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Louis Tonick arrested
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 included 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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This page references:
- "Transcripts of Police Blotter - Precinct 28, March 19 & 20, 1935," MCCH - Juvenile Delinquency - 1935-36, Departmental Correspondence. Box 34, Folder 1 (Roll 171), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945.
- New York Penal Law, § 2120-2129: Robbery
- Harlem Magistrates Court docket book
- Draft Registration Cards for New York City, 1940-1947, Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group 147, National Archives and Records Administration (Ancestry.com)
- US Census, 1930, Enumeration District 31-810, Sheet 7B, New York City, New York, New York (Ancestry.com).
- US Census, 1940, Enumeration District 3-566, Sheet 9A, New York City, New York, New York (Ancestry.com).