the location of the looted store. Although that column of the docket book is headed "Residence" clerks commonly put the address related to the charge in that space rather than the home of the complainant. A branch of the white-owned James Butler Food Market chain occupied that location between 1939 and 1941 when the Tax Department photograph was taken, and was likely there at the time of the disorder as chain stores were an established part of the neighborhood's business landscape. (That side of the street is missing from the MCCH Business Survey conducted in the second half of 1935). Grant lived at 19 East 134th Street, some distance north and east of 1974 7th Avenue, unlike Brock and Mills, who lived nearby.
Grant, Mills and Brock appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, when Magistrate Renaud remanded them in custody. When they were returned to court on March 25, Magistrate Ford discharged them so they could be rearrested as they had been indicted by the grand jury, and then held them on $1000 bail. No further records mention the outcome of those prosecutions. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the discharge on March 25. -
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2021-09-01T12:16:42+00:00
Reginald Mills arrested
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2022-12-04T18:46:04+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Redmond of the 28th Precinct arrested Reginald Mills, a nineteen-year-old Black man, likely near 1974 7th Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 119th Street. The charge Redmond made against Mills recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter is burglary, together with the note "Burglarized store during riot," indicating that he had allegedly looted a business. There are no details of circumstances of the arrest in the other sources. Redmond arrested two other Black men, Nelson Brock and William Grant, in relation to the same location, also charging them with burglary, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Mills and Brock are also identified as having been charged with inciting a riot in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide (but not the list in the New York Evening Journal). That charge requires others to have been involved in the looting, and suggests that police alleged Mills and Brock had somehow contributed to the group attacking the store. However, burglary was the only charge brought against them in the Harlem Magistrates Court.
The address recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for James Marshall, the complainant in the prosecutions against three Black men, is likely the location of the looted store. Although that column of the docket book is headed "Residence" clerks commonly put the address related to the charge in that space rather than the home of the complainant. A branch of the white-owned James Butler Food Market chain occupied that location between 1939 and 1941 when the Tax Department photograph was taken, and was likely there at the time of the disorder as chain stores were an established part of the neighborhood's business landscape. (That side of the street is missing from the MCCH Business Survey conducted in the second half of 1935). Mills lived at 269 West 121st Street, west of 7th Avenue two blocks north of 1974 7th Avenue. He could have been drawn to the street by the noise and crowds on 7th Avenue after 10 PM.
Mills, Brock and Grant appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, when Magistrate Renaud remanded them in custody. When they were returned to court on March 25, Magistrate Ford discharged them so they could be rearrested as they had been indicted by the grand jury, and then held them on $1000 bail. No further records mention the outcome of those prosecutions. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the discharge on March 25. -
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2021-09-08T00:05:54+00:00
John Darby arrested
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2022-11-17T16:45:21+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, John Darby, a forty-eight-year-old man, was arrested in the 32nd Precinct, which covered the area north of 130th Street. His name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. However, the charge recorded in the 32nd Precinct "Police Reports" gathered by the MCCH was Disorderly Conduct. Those records, which appeared to be transcribed from the Police Blotter, provide his age, birthplace and address, 11 West 137th Street. Darby was not recorded in the docket book of the Washington Heights Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there was no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.
For the outcome of Darby's prosecution, the 32nd Precinct Police Report recorded "Final Disposition ?." That was the same outcome recorded in the Police Report cards for five other men who appeared only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, all also charged with Petit Larceny. (One other man, Archie Niles, named only in that list as charged with Petit Larceny was not found in the Police Reports). Together with the men's absence from the court docket book, that evidence suggests that for some reason Greenridge and the others were not arraigned. -
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2021-09-08T00:12:06+00:00
Merryman McAllister arrested
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2022-11-17T16:56:14+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Merryman McAllister, a forty-five-year-old man, was arrested in the 32nd Precinct, which covered the area north of 130th Street. His name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. However, the charge recorded in the 32nd Precinct "Police Reports" gathered by the MCCH was Disorderly Conduct. Those records, which appeared to be transcribed from the Police Blotter, provide his age, birthplace and address, 262 West 140th Street. McAllister was not recorded in the docket book of the Washington Heights Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.
For the outcome of McAllister's prosecution, the 32nd Precinct Police Report recorded "Final Disposition ?." That was the same outcome recorded in the Police Report cards for five other men who appeared only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, all also charged with Petit Larceny. (One other man, Archie Niles, named only in that list as charged with Petit Larceny was not found in the Police Reports). Together with the men's absence from the court docket book, that evidence suggests that for some reason McAllister and the others were not arraigned. -
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2021-09-08T00:09:11+00:00
James Harris arrested
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2022-11-17T16:47:55+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, James Harris, a thirty-nine-year-old man, was arrested in the 32nd Precinct, which covered the area north of 130th Street. His name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. However, the charge recorded in the 32nd Precinct "Police Reports" gathered by the MCCH was Disorderly Conduct. Those records, which appeared to be transcribed from the Police Blotter, provide his age and address, 117 West 135th Street. Harris was not recorded in the docket book of the Washington Heights Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there was no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.
For the outcome of Harris' prosecution, the 32nd Precinct Police Report recorded "Final Disposition ?." That was the same outcome recorded in the Police Report cards for five other men who appeared only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, all also charged with Petit Larceny. (One other man, Archie Niles, named only in that list as charged with Petit Larceny was not found in the Police Reports). Together with the men's absence from the court docket book, that evidence suggests that for some reason Greenridge and the others were not arraigned. -
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2021-09-08T00:10:40+00:00
James Mason arrested
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2022-11-17T16:51:33+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, James Mason, a thirty-eight-year-old West Indian, was arrested in the 32nd Precinct, which covered the area north of 130th Street. His name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. However, the charge recorded in the 32nd Precinct "Police Reports" gathered by the MCCH was Disorderly Conduct. Those records, which appeared to be transcribed from the Police Blotter, provide his age, birthplace and address, 312 West 137th Street. Mason was not recorded in the docket book of the Washington Heights Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.
For the outcome of Mason's prosecution, the 32nd Precinct Police Report recorded "Final Disposition ?." That was the same outcome recorded in the Police Report cards for five other men who appeared only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, all also charged with Petit Larceny. (One other man, Archie Niles, named only in that list as charged with Petit Larceny was not found in the Police Reports). Together with the men's absence from the court docket book, that evidence suggests that for some reason Greenridge and the others were not arraigned.
This page references:
- 1 2022-11-23T15:57:21+00:00 A. E. White, "Harlem Rioters Must Face Courts - Mayor La Guardia Appoints Committee," Associated Negro Press News Releases, Series A, March 1935, Claude A. Barnett Papers: The Associated Negro Press, Part 1 (ProQuest) 3 plain 2022-11-23T16:23:11+00:00