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

Merryman McAllister arrested

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. The likeliest explanation is that had been spectators in a crowd near a store being looted who police arrested when they dispersed the crowd, mistaking them for participants in the looting or indiscriminately making arrests to disperse the crowd.

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"Police Report, 32nd Precinct," Subject Files, Box 178 (Roll 85), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).