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New York Penal Law, § 2090-2094: Riot
1 2021-09-20T02:53:39+00:00 Anonymous 1 15 plain 2024-01-28T19:37:38+00:00 Anonymous"§ 2090. Riot defined. Whenever three or more persons, having assembled for any purpose, disturb the public peace, by using force or violence to any other person, or to property, or threaten or attempt to commit such disturbance, or to do an unlawful act by the use of force or violence, accompanied with the power of immediate execution of such threat or attempt, they are guilty of riot.
§ 2091. Punishment of riot. A person guilty of riot, or of participating in a riot, either by being personally present, or by instigating, promoting, or aiding the same, is punishable as follows:
- If the purpose of the assembly, or of the acts done or threatened or intended by the persons engaged, is to resist the enforcement of a statute of this state, or of the United States, or to obstruct any public officer of this state, or of the United States, in serving or executing any process or other mandate of a court of competent jurisdiction, or in the performance of any other duty; or if the offender carries, at the time of the riot, fire-arms or any other dangerous weapon, or is disguised; by imprisonment for not more than five years, or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
- In any other case, if the offender directs, advises, encourages, or solicits other persons, present or participating in the riot or assembly, to acts of force or violence, by imprisonment for not more than two years, or by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
- In any case not embraced within the foregoing subdivisions of this section, by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by a fine of not more than two hundred and fifty dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
- Assemble with intent to commit any unlawful act by force; or,
- Assemble with intent to carry out any purpose in such a manner us to disturb the public peace; or,
- Being assembled attempt or threaten any act tending towards a breach of the peace, or an injury to person or property, or any unlawful act;
But this section shall not be so construed as to prevent the peaceable assembling of persons for lawful purposes of protest or petition.
§ 2093. Remaining present at place of riot or unlawful assembly after warning. A person, remaining present at the place of an unlawful assembly or riot, after the persons assembled have been warned to disperse by a magistrate or public officer, is guilty of a misdemeanor, unless as a public officer, or at the request or command of a public officer, he is endeavoring or assisting to disperse the same, or to protect persons
or properly, or to arrest the offenders.
§ 2094. Remaining present at place of a meeting, originally lawful, after it has adopted an unlawful purpose. Where three or more persons assemble for a lawful purpose, and afterwards proceed to commit an act that would amount to a riot, if it had been the original purpose of the meeting, every person who does not retire when the change of purpose is made known, or such act is committed, except public officers and persons assisting them in attempting to disperse the assembly, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
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2020-10-01T00:07:06+00:00
Harry Gordon arrested
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2024-09-06T19:24:55+00:00
Around 6:30 PM, Patrolman Irwin Young arrested Harry Gordon, a twenty-year-old white student, on the north sidewalk of West 125th Street near 7th Avenue. Gordon had climbed a lamppost to speak to the crowd that police had pushed east, away from the Kress store; Young pulled him down. The patrolman alleged that Gordon then grabbed his nightstick and hit him with it; Gordon denied doing anything. He told a public hearing of the MCCH that Young and other officers dragged him thirty feet to a police radio car and drove him to the police station on West 123rd Street. Louise Thompson had seen Gordon "get on the mailbox to speak and...dragged down by a policeman," after which "a cop kicked him, another knocked him over the head with his billy and another slapped him in the face and punched him in the ribs." Although Thompson was affiliated with the Communist Party and thus not an entirely objective witness, her account of the police violence was not disputed.
As soon as the radio car reached 7th Avenue, out of sight of the crowd on 125th Street, Gordon told the MCCH hearing that the police officer driving said “Go ahead and hit him" to the officer next to him, and both men “poked him in the ribs and kicked him.” When the car got to the station, Young pushed him up against the wall of the station and clubbed him in the stomach. Police officers continued to beat and kick Gordon when he was put in a cell, taken upstairs for questioning, and fingerprinted. As a result of these attacks, Gordon testified, “I had two black eyes. Had bumps on my head. My shins were bruised.” When he was bailed and released forty-eight hours after being arrested, his lawyer described Gordon’s face as “entirely discolored,” so much so that he took Gordon to his home so his mother would not see his injuries, he told the public hearing. The man identified as Gordon has no visible injuries in photographs taken a few seconds apart published in the Daily News, New York American, and New York Evening Journal that purported to show him and the three other white men police arrested in front of Kress’ store on their way to the Harlem Magistrates Court. However, one of the men was only partly visible, behind the other three, and could be injured. The caption to the Daily News photo suggests otherwise, labeling all the men "unmarked by the race riots."
Gordon was among the group of around ninety-six of those arrested put in a line-up and questioned by detectives in front of reporters downtown at Police Headquarters on the morning of March 20, before being loaded into patrol wagons and taken back uptown to the Harlem and Washington Heights Magistrates Courts. Gordon was brought to the platform together with Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators arrested at other times protesting in front of Kress' store, a New York Herald Tribune story noted, with police presenting the group as acting and arrested together. However, Gordon's actions overshadowed the larger group in stories about the line-up. While Gordon stood on the "klieg-lit platform," Captain Edward Dillon questioned him about his role in the disorder in an exchange reported in three newspapers. The briefest mention appeared in the Daily Mirror, which reported the details of the setting, but only that "under the grilling conducted by Acting Capt. Edward Dillon" Gordon declared "I am a student at City College of New York" and "refused to answer further questions." The reporter described Gordon's manner as "defiant." Other reporters conveyed a similar judgment in their portrayals of Gordon. The New York Herald Tribune described him as "a tall, lanky youth [who] thrust one hand in his pocket and struck an orator's attitude" during the questioning; the New York Sun described his pose as "Napoleonic." Neither of those stories mention Gordon identifying himself as a student; they instead quoted him as refusing to answer questions until he saw a lawyer. The Daily Mirror concluded that Gordon, in responding as he did, "had practically declared himself the inciter of the night's rioting" and the leader of the four other men arrested at the beginning of the disorder. Gordon himself, testifying at the MCCH hearing, set himself apart, as a passerby who had attempted to urge the crowd to go to the police for information. Inquiries by reporters from the New York Evening Journal found no evidence that Gordon was a City College Student, with the New York Herald Tribune reporting Dean Morton Gottschall did not find him in college records. The New York Evening Journal did confirm that he lived in the Bronx, at 699 Prospect Avenue.
Gordon did not appear in the MCCH transcription of the 28th Precinct blotter, nor did Miller and the two white Young Liberators arrested in front of Kress’ store. Margaret Mitchell, the Black woman arrested inside Kress' store before Miller's arrest and Claudio Viabolo, the Black Young Liberator arrested with two white companions soon after Miller, did appear in the transcription. That discrepancy suggests that the white men were omitted from the transcription, perhaps overlooked because they were somehow less readily identified as participants in the disorder among others arrested for unrelated activities at that time.
Gordon appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, shortly after Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators with whom police had grouped him. The charge recorded in the Magistrates Court Docket book was assault, which was the charge reported by New York American, New York Evening Journal, New York Times, and New York Herald Tribune. A second list in the New York Evening Journal, a later story in the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Amsterdam News, Daily Mirror, and New York Sun reported Gordon had been charged with both assault and riot. The Home News, New York Post, New York World-Telegram, New York Age, and the list published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, reported the charge against Gordon as inciting a riot.
The mistaken information about the charge could result from police continuing to group Gordon with the Miller and the three Young Liberators when he appeared in court. The New York American, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Times all described the men as the "ringleaders" of the disorder, which was likely the term police used, in stories on the court appearances. However, while the Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, and Daily Mirror included all five men in that group, the New York American, Home News, and New York Times omitted Gordon. That difference appears to have resulted from Gordon being arraigned separately from Miller and the other three men. That separation was likely because he was charged with assault, the other men with riot, and the officer listed as arresting Gordon was Patrolman Irwin Young not Patrolman Shannon, the arresting officer recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for Miller and the three other men.
The Daily Mirror claimed Gordon was heard separately when he indicated that he would produce his own lawyers. While being held, Gordon testified, he had not been not allowed to contact a lawyer or his family and was not fed until he had been in custody for more than twenty-four hours and had been arraigned in the Magistrate's Court. In the courthouse on March 20, Gordon was able to make contact with an ILD lawyer, Isidore Englander. The attorney testified that while he was speaking with Frank Wells, who he had learned had been arrested, he saw Gordon, who he claimed not to know, and spoke with him after his arraignment. Gordon asked him to communicate with Edward Kuntz, another ILD lawyer, whose son Gordon testified was a friend. Kuntz would represent him in subsequent court appearances. After Gordon was taken away, Englander heard him scream, the result, Gordon claimed, of being beaten again by police officer. The attorney made no mention of the visible injuries on Gordon’s face that Gordon and Kuntz described in their testimony.
Magistrate Renaud remanded Gordon to reappear on the March 25, on a bond of $1,000; the magistrate also remanded the other four alleged Communists, but for them set the maximum bail of $2,500. Around forty-eight hours after Gordon’s arrest, at 1 AM, Kuntz told a public hearing that he secured bail for Gordon, who was released from prison.
Gordon returned to court on March 25, at the same time as Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators, but there his treatment further diverged from them. While Renaud discharged the other four men as the grand jury had already sent them for trial in the Court of Special Sessions, in response to evidence presented by District Attorney Dodge as part of his investigation of the disorder, the magistrate again remanded Gordon, to appear on March 27, with the New York American and Home News reporting that police were planning to submit evidence to the grand jury seeking to have him indicted. (The only other newspaper to report this appearance was the New York World-Telegram.) That effort was unsuccessful. When Gordon appeared again in the Magistrates Court, the ADA reduced the charge against him from felony assault to misdemeanor assault; in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book a clerk struck out Fel[ony] Ass[ault] and wrote "Red[uced] to Simple Assault misd[emeanor]." Kuntz claimed credit for the reduced charge when he questioned Gordon about this legal proceeding in a public hearing of the MCCH. While Gordon testified that the ADA had said he was doing Gordon a “favor” by withdrawing the assault charges, Kuntz drew out that his cross examination of Patrolman Young established that the officer did not go to a doctor or a hospital, so did not suffer injuries justifying a felony charge, or even simple assault. He also testified that a new charge of unlawful assembly, the misdemeanor form of riot, had been made against him at that hearing, information not mentioned in any other sources. Magistrate Renaud transferred Gordon to the Court of Special Sessions for trial on the reduced charge, a decision reported only in the New York Amsterdam News, New York Times, and New York Herald Tribune.
For some reason, the trial did not take place for almost eight months. Sometime in early November the judges convicted Gordon and sentenced him on November 15. Arthur Garfield Hays, who had chaired the MCCH hearing at which Gordon testified, wrote to the Chief Judge of the Court of Special Sessions on November 13 after hearing of the conviction, the only evidence of that outcome. Expressing surprise that Gordon had been convicted, Hays urged that he be given a suspended sentence as he was "certainly not a criminal and was exercising what he deemed to be his right of free speech." Judge William Walling responded, telling Hays that he "did not have all the facts." As far as the judge was concerned, "There was not the slightest doubt but that Gordon assaulted the officer who was in uniform. Thereafter, of course, the officer hit back and subdued Gordon." That assessment made it unlikely Walling and his colleagues would have imposed the suspended sentence Hays favored. However, what sentence they imposed on Gordon is unknown. -
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2022-02-04T19:41:26+00:00
Daniel Miller arrested
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2024-02-12T22:14:20+00:00
Daniel Miller stepped up on a ladder in front of Kress' store about 6:15 PM and began to speak to a crowd he estimated at 100-200 people. The twenty-four-year-old white man who identified himself as a member of the Nurses and Hospital League had said only "Fellow workers" when someone in the crowd threw an object at the windows of the store, breaking one. Patrolman Timothy Shannon of the 28th Precinct, one of about five officers stationed in front of Kress' store, immediately pulled Miller from the ladder and arrested him. Sergeant Bowe testified in a public hearing of the MCCH that he was a "witness" to that arrest. James Parton, the Black man who had carried the ladder, and an American flag banner, to the front of the store and spoke briefly before Miller, was not arrested. Nor was Parton arrested when he climbed a lamppost on the opposite side of 125th Street and spoke to the crowd. However, Harry Gordon, a white man who followed Parton in climbing up the lamppost to speak, was, like Miller, immediately arrested.
Miller's testimony in a public hearing of the MCCH provided the most detailed description of his arrest. Patrolman Shannon also testified in an earlier public hearing, but he was not questioned about the arrest. Louise Thompson testified that she saw Miller begin to speak and the window broken. She did not see his arrest. Patrolman Moran did. Officers stationed with him in front of the store moved to arrest Miller and disperse the crowd listening to him as soon as the window was broken, he told a hearing of the MCCH. Two Hearst newspapers, the New York American and New York Evening Journal, published stories that described the arrest, but they included details that other sources indicate did not happen: Shannon arresting Miller after he refused an order to move on, with no mention of the widely reported broken window; and two white Young Liberators and Harry Gordon coming to Miller’s aid when he was arrested, and battling Shannon and two other patrolmen before also being arrested. Although the newspapers said their information came from police, these elements that did not happen seem to be a product of the anti-Communist stance and sensational style of the Hearst newspapers.
The lists of those arrested during the disorder published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, the New York Evening Journal, the Daily News, the New York American, and the New York Herald Tribune all included Miller among those charged with inciting a riot. However, Miller, and the three other white men arrested in front of Kress' store, are not in the transcript of the 28th Precinct police blotter in the MCCH records. Margaret Mitchell, the Black woman arrested inside Kress' store before Miller's arrest, and Claudio Viabolo, the Black Young Liberator arrested with two white companions soon after Miller, do appear in the transcription. That discrepancy suggests that the white men were omitted from the transcription, perhaps overlooked because they were somehow less readily identified as participants in the disorder among others arrested for unrelated activities at that time.
Miller was among around eighty-nine men and women arrested put in a line-up and questioned by detectives in front of reporters at Police Headquarters downtown on the morning of March 20, before being loaded into patrol wagons and taken back uptown to the Harlem and Washington Heights Magistrates Courts. Police put him on the platform in a group with Gordon and the three Young Liberators, Samuels, Jamison and Viabolo, a New York Herald Tribune story noted; it reported that police described them as all "arrested at a demonstration in front of the Kress store." That grouping was not mentioned in the two other newspaper stories about the line-up, with the Daily Mirror and New York Sun, as well as the New York Herald Tribune focusing on Harry Gordon refusing to answer questions until he saw his lawyer.
The Daily News and New York Evening Journal published photographs taken a few seconds apart that are captioned as showing the four white men arrested outside Kress’ store in the West 123rd Street police station on their way to the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Surrounded on three sides by both uniformed police and detectives in plainclothes, three white men are visible, with another white man party visible behind them, all but the first, identified in the caption as Harry Gordon, looking at the ground. Miller was the man on the right of the group, according to the captions. To his right is a Black man, almost certainly Viabolo, as police had grouped him with these men in the line-up earlier that day, and would again in the courthouse. He was not identified in the captions, and, perhaps as a result, cropped out of versions of the photograph published by several regional newspapers. Reflecting its anti-Communist focus, the New York Evening Journal placed the photograph on page one, across the whole width of the page, with a caption labeling the men “young college-bred Communists.” The next page featured photographs of two placards used in the picket, and the leaflets circulated by both the Young Liberators and the Communist Party. The Daily News photograph, taken at almost the same moment, appeared in the center of a two-page spread of photographs of the disorder in the center of the newspaper. The caption did not identify the men as Communists but as inciting the riot, focusing on drawing a contrast between their uninjured appearances and the damage done during the disorder. (Gordon later testified he had been beaten and had injuries to his face; he may be the man whose face was not visible in that photograph notwithstanding the caption.)
Police continued to group Miller with the other four men when they were appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court. In stories on the court appearances, the New York American, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Times all described the men as the "ringleaders" of the disorder, which was likely the term police used. However, while the Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram and Daily Mirror included all five men in that group, the New York American, Home News, and New York Times omitted Gordon. That difference appears to have resulted from Gordon being charged separately from Miller and the other three men. That separation would have resulted from the different arresting officer listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for Gordon, Patrolman Irwin Young, not Patrolman Shannon, the arresting officer recorded for the four other men. The charge recorded for Gordon was also different, assaulting Young, not inciting riot. The Daily News claimed Gordon "was heard separately when he indicated that he would produce his own lawyers."
In the Harlem Magistrates Court Miller was charged with inciting a riot, as were Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo. When their names were called, two lawyers from the International Labor Defense Fund rose to represent them. The appearance of those attorneys was reported by the New York American, Daily Mirror, Home News, Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, New York Times, New York World-Telegram and Daily Worker but for some reason they were not recorded in the column for the name and address of a defendant's lawyer in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book (a section completed for Harry Gordon). The ILD's affiliation with the Communist Party would have been well-known to readers of those newspapers, but the Daily Mirror explicitly made the connection in its story, stating that the men's "Communistic affiliations were declared" by the identity of their attorneys. The Daily Mirror and Daily Worker named the lawyers as "Miss Yetta M. Aronsky and I[sidore] Englander," while Daily News named only Aronsky, and the New York American, New York Herald Tribune and New York Times reported only "a woman lawyer" who would not give her name to their reporters. (Englander later testified about being present in the court in a public hearing of the MCCH).
Assistant District Attorney Richard E. Carey, the Black attorney Magistrate Renaud had requested prosecute those arrested in the disorder, according to the Daily News, requested the men be held for a hearing on Friday on the maximum bail of $2500. The men's ILD lawyers protested that sum. Other arrested during the disorder charged with felonies had their bail set at $1000, including Harry Gordon. Magistrate Renaud dismissed those protests, and complaints by Aronsky, reported by the Daily News and Daily Worker that the men "had not been fed by police following their arrest."
When Miller returned to the Harlem Magistrates Court with the three Young Liberators, Magistrate Ford dismissed the charges against the group because the grand jury had indicted them in response to evidence presented by District Attorney Dodge as part of his investigation of the disorder. The Magistrates Court docket book records the deposition of the men's cases as "Dism[issed], def[endant] indicted." Stories in the Daily Mirror and New York Amsterdam News also reported they had been indicted by the grand jury. However, while the grand jury did send the men for trial, it was for a misdemeanor, not a felony, so an information that sent them to the Court of Special Sessions, not an indictment that would have sent them to the Court of General Sessions. Other stories included elements of that distinction. The New York American reported that after being discharged the men were "turned over to detectives with bench warrants based on the Grand Jury informations voted last week charging inciting to riot." The New York Herald Tribune also reported "two informations charging five persons with inciting riot" without naming them; so too did the Daily News, which alone specified that an information charged a misdemeanor and that the men were sent for trial in the Court of Special Sessions. The grand jury also sent all the other individuals charged with inciting a riot that appeared before it to the Court of Special Sessions to face trial for misdemeanors. Testifying in a public hearing of the MCCH, Miller said he was charged with unlawful assembly. That crime involving disturbing the peace, not efforts to prevent the enforcement of the law or incite force or violence.
As other prosecutions resulting from the riot made their way through the courts there were no reports mentioning Miller, or Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo. Finally, on June 20, the four men appeared in the Court of Special Sessions — the New York Amsterdam News reported an additional defendant, a "young sympathizer," Dave Mencher, not mentioned in any other sources or in the Daily Worker story, the only other report of this trial located. Only one prosecution witness testified before the court's three judges, Sergeant Bauer of the West 123rd Street station (likely the sergeant who testified at the public hearings that he was involved in the arrest, although his name was recorded as Bowe in the transcript). It is not clear why Patrolman Timothy Shannon, the arresting officer, did not appear as a witness. International Labor Defence lawyers again represented the men, but not the same attorneys as on the day after the disorder. Instead, Joseph Tauber and Edward Kuntz, who played prominent roles in the MCCH public hearings, represented the men. After cross-examining Bauer to establish that a crowd had collected in front of Kress' store prior to the men arriving, the attorneys moved to have the charges of inciting a riot dismissed. The judges agreed, and freed Miller and the three other men.
Miller's home address is recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book as 1280 South Boulevard in the Bronx. That address is also published by the Daily Mirror, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York American, New York Times, and New York Age. However, the New York Evening Journal reported that address did not exist. A different address was published in the New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York American, and New York Amsterdam News: 35 Morningside Avenue, between West 117th and 118th Streets, two blocks west of 8th Avenue. That address fits the information he gave in the MCCH public hearing. All those newspaper stories are reports of Miller's appearance in court, suggesting that the Morningside Avenue address was mentioned at that time even if it was not recorded in the docket book. Miller's organization, the Nurses and Hospital League, had an office downtown at 799 Broadway, identified in the New York Post, New York American, and Daily Worker as raided by police investigating the disorder that was outside Harlem.
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2020-10-22T18:43:05+00:00
Sentenced (77)
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2024-02-02T00:16:24+00:00
Magistrates and judges sentenced seventy-three men and four women arrested in the disorder. Details of the sentences given to seventy-one men and four women are in the sources. (There was no information on the sentences of two men found guilty by magistrates in the Court of Special Sessions, Harry Gordon and Jules Perez. One man categorized as being arrested for allegedly inciting a crowd in the analysis of the events of the disorder was convicted and sentenced for breaking windows.) The short duration of the punishment for those found guilty of being part of the disorder further diminished the violence in the picture of the events created by the legal process. Such sentences indicated a role in the disorder for those individuals limited to joining the crowds on the streets who gathered to watch assaults, attacks on stores, and looting or to taking small amounts of merchandise that amounted to only a small fraction of the total losses of businesses.
While less than half of all those convicted, thirty-five of seventy-seven, were sentenced to more than a month in prison, the proportions varied by alleged offense. Just over half of those arrested for breaking windows and for looting received such a sentence compared with only one of those arrested for riot and one of those arrested for assault. The short sentences for assault reflected the failure of police to present evidence that those they had arrested had been involved in assaults, rather than part of crowds at the scene or, in the cases of James Hughes, targeting property. By contrast, the suspended sentences given to those charged with riot was a decision of the sentencing magistrates in the Court of Special Sessions. The riot statute treated those who incited attacks on property, the charge against those arrested in the disorder, as guilty of a misdemeanor, for which they could be sentenced to up to a year in prison. No explanation for the lenient treatment of those men appears in any of the sources. It could be that as they were part of small groups in the midst of the disorder the magistrates did not consider them responsible for either starting the violence or its broader scope. While magistrates most often sentenced those arrested for alleged looting to terms of imprisonment, only rarely were those terms more than half the maximum punishment of one year. That pattern also applied to the sentences imposed by a judge in the Court of General Sessions. Putting aside Edward Larry, the only individual arrested during the disorder convicted of a felony, who had an extensive criminal record that determined his sentence to the state prison, only one of the other eleven men sentenced in that court for alleged looting received a term longer than six months, and that was an indeterminate sentence of up to a year to the House of Refuge for seventeen-year-old Robert Tanner on the basis of his youth (which could have seen him released earlier).
That the sentences handed down in different courts did not differ as significantly as the statutes allowed offered further evidence of how the legal process diminished the violence of the disorder. The decisions to convict the seventy-seven individuals found guilty were evenly divided between the magistrates courts and the two superior courts, with thirty-nine convictions in the lower court and thirty-eight in the Court of Special Sessions and Court of General Sessions. The misdemeanor offenses for which sentences were imposed in superior courts carried a maximum term of imprisonment of one year, twice that of the offense of disorderly conduct for which those sentenced in the magistrates courts had been convicted. However, judges imposed sentences longer than six months on only five of the thirty-eight individuals charged with misdemeanors. In other words, those charged with acts of violence received sentences on a par with members of the crowds on the streets, not participants in the disorder. That is not to say there were no differences between the sentences imposed in different courts. Just under half of those sentenced in the Magistrates Court were imprisoned for ten days or less. However, almost as many received terms of between one and six months. More of those convicted in higher courts received such sentences, and typically for longer terms, but as many of the longest terms were imposed in the Magistrates Court as in the Court of Special Sessions and Court of General Sessions. A term of one month was imposed on eleven of the fifteen imprisoned for a month or more in the Magistrates Court, compared to only three of fifteen sentenced in the other courts. A term of three months was typical in the superior courts, imposed on four of those convicted in the Court of Special Sessions and four convicted in the Court of General Sessions. However, more sentences to terms around six months were imposed in the magistrates courts than in the other courts: two of five months and twenty-nine days (Preston White and Joseph Payne) and two of six months (James Lloyd and James Smith), compared to one of six months in the Court of Special Sessions (Henry Goodwin) and two of six months (Joseph Wade and Thomas Jackson) in the Court of General Sessions (the remaining sentence, in the Court of General Sessions, was of four months). Those sentences were for men arrested for alleged looting in five cases and an unknown offense in the case of James Lloyd. However, given that they had been convicted of disorderly conduct rather than a charge related to looting, such as burglary or unlawful entry, makes it uncertain that they remained associated with that violence rather than with the crowds of bystanders and spectators on the streets.
The sentences given to the small number of Black women and white men convicted after the disorder appear consistent with those of Black men, with no indication that magistrates treated them differently. The five Black women received a cross-section of the sentences imposed, with two having their sentences suspended, one given the option of a fine or three days in the Workhouse (she paid the fine), one given a term of five days in the Workhouse; and one a term of one month in the Workhouse. The sentence of only one white man appeared in the sources, a term of one month in the Workhouse that fell in the middle of the range of terms of imprisonment imposed.
Given the wide variety of activities encompassed by the disorderly conduct stature, it is difficult to tell if the sentences imposed by magistrates were out of the ordinary. In the week leading up to the disorder, when the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book recorded thirty-six men and women as convicted of disorderly conduct, two individuals received three-month terms and three others six-month terms, including one charged with "jostling," placing the most severely punished acts in the disorder on a par with attempted pickpocketing. On the other hand, none of the remaining thirty-one sentences were for more than ten days, with fourteen for one to three days with the option to instead pay a fine and the sentences of eight suspended, casting the one-month terms given to those arrested during the disorder as a harsher punishment than was usual. Similar information on typical sentences in the Court of Special Sessions and Court of General Sessions was not available in the sources.
By the end of 1935, at most five individuals would still have been serving sentences for alleged offenses during the disorder, the four sentenced to indeterminate sentences (who may have been released before the maximum term) and Edward Larry. After the first anniversary of the disorder in 1936, only Larry remained in prison. -
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2021-04-28T20:40:49+00:00
Leroy Brown arrested
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2024-01-27T23:59:53+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 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 the 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 was disorderly conduct (and his first name mistakenly recorded as Eli). That information was 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's case was presented to 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 outcomes 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
2020-09-29T17:41:09+00:00
Hashi Mohammed arrested
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2024-01-25T21:15:34+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 $2,500 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 New York Times and 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. (The New York Times story mentioned Mohammed in the context of hearings in the Harlem court not the Washington Heights court.) 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
2021-03-02T21:50:21+00:00
Inciting crowds in the courts (15)
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2024-02-13T15:50:05+00:00
Fourteen men and one woman were arraigned for inciting crowds, all in the Harlem Magistrates Court. The three white men in that group, Daniel Miller, Sam Jameson, and Murray Samuels, were the focus of the efforts of the Hearst newspapers and District Attorney Dodge to blame the disorder on the Communist Party. Margaret Mitchell, the Black woman, had also been arrested at the beginning of the disorder, when women dominated the crowds in and around Kress' store.
Prosecutors charged thirteen of those individuals with riot, leaving only two charged with disorderly conduct, one of whom was Margaret Mitchell. That was a smaller proportion who faced that lesser charge than of those arrested for any other offense. There is no clear evidence to indicate if the relative lack of cases in which prosecutors reduced the charge to disorderly conduct resulted from police gathering better evidence to support the charges than existed for other offenses or from magistrates' tendency to treat those accused of riot more harshly. In Margaret Mitchell's widely reported case, her arrest for riot appeared to be a response to crowds reacting to her screams when police began pushing people out of Kress' store. While some accounts had Mitchell urge others in the store to demand police free Rivera, most reports simply had her calling out that the boy had been injured. Neither of those actions amounted to calling for acts of force and violence, as the definition of riot required, leading to the charge against her being reduced to disorderly conduct. Magistrate Renaud convicted her, but determined that she had not intended to incite the crowd, so imposed a sentence of only three days in the Workhouse or a fine of $10 (she paid the fine). There are no details of the charges against John Hawkins, the other individual arrested for rioting and convicted of disorderly conduct. The sentence of thirty days in the Workhouse Magistrate Renaud imposed on Hawkins was one of only five terms that long he imposed.
Renaud sent all thirteen of the others arrested for riot to the grand jury. While he sent a portion of those arrested for other offenses to the Court of Special Sessions, charged with misdemeanors, he determined that all this group should face felony charges. The grand jury did not see the cases in the same way. While it initially voted felony charges against Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators, the next day District Attorney Dodge had to amend the charges to a misdemeanor, unlawful assembly. New York law specified two felony forms of riot, one that did not apply to these men, involving acts focused on public officers and the enforcement of the law and individuals armed with weapons or disguised, and one involving "acts of force and violence." In the case of Miller and the Young Liberators, there was no evidence that they called for violence. Following Dodge's decision, all but one of the remaining cases of riot brought to the grand jury with a known outcome resulted in the same outcome, misdemeanor charges to be tried in the Court of Special Sessions. Six of the other men charged later — Leon Mauraine, James Pringle, David Smith, John Kennedy Jones, Bernard Smith, and Leroy Brown — allegedly called for windows to be broken, which would seem to fit the felony definition. However, the statute required that the offender "directs, advises, encourages or solicits" that violence, a direct connection lacking in those cases. Instead, the charges referred only to subsequent attacks on businesses occurring in the vicinity. The misdemeanor of unlawful assembly, by contrast, required only that an offender "threaten" an act. Claude Jones and William Ford allegedly called for attacks on police, but the charges against them made no reference to acts of violence against police, circumstances that appeared to fit the threats referred to in the definition of unlawful assembly better than the acts in the definition of riot. In the final case, John King allegedly refused to move on when ordered to by a police officer, circumstances that section 2093 of the statute defined as a misdemeanor form of riot and unlawful assembly. Magistrate Renaud appears to have made a mistake in not sending King directly to the Court of Special Sessions. The dismissal of the case against Bernard Smith likely was a result of a lack of evidence connecting his alleged calls to break windows with any violence. (The outcome of two cases is unknown.)
Judges in the Court of Special Sessions convicted six of those tried for riot, acquitting Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators. (The outcome of two trials is unknown.) However, they suspended the sentences of all six of those individuals, an outcome that suggested that they did not consider their actions merited significant punishment. -
1
2021-12-20T20:08:38+00:00
Frank Wells arrested
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2024-02-13T04:12:10+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 Atlanta World, Afro-American, and 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' 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, who once he heard he had been arrested, sought him out at the Magistrates court.
The ILD lawyers representing Wells alleged that he had been beaten by police during his arrest. He appeared in a list of possible witnesses that the Communist Party gave to Arthur Garfield Hays of the MCCH, with the annotation "police brutality." According to a summary in a list of "Cases of Police Brutality, Discrimination and Mistreatment of Negroes in Harlem" later supplied to the MCCH by lawyers affiliated with the Communist Party, he was "attacked by police and brutally beaten" while walking down 125th Street, again at the police station, and a third time in the police line-up on the morning of March 20. When Englander found Wells at the Harlem Magistrates Court, "his head was bandaged, his shirt was red with blood, he could not stand on his feet," he testified in a public hearing of the MCCH. 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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2020-02-25T16:51:47+00:00
Cases in the grand jury (46)
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2024-01-26T23:17:13+00:00
The cases of forty-five of those arrested during the disorder were presented to the grand jury. Typically, those cases would have been referred by magistrates, but District Attorney William Dodge also presented evidence from his own investigation of the disorder. As a result, the grand jury voted charges against fourteen men before a magistrate had made a decision on their case. Those men can be identified because a magistrate had to discharge them so they could be rearrested on the charges voted by the grand jury, an outcome recorded in the court docket books. In addition, the grand jury twice heard evidence against Patrolman John McInerney, who shot and killed Lloyd Hobbs, a sixteen-year-old Black boy. All the members of the grand jury were white men. (ILD lawyers who appeared at the MCCH hearings claimed there had not been a Black grand juror in the last twenty years.)
Only two of forty-one cases (and McInerney twice) were dismissed by the grand jury (the outcome is unknown in four cases). However, it voted indictments for felony charges in only seventeen cases. In the remaining twenty-two cases, the grand jury instead voted informations for misdemeanor charges. A misdemeanor charge was not what prosecutors sought when they sent a case to the grand jury. Individuals could be sent for trial on misdemeanor charges direct from the magistrates court; twenty of those arrested in the disorder were dealt with in that way. In not charging twenty-two individuals referred to them with a felony, the grand jury determined that police had not gathered evidence to support the initial charge. But rather than dismiss the charges entirely and release those individuals, they instead reduced the charges, sending them to the Court of Special Sessions for prosecution as nonetheless involved in the disorder.
While the grand jury ultimately did not indict any of those charged with riot in the Magistrates court, it did initially vote felony charges in the first cases brought before it as part of District Attorney Dodge's investigation, including the cases of Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators. However, the next day Dodge had to amend the charges to a misdemeanor, unlawful assembly. New York law specified two felony forms of riot, one that did not apply to those men involving acts focused on public officers and the enforcement of the law, individuals armed with weapons or disguised, and one involving "acts of force and violence." In the case of Miller and the Young Liberators, there was no evidence that they called for violence. Following that decision, all but one of the other nine cases of riot brought to the grand jury with a known outcome resulted in the same misdemeanor charges. Those cases were referred by magistrates, and the grand jury hearings occurred after the end of Dodge's investigation. Six of the others charged later — Leon Mauraine, James Pringle, David Smith, John Kennedy Jones, Bernard Smith, and Leroy Brown — allegedly called for windows to be broken, which would seem to fit the felony definition. However, the statute required that the offender "directs, advises, encourages or solicits" that violence, a direct connection lacking in those cases. Instead, the charges referred only to subsequent attacks on businesses in the vicinity. The misdemeanor of unlawful assembly, by contrast, required only that an offender "threaten" an act. Claude Jones and William Ford allegedly called for attacks on police, but the charges against them made no reference to acts of violence against police, circumstances that appeared to fit the threats referred to in the definition of unlawful assembly better than the acts in the definition of riot. In the final case, John King allegedly refused to move on when ordered to by a police officer, circumstances that section 2093 of the statute defined as a misdemeanor form of riot and unlawful assembly. Magistrate Renaud appears to have made a mistake in not sending King directly to the Court of Special Sessions.
In the cases of ten of the twenty-four individuals arrested for looting, the grand jury voted misdemeanor charges instead of the felony of burglary charged in the Magistrates courts. All of those cases were heard after the end of Dodge's investigation; the grand jury voted indictments charging felonies in all of the cases of those arrested for looting presented as part of the district attorney's investigation, eleven of the fourteen indictments. That preponderance might indicate that prosecutors pushed for more serious charges to deliver results for the investigation, or simply that the cases where the evidence was strongest were the first to be heard. The grand jury heard twenty cases after the first week of legal proceedings, from March 29, and voted misdemeanor charges in all but one. A charge of burglary required breaking into a store, entering it, and taking merchandise; a lesser charge resulted from the absence of evidence of one or more of those elements. Two possible misdemeanor charges were brought against individuals arrested for looting in the Magistrates courts, unlawful entry, which involved entering property but only the intent to commit a crime, and petit larceny, which involved taking items without breaking and entering a property. As those arrested for looting invariably allegedly had items in their possession, it is likely that petit larceny was the charge voted by the grand jury. In the case of Louis Cobb, the charge of petit larceny was recorded in the district attorney's case file. A police officer had seen him leaving a liquor store with several bottles of spirits, but there was no evidence that he had broken into the store. Lawrence Humphrey and Leroy Gillard were arrested in similar circumstances, after police officers saw them leaving stores carrying items taken from inside. The absence of evidence of breaking and entering is clearer in the cases of the seven other men the grand jury charged with misdemeanors. Police arrested them at locations other than the stores they had allegedly looted, including Daughty Shavos, arrested at his home the evening after the disorder.
Another man arrested for looting the evening after the disorder, Clifford Mitchell, was one of the two men whose cases the grand jury dismissed. While there was no mention of how police came to make the arrest, items found in Mitchell's home that Louis Levy identified as coming from his store were identified in the legal record as evidence against him. The dismissal of the charges likely means that Levy's identification was called into question. The second case dismissed by the grand jury involved Bernard Smith, charged with riot. Given that an additional charge of breaking windows had been reduced to disorderly conduct, and punished by a sentence of only five days in the Workhouse or a fine of $25, it seems likely that police did not have compelling evidence to support their allegation that Smith had been responsible for crowds breaking windows.
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2021-09-17T19:16:07+00:00
Arrests for inciting crowds (15)
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2024-01-13T00:44:49+00:00
Police made fifteen arrests for inciting crowds, charging those individuals with riot. While the Black women whose screams reportedly caused crowds to act in the Kress store and at its rear were not among those arrested, police did arrest one Black woman, Margaret Mitchell, inside the Kress store. Black women made up most of the crowd that police were attempting to move out of the store at that time, to an extent that they did not later on the streets, so choosing to arrest a woman then was not at odds with the apparent disinterest in arresting women later displayed by police. Mitchell appears to have been one of several women who resisted police efforts to push them out on to the street, knocking over displays of merchandise in the process and calling for the boy to be released. However, initial reports that she was responsible for the disorder in the store, that she called on others to attack the police or damage merchandise, were not substantiated. That she was ultimately charged with disorderly conduct, not riot, indicates that police arrested her to get her out of Kress' store.
Three white men were among those arrested for riot, all in front of the Kress store at the beginning of the disorder, in order to get them off the street and prevent them inciting the crowds on 125th Street. Daniel Miller tried to speak to the crowd and was arrested when someone threw the rock that broke the store window. Although he had not encouraged such an attack, so had not actually committed the offense of riot, he was arrested on that charge — and District Attorney Dodge's efforts to blame the disorder on Communists led prosecutors to prosecute him for that offense. (A second white man, Harry Gordon, also arrested when he tried to speak to the crowd, was not charged with riot but for assaulting one of the police officers who arrested him, so is not categorized as having incited a crowd.) Not apprehended was an unnamed black man who introduced first Miller and then Gordon, suggesting that at that point in the disorder police were more concerned about white Communists, a familiar target, than about other members of the crowd. The two other white men, Sam Jameson and Murray Samuels, together with Claudio Vaibolo, were members of the Young Liberators who picketed the Kress store. When they refused to move on, police arrested them. Like Miller, their actions did not appear to fit a charge of riot — their signs did not call for violence — and their prosecution for that offense also reflected Dodge's anti-Communist agenda. Communist Party speakers had been a presence in Harlem for several years, providing police with ample reason to anticipate that those on 125th Street would arouse the crowds drawn to the Kress store.
Only John King among the Black men arrested for inciting crowds was arrested as the result of police efforts to control crowds on the street. Told to move on from the corner of 125th Street and 7th Avenue, he refused and threatened to “put that Kress store out of business and punish that man that injured the child.”
Police arrested eight of the remaining nine Black men after they allegedly urged others on the streets to attack businesses or police (there are no details of the circumstances of the arrest of the other man, John Hawkins). All of those incidents occurred in the context of attacks on store windows by groups of people. The men alleged to have urged others to attack the stores were the only members of those groups arrested. Leon Mauraine and David Smith were allegedly part of the same group, arrested when police responded to windows being broken in a drug store at 322 Lenox Avenue and pursued the group responsible. However, the arresting officer alleged both men had urged the group to attack the store, attributing the same words to Mauraine and Smith. While that account might have been the court clerk's clumsy recording of the officer's statement, it does draw attention to how in charging them with riot rather than simply with breaking windows, police made their efforts to control the violence appear more effective, implicitly claiming to have identified and focused on those leading the disorder.
The arrests of Claude Jones and William Ford occurred around the same time on 125th Street, after crowds pushed past police on 7th Avenue barring access to the block containing the Kress store. Jones allegedly broke windows in the Blumstein department store and Ford in Kress' store. However, what they allegedly urged others in the crowd to do was to attack not the stores but police. Not only were those calls discordant with events at the time, there was no evidence that crowds on the street specifically targeted police rather than clashing with them in efforts to target businesses for attacks or later looting.
A second cluster of arrests occurred soon after midnight on Lenox Avenue near 126th Street, with police apprehending first Leon Mauraine and David Smith, then Bernard Smith, and finally John Kennedy Jones. Multiple different officers made those arrests, indicating that a detachment of police may have been stationed at the intersection. Unclear is whether it was the same group allegedly attacking the three stores, dispersing when police reacted and then reforming, or whether there were several different groups on Lenox Avenue at that time.
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1
2021-12-07T17:37:45+00:00
John Kennedy Jones arrested
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2024-02-13T22:00:15+00:00
Around 12:30 AM, Patrolman James Lamattina of the 66th Division allegedly saw "large number" of people gather in front of William Gindin'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 indicated 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 appeared in the lists of those arrested and charged with "inciting to riot" published in the 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 was an additional charge of malicious mischief for damage to the store window. That charge did 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 to describe Jones as having "urged the crowd to smash windows," but being held for the grand jury "on a charge of malicious mischief" for which urging a crowd was not relevant. That garbled account likely indicated that Jones faced both charges, as did the six other men who allegedly both urged crowds to break windows and broke windows themselves. 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 $1,000. A week later, when Jones appeared before the grand jury, they decided to transfer him to the Court of Special Sessions for trial on misdemeanor forms of the charges (as the malicious mischief charge was not recorded in the docket book, Jones was 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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2024-01-27T17:35:54+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 twenty-eight-year-old Black laborer, 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 him until March 27. When he returned to court, Magistrate Ford sent Pringle to the grand jury. His court appearance was mentioned in stories in the New York Times and 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. 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. -
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2021-12-05T21:00:05+00:00
Bernard Smith arrested
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2024-01-18T00:22:05+00:00
Officer Alfred Tait of the 42nd Precinct testified in the Harlem Magistrates Court that he saw a group of about thirty people assemble in front of the Temple Grill & Restaurant at 317 Lenox Avenue. Then, about 12:15 AM, he allegedly heard Bernard Smith, a thirty-nine-year-old Black man, shout to the group, "We will get these two windows here," and saw him then throw two stones at the restaurant windows, breaking them. Smith then allegedly shouted to the others, "You fellows get the others." Tait presumably arrested Smith in front of the store, although his statement did not mention the circumstances, but according to the officer, members of the group in front of the restaurant acted on Smith's urging, as "thereafter there were several acts of force and violence committed in said vicinity to other persons and property of others." In the minutes around when Tait arrested Smith, other police officers arrested three men near West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue, Leon Mauraine and David Smith at 318 Lenox Avenue ten minutes earlier, and John Kennedy Jones at 333 Lenox Avenue fifteen minutes later. Multiple arrests by different officers indicate that a number of police were stationed at the intersection at that time. All three of the arresting officers came from precincts outside Harlem.
Bernard Smith gave his occupation as interior decorator when examined in the Harlem Magistrates Court, and his home, for the last eight years, as 116 West 126th Street. That building was close to the bar and restaurant, around the nearby southwest corner of West 126th Street and four buildings west. Smith appeared in the lists of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal as one of those charged with inciting a riot. The 28th Precinct police blotter also recorded the charge made against Smith as "Inciting riot."
The last person to appear in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Smith 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. Held in custody by Magistrate Renaud, Smith returned to court on March 25, when bail was set at $500 for the first charge and $1,000 for the second, and then again on March 26, when Magistrate Ford held him for the grand jury on the charge of riot. Prosecutors reduced the charge of malicious mischief to disorderly conduct, likely indicating a lack of evidence that he had broken the window. Magistrate Ford found him guilty of that charge and sentenced him to five days in the Workhouse or a fine of $25. The docket book recorded that he paid the fine. Misleadingly, the 28th Precinct police blotter also recorded that sentence, but not either of the charges of malicious mischief and disorderly conduct, only the charge of riot.
A week later, Smith appeared before the grand jury, which dismissed the riot charge, an outcome recorded only in his District Attorney's case file. While the grand jury did not indict any of those arrested during the disorder charged with inciting a riot, it did send all the others who appeared before it to the Court of Special Sessions rather than dismissing the charges. The difference in Smith's case could be that no one else allegedly broke windows in the store that he attacked and the subsequent attacks on people and property could not be linked to him. -
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2022-01-05T21:44:26+00:00
John King arrested
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2024-01-27T18:20:11+00:00
Around 10:30 PM, Detective Peter Naton of the 28th Precinct allegedly saw a crowd of twenty-five to thirty people gathered at the 7th Avenue and West 125th Street, he stated in an affidavit in the Harlem Magistrates Court. Crowds had been gathering at the intersection for several hours, and police had been stationed there to control and disperse them since around 9:00 PM as part of the perimeter around the block of 125th Street from 7th to 8th Avenues on which Kress' store stood. In response to this group, Naton "announced himself as a police officer," necessary as he would have been in plainclothes, not in uniform, and told the group to "move on." John King, a twenty-eight-year-old Black fish and ice dealer, allegedly responded by yelling "I won't move for you this is my Harlem, and we will put that Kress store out of business and punish that man that injured the child." He then allegedly grabbed hold of the billy club in Naton's hand and broke its strap. As well as arresting King, Naton made two other arrests around this time, of John Vivien thirty minutes later at the same intersection, and James Pringle another fifteen minutes later, two blocks south at West 123rd Street and 7th Avenue.
The affidavit was the only source that includes details of King's arrest. The 28th Precinct police blotter recorded the charge against King as inciting riot. He appeared in the list of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, among those charged with riot, and in a story in the Home News that only mentioned the charge against him. Riot was the charge recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book when King appeared in court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud sent him to the grand jury, on bail of $1,000. A handwritten note on the affidavit listed an additional charge not recorded in the docket book, "simple assault," likely in response to Detective Naton's allegation that King had grabbed his billy club. That charge may have been added by the grand jury after they heard the evidence against King on March 27, when they transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions, reducing the riot charge against him from a felony to a misdemeanor. King did not appear before the judges in that court for almost two months; there is no information on the reason for that delay. The judges convicted King and suspended his sentence, according to the 28th Precinct police blotter.
King's address was recorded in his examination in the Harlem Magistrates Court as 2905 8th Avenue, on the northern boundary of Harlem just south of West 154th Street. Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, he had lived at that address for five years, likely since he arrived in New York City sometime after April in 1930. At the time of the 1930 Census, King lived in Philadelphia, where he worked as a porter for a theater company, and lived with his wife Inez and their four-month-old son. He was still at the same address, 2905 8th Avenue, when the census enumerator called on April 2, 1940, by then working as the superintendent of the building, while Inez owned a candy store. The couple had two more children by that date, an eight-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son. King listed the same address and occupation when he registered for the draft two years later.
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1
2021-12-09T01:50:22+00:00
Claude Jones arrested
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2024-01-19T00:10:35+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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2021-12-08T18:54:47+00:00
Leon Mauraine arrested
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2024-01-27T23:51:49+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 stones 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 $1,000. 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. -
1
2021-12-03T21:46:41+00:00
Charles Wright arrested
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2024-01-18T22:14:35+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. There were no details of the time or circumstances of the arrests. The store was located just north of West 122nd Street, on the west side of 8th Avenue. Across the street, at 2275 8th Avenue, Max Newman was assaulted as he closed his grocery store at 10:30 PM. The men's arrest likely happened around the same time. Violence had begun intensifying away from 125th Street around half an hour earlier as more people left 125th Street. Sufficient police had arrived at 125th Street for some to be deployed on the avenues in response to that change. Phillips was likely among the first officers to arrive this far south on 8th Avenue. The only other reported incident around this intersection was not until after midnight, when someone on the street threw a rock that hit Patrolman Harry Whittington as he traveled on an emergency truck. That was too late for groups to be focused on breaking windows.
Wright, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, was 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 also arrested Arthur Davis, Herbert Hunter, and Elizabeth Tai.
Pauline Lokos of 2275 8th Avenue was identified in the Home News as the owner of the store whose windows Wright allegedly broke. She was also 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 change reflected a general practice of replacing the initial charge of riot made at the time of an arrest with a more specific charge that fit what police officers alleged an individual had done. -
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2021-12-15T20:01:46+00:00
Henry Stewart arrested
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2024-01-25T22:24:42+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 was no information on the time or circumstances of the arrest. The arrest may have taken place around 10:30 PM, when the disorder intensified and crowds spread from 125th Street along 8th Avenue, but more likely occurred later, around 11:00 PM, given how far north the store was located. 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. The intersection may have been where police were stationed and 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 was recorded in the 28th Precinct police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge was 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 in 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 appeared 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, indicating a lack of evidence they had broken windows. Magistrate Renaud transferred Stewart to the Court of Special Sessions and set bail at $500. That decision meant 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. He was the only one of the six individuals tried for malicious mischief known to have been released (the outcome of three trials is unknown). Evidently police could not prove that Stewart had been a participant in the disorder rather than a spectator. -
1
2022-01-07T19:57:38+00:00
John Hawkins arrested
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2024-01-27T18:13:02+00:00
Detective George Booker of the 28th Precinct arrested John Hawkins, a thirty-year-old Black man, for allegedly inciting a riot. There are no details of his alleged offenses or where or when Hawkins was arrested. Booker also arrested Horace Fowler during the disorder, for allegedly looting Nicholas Peet's tailor's shop at 2063 7th Avenue. Booker made no mention of a crowd or anyone else being involved in that alleged looting, so he likely arrested Hawkins at some other time and place. Hawkins lived at 2357 8th Avenue, between West 126th and West 127th Streets. He could have been part of the crowds around that block of 8th Avenue, where Theodore Hughes was arrested for allegedly looting the store directly opposite the building where Hawkins lived, Emmet Williams for breaking the window of that store, and Rose Murrell for breaking a window in the store at 2366 8th Avenue.
In the 28th Precinct police blotter, the charge against Hawkins was recorded as inciting riot, which was also the charge under which he appeared in the list of those arrested during the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide. When he appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, that was also the charge recorded in the docket book. However, the charge was later crossed out and "DISORDERLY CONDUCT" stamped in its place. That change had to have been made on March 20, as Magistrate Renaud convicted him that day and held him for investigation before sentencing. The offense of disorderly conduct did not involve being part of a group of three or more, as the offense of riot did, nor inciting others to threaten to, attempt to, or use violence against a person or property. Charging Hawkins with disorderly conduct thus likely indicated that police did not have evidence that he acted with or led a group of people; rather, that he had been part of a crowd on the street near attacks on property or people.
When Hawkins returned to court on March 23, Renaud sentenced him to thirty days in the Workhouse. Stories in the Daily News, New York Times, New York Age, and Afro-American reported the sentencing. Three other men sentenced at the same time had been accused of breaking windows; the three newspapers other than the New York Times reported that Hawkins had also committed that offense, while that newspaper merely reported his sentence. -
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2021-12-03T21:46:21+00:00
William Norris arrested
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2024-02-03T18:11:10+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. There are no details of the time or circumstances of the arrests. The store was located just north of West 122nd Street, on the west side of 8th Avenue. Across the street, at 2275 8th Avenue, Max Newman was assaulted as he closed his grocery store at 10:30 PM. The men's arrest likely happened around the same time. Violence had begun intensifying away from 125th Street around half an hour earlier the store as more people left 125th Street. Sufficient police had arrived at the Kress store for some to be deployed on the avenues in response to that change. Phillips was likely among the first officers to arrive this far south on 8th Avenue. The only other reported incident around this intersection was not until after midnight, when someone on the street threw a rock that hit Patrolman Harry Whittington as he traveled on an emergency truck. That was too late for groups to be focused on breaking windows.
Norris, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, was 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. His decision indicated that the value of the damage to the building was less than the $250 required for the charge to be a felony. The judges in the Court of Special Sessions convicted him, and on April 1st sentenced him to three months in the Workhouse. The prosecution of Wright followed the same process and brought 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 the 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 and the 28th Precinct police blotter recorded the charge as inciting a riot. That offense appeared to be the charge initially made against many of those arrested during the disorder. The charge malicious mischief made in the Magistrates Court was recorded in the docket book and reported in the Home News. That change reflected a general practice of replacing the initial charge of riot made at the time of an arrest with a more specific charge that fit what police officers alleged an individual had done. -
1
2021-12-15T20:01:28+00:00
Louise Brown arrested
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2024-01-28T05:32:22+00:00
Sometime during the riot, Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Louise Brown, a twenty-three-year-old Black woman. There was no information on Brown's alleged offense, or the time or circumstances of the arrest. The arrest likely took place around 10:30 PM or 11:00 PM, when the disorder intensified and crowds spread from 125th Street along 8th Avenue. 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, Murrell at 2366 8th Avenue and Stewart at 2422 8th Avenue. Brown and Johnson were also arrested for breaking windows, based on the charge against them, 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. Brown has been treated as having been arrested for breaking windows on the basis of 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 had allegedly 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 was possible that the intersection was where police were stationed, so 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 was recorded in the 28th Precinct police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge was 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 appeared 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. Instead, she was likely part of a crowd in the vicinity of the damaged store, arrested either by mistake or to get her off the street as part of police efforts to disperse the crowd. Disorderly conduct was an offense that could be adjudicated by a magistrate, unlike malicious mischief which would have been referred to another court. 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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2021-12-21T20:46:19+00:00
William Jones arrested
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2024-02-03T17:41:09+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. Jones lived at 38 West 129th Street.
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 $1,000. 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 $250 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. The others convicted of malicious mischief, three men and one woman, received terms of one month or three months in the Workhouse. -
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2021-12-08T18:55:05+00:00
David Smith arrested
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2024-01-22T19:54:17+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 stones 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 that 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 $1,000. 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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2021-12-15T20:02:06+00:00
Warren Johnson arrested
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plain
2024-02-13T19:24:29+00:00
Sometime during the riot, Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Warren Johnson, an eighteen-year-old Black man. There was no information on Johnson's alleged offense, or the time or circumstances of the arrest. The arrest likely took place around 10:30 PM or 11:00 PM, when the disorder intensified and crowds spread from 125th Street along 8th Avenue. 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, Murrell at 2366 8th Avenue and Stewart at 2422 8th Avenue. Johnson and Brown likely also allegedly broke store windows, based on the charge against all four of those Libman arrested, 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. Johnson has been treated as having been arrested for breaking windows on the basis of 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 was recorded in the 28th Precinct police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge was 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 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. Instead, he was likely part of a crowd in the vicinity of the damaged store, arrested either by mistake or to get him off the street as part of police efforts to disperse the crowd. Disorderly conduct was an offense that could be adjudicated by a magistrate, unlike malicious mischief, which would have been referred to another court. 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 2022-11-13T22:34:43+00:00 Arrested for inciting crowds & Charged with riot (13) 6 plain 2024-02-24T15:22:52+00:00 "§ 2090. Riot defined. Whenever three or more persons, having assembled for any purpose, disturb the public peace, by using force or violence to any other person, or to property, or threaten or attempt to commit such disturbance, or to do an unlawful act by the use of force or violence, accompanied with the power of immediate execution of such threat or attempt, they are guilty of riot."
- 1 2022-11-14T03:45:20+00:00 Arrested for breaking windows & Charged with riot (1) 3 plain 2024-02-24T15:18:15+00:00 "§ 2090. Riot defined. Whenever three or more persons, having assembled for any purpose, disturb the public peace, by using force or violence to any other person, or to property, or threaten or attempt to commit such disturbance, or to do an unlawful act by the use of force or violence, accompanied with the power of immediate execution of such threat or attempt, they are guilty of riot."
This page references:
- 1 2021-09-19T23:29:30+00:00 Consolidated Laws of the State of New York, Vol. 4. Penal law to real property law. Albany: J. B. Lyon, 1909. 10 plain 2024-02-24T14:43:35+00:00