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• 1 2021-09-16T19:29:44+00:00 Arrests for looting (60) 78 plain 2024-02-12T19:45:36+00:00 Details of the circumstances in which police made arrests for looting can be found for twenty-seven of the sixty people taken into custody. Police officers most often had seen crowds in front of stores or heard glass breaking, resulting in twelve arrests. Less often they saw individuals reaching into windows or coming out of stores, making six arrests. Officers had to come from some distance to make an arrest — from cars patrolling the streets, from positions on intersections, or from guarding stores across the street. As a result, officers often fired guns at suspected looters — both the individuals police killed, Lloyd Hobbs and James Thompson, allegedly had been seen looting — and did not get to the scene in time to arrest all those involved before they ran off. On only two of the twelve occasions police saw crowds taking goods from stores was there evidence that they arrested several people at the same time, three men at the A & P grocery store at 510 Lenox Avenue and two men at 1916 7th Avenue. A man and a woman were also arrested at the same time at 340 Lenox Avenue, but there were no details of the circumstances of those arrests. There are two other police officers that the Magistrates Court docket book recorded as each having arrested three men at the same address, the Romanoff Drug Store at 375 Lenox Avenue and the Butler Food Market at 1974 7th Avenue, likely indicating they were arrested at the same time, but no sources provide details of those arrests. More than one person was arrested for looting four other stores, at 372 Lenox Avenue, 374 Lenox Avenue, 400 Lenox Avenue, and 200 West 128th Street, but those arrests came at different times. Police also made nine arrests away from the business the men had allegedly looted. There was no information on the circumstances of the remaining thirty-one arrests for looting.
  
  Several of those police did arrest, at least, denied they had been involved in looting (details are not available for all those arrested). Arthur Merritt and Hezekiah Wright said they had been part of a crowd drawn to the scene as police had been. Others admitted having done only some of what police alleged: Arnold Ford and Horace Fowler said that they had taken merchandise but not broken windows to gain access to a business; Charles Saunders and Edward Larry said that they had not gone into a store but had picked up merchandise off the street (which Arnold Ford later told his probation officer that he had done); and Carl Jones and Thomas Jackson said that they had broken windows but not taken merchandise. Others may have offered similar statements in the police line-up the morning after the disorder; a reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote “Many in the lineup still carried things they admitted picking up in the street, but denied reaching into broken shop windows to secure" [sic?]. Cigarettes were the favorite item "found." A story in the New York Sun included a similar claim, that “Many admitted thefts from stores damaged during the riot, stealing everything from toothbrushes to shirts and groceries, but all denied breaking the store windows, insisting that they had picked up the articles from the street after others had thrown them out of stores.” In court such admissions warranted lesser charges than burglary. More broadly, they distinguished those who made them from looters, from those who attacked stores and created disorder, and associated them instead with onlookers and passersby whose behavior was less out of the ordinary.
  
  Merchandise that police allegedly found in an individual’s possession provided the basis for officers to make arrests, and was central to the arrests of the nine individuals police did not allegedly witness taking goods from stores. This was the case often enough that police estimated “that the plunder recovered so far today will fill a ton truck,” according to the New York Sun. Photographs showed individuals arrested for looting carrying the merchandise they had allegedly stolen. The image below published in the New York Evening Journal shows a man in the foreground carrying a full shopping bag labeled as coming from Rex Food Market at 348 Lenox Avenue, as well as what appears to be an alarm clock and at least one other item. Behind him a second man carries three metal boxes in his left hand, and in his right hand, just visible in the background, a full shopping bag of the same design as the first man. The Afro-American incorporated the details of the photograph, which it did not publish, into a story: to illustrate the claim that "Police arrested pillagers wherever they could," the reporter added "One man was arrested carrying three new steel cash boxes taken from a stationary store. Another had a shopping bag full of loot." (The New York Herald Tribune published an Associated Press image of the same scene taken a second earlier or later, showing the man in the foreground with his head turned slightly more toward the police officer behind him, and that officer with his nightstick raised slightly higher, in front of his face.)
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  A third man arrested for looting photographed by the New York Evening Journal was carrying even larger items, a tall bin containing at least four or five pots of various sizes, with perhaps more merchandise not sticking out the top. The police officer following him is carrying two wooden poles, perhaps brooms or mops also found in the man's possession — although it's not clear he could have carried any more than he did in the photograph. The man in the images may be James Williams. Among those arrested for looting for which there was information on goods allegedly found in their possession, only he was charged with taking hardware.
  
  The arrested men in the photographs are carrying large amounts of merchandise that would have attracted the attention of police looking for looters. Three of those arrested away from looted stores allegedly had a similar quantity of goods in their possession. James Williams was carrying four pots of different sizes, two pans, a pitcher, two pails, a bread box and a cloth lamp. Edward Larry had a box containing eight shirts (although the police officer may not have been able to see them as Larry was in a taxi). Jean Jacquelin had two ladies’ suits and two pairs of trousers in his possession, at 5:40 AM. Police similarly alleged that some those arrested at looted locations carried bulky items: Lawrence Humphrey had a 50lb bag of rice; Thomas Babbitt had two cases of soap.
  
  However, police evidently also stopped four others they had not allegedly seen looting who had nothing obvious in their possession. Arnold Ford had a package that cannot have been large; it contained three cakes of soap, a can of shoe polish, two pairs of garters, six spools of thread, a jar of Vaseline, and three packets of tea, with a value of $1.15. John Henry and Oscar Leacock between them had $75 of jewelry. Patrolman William Clements stopped Edward Larry after observing him in a taxi without being able to see if he had anything in his possession. The relatively indiscriminate nature of police arrests for looting was also evident in a comment made during the line-up of those arrested before they were taken to court. “One Negro woman still had in her possession five milk bottles,” a reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote. “Police were doubtful that she drank as much milk as all that.” Storeowners claims to be able to identify the goods found in the possession of those arrested away from the scene as coming from their stores are more credible in the case of jewelry and clothing than more commonplace items such as pans or soap. Merchandise police claim to have found in the possession of several of those arrested at looted stores was even more unexceptional and unlikely to have been able to be identified by a storeowner — unless it was in a labeled shopping bag like those visible in the the New York Evening Journal photograph: Amie Taylor had eighteen packets of gum; Arthur Merritt had two cans of beans, a can of milk, and a can of tuna fish; Joseph Wade had several toy pistols; Milton Ackerman had two rolls of paper, worth five cents, and eight cents' worth of napkins; Raymond Easley had an unspecified number of cigars. Perhaps more noteworthy in the context of the disorder were the man’s suit and a lady’s coat carried by Horace Fowler and the bag of laundry in Lamter Jackson’s possession.
  
  On three occasions, police effectively, and in one case apparently literally, found goods when none were in the possession of an individual when an arrest was made. Officers claimed Hezekiel Wright and Thomas Jackson had dropped items before they got to the men. With merchandise thrown from stores spread over many sections of Harlem’s sidewalk, goods would likely have been nearby anyone police confronted. Police took until sometime in early April to mention the looted horn and socket set they claimed Lloyd Hobbs had in his possession when Officer McInerney shot him, after not recording them as evidence at the time of the shooting. After police witnesses produced the items during testimony before the MCCH in May, the New York Age, New York Amsterdam News, and the New York World-Telegram reported that police could not explain where that evidence had been before it was delivered to the District Attorney. Witnesses at the scene said Hobbs had not been carrying anything.
  
  While the newspaper reports of the police line-up suggest that many of those arrested still had the goods they had allegedly stolen in their possession as they were being taken to court, in three cases, police apparently could not produce allegedly stolen merchandise or convincing evidence that it existed, as prosecutors reduced the charge against those individuals from burglary or larceny to unlawful entry and disorderly conduct. (A lack of evidence of looting may also be why ten of those named in published lists of those arrested for looting did not appear in court.) Magistrates transferred an additional seven defendants to the Court of Special Sessions, indicating that prosecutors did not provide adequate evidence of at least one element of a burglary charge.

  Arrests (128)

• 1 2021-04-08T15:59:19+00:00 Arrests for looting away from the scene (9) 65 plain 2024-02-11T03:51:21+00:00 While police arrested most of those they alleged had been looting at the scene, having witnessed their actions, one third (9 of 27) were arrested at other locations at least several blocks from the business that had been looted. (For just over half of the arrests (33/60) the sources do not provide a location of arrest, although the looted store is identified in fourteen cases). Two of those arrests occurred the day after the disorder; the other seven are on the map below.
  
  
  
  What caused police to stop these men is not made clear in any sources. The most likely reason is that they were carrying goods that police suspected might have been looted, but photographs in newspapers of police reportedly searching Black men for weapons suggest that officers more indiscriminately stopped people on the street. Certainly police treatment of Black residents of Harlem at other times indicates that they would not have felt any need to have a justification for stopping and searching those they encountered during the disorder. Such policing extended to vehicles as well as pedestrians. Police had stopped a car to search its occupants for weapons in an image taken by a New York Evening Journal photographer, and one of those arrested for looting, Edward Larry, had been observed in a taxi. 
  
  Two photographs of men arrested for looting show individuals carrying large amounts of merchandise that would have attracted the attention of police on the lookout for looters. The men are not identified. The two men in a photograph published in the New York Evening Journal are carrying shopping bags from the Rex Food Market at 348 Lenox Avenue, one of the businesses whose owner sued the city for damages, so could be two of the sixteen men arrested for looting an unknown location.
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  The man in the second photograph, also published in the New York Evening Journal, carrying a tall bin containing at least four or five pots of various sizes, with perhaps more merchandise not sticking out of the top, might be James Williams. One of three men arrested away from looted stores who allegedly had a quantity of goods in their possession, the affidavit recorded Williams was carrying four pots of different sizes, two pans, a pitcher, two pails, a bread box and a cloth lamp. Edward Larry had a box containing eight shirts (although the police officer may not have been able to see them as Larry was in a taxi). Jean Jacquelin had two ladies’ suits and two pairs of trousers in his possession.
  
  However, police evidently also stopped others they had not allegedly seen looting who had nothing obvious in their possession. Arnold Ford had a package that cannot have been large; it contained three cakes of soap, a can of shoe polish, two pairs of garters, six spools of thread, a jar of Vaseline, and three packets of tea, with a value of $1.15. John Henry and Oscar Leacock between them had $75 of jewelry, most likely watches and rings rather than anything more bulky. The relatively indiscriminate nature of police arrests for looting is also evident in a comment reportedly made during the line-up of those arrested before they were taken to court. “One Negro woman still had in her possession five milk bottles,” a reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote. “Police were doubtful that she drank as much milk as all that.”
  
  Storeowners claimed to be able to identify the goods found in the possession of eight of the nine men arrested away from the scene of their alleged looting. Those statements are more credible in the case of jewelry and clothing than more commonplace items such as pans or soap — although identification of such items might have been helped if they were in shopping bags like those being carried by the men in the New York Evening Journal photograph. In the case of Larry, the storeowner also identified him as one of the men who had robbed his store.
  
  None of the reports of the arrest of Joseph Moore mention what items, if any, he had in his possession when Patrolman Louis Frikser arrested him. A few minutes earlier Frisker had arrested Arnold Ford, who was carrying a small package. The two men were prosecuted together, charged with taking merchandise from Harry Lash's 5c and 10c store, although the 28th Precinct police blotter recorded the charge against Moore as "Acc'd stolen goods during the riot" not "Burglarized store during riot" as in Ford's case. The first charge suggested Moore had not obtained whatever goods he had allegedly stolen directly from the store, a version of events not mentioned anywhere else. Prosecutors erased any distinction in the charges against Ford and Moore in the Harlem Magistrate Court, charging both with burglary.
  
  Frisker arrested Ford and Moore on the Third Avenue Bridge, a distance from store. It is not clear if the patrolman had been deployed on the bridge in response to the disorder or the location was a part of a regular patrol. Both men lived in the Bronx, near to the bridge, which was one of five thoroughfares between 127th Street and 155th Street connecting Harlem to the Bronx. 
  
  Police arrested six other men on the major avenues running through Harlem; Henry and Leacock and Williams on Lenox Avenue, Larry on 7th Avenue, and Jacquelin on 8th Avenue. Williams was the farthest from the store he had allegedly looted; Henry and Leacock were the closest. Police arrested all three, and Edward Larry, in areas which saw clusters of attacks on stores and violence, bringing numbers of police who the men would have had to pass by. All four, and Ford and Moore, may have been on their way home as they were arrested between the stores they allegedly looted and their homes. Police arrested Jacquelin on Eighth Avenue at the very end of the disorder, when cars were patrolling the avenue. Ten minutes earlier officers in a patrol car on the avenue a block north had shot and killed James Thompson while trying to arrest him for allegedly looting a grocery store. Jacquelin lived close by, several buildings to the east on West 127th Street, so was leaving home rather than returning there.
  
  The remaining two men police arrested without witnessing their alleged looting were arrested in the late afternoon of March 20, after the disorder. Detective Mark Redmond of the 28th Precinct first arrested arrested Clifford Mitchell at his home, 362 Lenox Avenue, although the address the Magistrates Court clerk recorded for Mitchell, likely in error, is 363 Lenox Avenue, a building across the street. An hour later, Detective Frank McKenna, also from the 28th Precinct, arrested Daughty Shavos at his home at 40 West 119th Street. Between them, Shavos and Mitchell allegedly had $50 of clothing in their possession, which Louis Levy identified as coming from his store. What led police to the men's homes is not mentioned in any sources. They may have attracted police attention trying to sell the clothing. It is also possible that Mitchell gave police Shavos' name.
  
  Judges in the Court of Special Sessions convicted two of these men, Henry and Leacock, and acquitted two others, Williams and Jacquelin. Shavos was also tried in the Court of Special Sessions, but there is no record of the outcome. The grand jury dismissed the charges against Mitchell, and indicted Moore, Larry, and Ford. The later two pled guilty in the Court of General Sessions, while the judge dismissed the charges against Moore.
• 1 2020-12-04T16:53:19+00:00 Looting of miscellaneous consumer goods (14) 48 plain 2024-01-28T05:14:56+00:00 Aside from food and drink and clothing, businesses selling a variety of other consumer goods had stock stolen (14 of 57). There is also a photograph of a looted jewelry store at an unidentified location, which may be an additional looted business or an image of an already identified looting. The merchandise sold by these businesses is a mix of household items akin to food and clothing, such as cigarettes, soap, and pots, and goods such as jewelry likely taken for their value rather than for everyday use.
  
  Newspaper accounts of looting mentioned only two items other than food and clothing: cigarettes and toothbrushes. The New York Post  imputed motives while identifying cigarettes as a target, describing looting as “the glamorous opportunity of snatching food and coats and liquor and tobacco from behind the broken panes." Cigarettes also featured in stories about the police line-up the morning after the disorder. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle noted that many of those paraded before police and reporters admitted to taking cigarettes. Neither of the other stories about the line-up mentioned cigarettes; instead both the New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun listed toothbrushes alongside clothing and groceries. Those items capture only some of the businesses selling miscellaneous goods that are reported as having being looted to do these match with reported looting; drug stores and cigar stores (some stationery stores also sold cigarettes and tobacco products, and 5c and 10c stores possibly sold toothbrushes). Jewelry, hardware, auto supply, and optician stores did not attract the attention of newspaper reporters, but items likely from a hardware store are visible in the photographs of men being arrested. A tall bin containing at least four or five pots of various sizes, with perhaps more merchandise not sticking out the top appears in one photograph published in the New York Evening Journal. A clock and three cash boxes are visible in the photograph below, also from the New York Evening Journal.
  
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  Legal records offer a similar mix of broad and individual pictures of the merchandise taken. Two business owners not selling food and clothing are among those identified who sued the city for damages, with losses of $2,685 for Benjamin Zelvin's jewelry store and $572 for the Sav-On Drug store. Zelvin's damages are significantly higher than those suffered by all but two of the nine owners of stores selling food and drink who also sued the city, and than the damages suffered by most of the clothing stores. (The nature of eleven of twenty-eight businesses identified in suits against city are unknown, so could include additional stores selling food and drink.) Details of the losses of an additional seven businesses are identified in legal proceedings. The value of the merchandise in those cases is less than the losses of those who sued the city: $1,000 for Lash's 5c & 10c store; $850 for the Greenfield Auto Equipment store, $500 for Herman Young's hardware store; $300 for Harry Farber's stationery store, $100 for Jack Garmise's cigar shop, and $33 for Lazar's cigar store.
  
  Seven individuals arrested for looting miscellaneous items allegedly had only small amounts of that merchandise in their possession. With the exception of the $75 of unspecified jewelry that police claimed John Henry and Oscar Leacock had in their possession when arrested, that merchandise had little value: Thomas Babbitt had two cases of soap; James Williams had four pots of different sizes, two pans, a pitcher, two pails, a bread box, and a cloth lamp, with a value of $12.55; Arnold Ford had three cakes of soap, a can of shoe polish, two pairs of garters, six spools of thread, a jar of vaseline, and three packets of tea, with a value of $1.15; Raymond Easley had an unspecified number of cigars; Milton Ackerman had two rolls of paper and napkins; and Robert Tanner had a pipe.
• 1 2020-10-20T22:27:18+00:00 James Williams arrested 37 plain 2024-01-27T17:57:10+00:00 Around 2:00 AM, police arrested James Williams, a twenty-eight-year-old West Indian cook, at Lenox Avenue and West 118th Street. He allegedly had in his possession a “quantity of hardware” taken from Herman Young’s hardware store at 346 Lenox Ave, ten blocks to north, an hour earlier. It was not clear how Williams was carrying the collection of four pots of different sizes, two pans, a pitcher, two pails, a bread box, and a cloth lamp. Young identified those goods as his property. With a combined value of $12.55, they represented only a small portion of the $500 of hardware reported stolen from his store. Williams may have been going to his home. For the last two years, he had lived a block further south and west at 153 West 117th Street. Williams was one of nine men known to have been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, one-third (9 of 29) of the arrests for which that information is known (29 of 60).
  
  
  
  There was no mention of what caused the officer to arrest Williams. Young told police that he “was seen taking property from the store,” phrasing that suggests someone other than Young witnessed the theft. Young was unlikely to have been directly involved in the arrest. Half an hour earlier, he had been in Harlem Hospital receiving treatment for a wound to his head received when a man assaulted him during the attack on his store. Williams may be the individual in a photograph of man arrested for looting published in the New York Evening Journal carrying a large bin from which pots and pans are sticking out (the caption did not name the man).
  
  Charged with burglary the morning after the disorder, Williams appeared in only the list of those arrested published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in one list published in the New York Evening Journal. He was one of only eighteen of those arrested in the disorder represented by a lawyer, in his case John Lewis, a member of the Harlem Lawyers Association. The Harlem Magistrates Court Docket Book recorded him as being remanded to appear again on March 22. He was not brought before a grand jury until April 10. They transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions, according to the district attorney's case file. That decision indicated they had not charged Williams with burglary, a felony that required evidence of breaking and entering. Instead, the charge would have been larceny given the evidence provided by the goods allegedly found in his possession. Those items had a value of less than $100 so would only have support the misdemeanor charge of petit larceny. Two days later, on April 12, the judges acquitted Williams, according to the 28th Precinct pfolice blotter. The likeliest explanation for that verdict would be that the jury had not been convinced that the items Williams was carrying had come from Young's store.