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

2:30 PM to 3:00 PM

While Patrolman Donahue waited at the front of the store near the candy counter with Rivera and the two injured Kress staff, Officer Miller found a callbox and telephoned Police Headquarters at 2:30 PM. Five minutes later, Harlem Hospital logged a call from Police Headquarters and dispatched an ambulance, which arrived at 2:40 PM. The injuries that Hurley and Urban suffered when Rivera bit them were not serious enough to require they be taken to the hospital, so Dr. Sayet treated them in the store. Hurley did still have scars from four teeth a month later. While a crowd of people who had either seen Rivera or heard about Rivera being taken back into the store remained on the street in front of the store, the group of staff, police, and ambulance crew with the boy drew a small crowd of shoppers to the front of the store itself. The shape of the store meant that most of those shopping inside could not see the entrance. Nonetheless, the size of the group of shoppers who could see Rivera made one staff member concerned enough to tell the store manager. Smith came to investigate; on finding out that a Crime Protection Bureau officer had been called, he decided nothing more needed to be done and returned to his office.

A few minutes later, around 2:45 PM, the store detective and Alfred Eldridge, a Black Crime Prevention Bureau officer, arrived at the store. Passing Officer Miller outside the entrance, they found Dr. Sayet still treating Hurley and Urban. Eldridge, following the Bureau’s procedure, spoke to Rivera to confirm that he had taken the pocketknife as the store staff alleged. He said he had, and also told Eldridge he was on parole for using slugs in the subway. The officer recorded Rivera’s name and address, as Patrolman Donahue had already done. The next step should have been for Eldridge to leave with Rivera. However, Hurley and Urban said that they wanted the boy arrested and charged with assaulting them. Crime Prevention Bureau officers did not make arrests, so to act on that charge Eldridge would have to turn Rivera over to Patrolmen Donahue. He went to the rear of the Kress store and telephoned his lieutenant to report the changed situation. Outside the store, groups of people gathered, sharing what they had seen or heard about store staff struggling with Rivera. Their concern reflected the fact that feelings toward white businesses on 125th Street had been running particularly high since the pickets and boycott campaign the previous year, which had effectively been halted by a New York Supreme Court decision that barred picketing in "racial disputes" because of the “substantial danger that race riots and race reprisals might result in this and other communities.”
 

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