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Preparation for the public hearing on April 20
Roberts announced April 20 as the date of the hearing at the MCCH meeting on April 12. The sources contained no mention of why the interval before the next hearing was two weeks rather than one week as had been the case with the previous hearing. Hays was absent from both the April 12 meeting and the April 19 meeting, so may have been out of town or otherwise committed on April 13.
After learning that the killing of Lloyd Hobbs had been presented to the grand jury on April 10, and dismissed, Hays exchanged letters with District Attorney Dodge about what evidence had been presented. The three eyewitnesses who had testified in the hearing on April 6 had clearly persuaded Hays that the shooting was not justified, as he committed to having the police witnesses testify in a public hearing now that the legal proceeding over and Dodge's instructions about what police officers could say in a public hearing did not prevent that testimony.
McInerney's partner, Patrolman Watterson, and the detective who investigated the shooting, John O'Brien, both appear on a list of eleven police officers in the Hays Papers. That list appears to be officers from which the MCCH wanted to hear testimony and was likely prepared before the April 20 hearing. Tick marks appear next to the four officers who appeared in that hearing, Watterson and O'Brien, Detective McCormick, the stenographer who recorded a statement by Lloyd Hobbs at Harlem Hospital, and Patrolman Kaminsky, who testified about the death of August Miller. Two officers on the list had already appeared at a public hearing: Patrolman Donahue, who had released Lino Rivera, and Patrolman Eppler, who had arrested Frank Wells, but had been unable to testify about that case. The other police officers on the list did not testify in a public hearing. Patrolman Murphy was identified as a witness in the death of Andrew Lyons, and Patrolman MacKenzie, as a witness in the cases of Cornelius, Ford, and Jones. Detective Johnson was the officer who arrested Margaret Mitchell in the Kress store, according to a note from Lieutenant Battle in the Hays papers. There was no annotation about the cases about which the remaining two officers, Patrolmen Havilini and Kinstrey, had evidence.
A document dated April 13 in the records of Mayor La Guardia suggests that a visit to the MCCH by Mrs. Nora Ford, the mother of William Ford, may have been responsible for Patrolman Mackenzie appearing on the list of police witnesses. She came to "lodge a complaint against the police department" related to his arrest by Mackenzie for breaking windows in the Kress store. The document recorded no details of her complaint, nor do any of the records of Ford's arrest and prosecution mention any complaint. There are no records of an investigation of the complaint by the MCCH.
Hays did respond to one other complaint, from Gerald Hamilton on behalf of an unnamed Black woman who had been assaulted by an Italian baker during a dispute over him giving her a counterfeit coin whom the magistrate refused to punish. Hays requested that the woman come to the hearing on April 20.
It appeared that those two complaints were not the only cases of "police brutality" about which the MCCH learned at this time. Villard reported to the MCCH meeting on April 19 that there were "far too many cases" to hold hearings on them all. Neither Nora Ford's complaint nor the one submitted by Hamilton would be part of the hearing on April 20, and were likely among those the subcommittee planned to investigate in some other way (later specified as having lawyers from the Harlem Lawyers' Association investigate). The MCCH had its investigator, James Tartar, gather information about the cases it had identified after the previous hearing.
Tartar's reports record that in this two-week period he interviewed the storekeepers on the block where Lloyd Hobbs was shot, gathered records from the 23rd Precinct about the cases of Thomas Aiken and Edward Laurie, and interviewed Aiken and the aunt of James Thompson, the other Black man known to have been killed by police during the disorder. The interview with Aiken was dated April 19, and the other reports were dated April 20, so may not have been complete before the hearing on that date. Some copies were annotated "Memo to Mr Hays" and dated May 1, suggesting that Eunice Carter compiled them for Hays after the hearing on April 20. In that case, he may not have had this material for the hearing.
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This page references:
- James Tartar, "Survey Made of Neighboring Storekeepers of the Greenfield Tire and Supply Store," (April 20, 1935), "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 25, Folder 19, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University).
- Arthur Garfield Hays to William Dodge, April 11, 1935, "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 26, Folder 1, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University).
- Dodge to Arthur Garfield Hays, April 12, 1935, "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 26, Folder 1, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University).
- Gerald Hamilton to Oscar Villard, April 15, 1935, "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 26, Folder 1, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University).
- James Tartar, "Investigator's Interview of Mrs Sarah Rhue," April 20, 1935, "Thompson Case," Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 5 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- List of Police Officers, undated, "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 25, Folder 19, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University).
- "Minutes of Executive Meeting of the Mayor's Commission on Conditions in Harlem," April 26, 1935, Subject Files, Box 383, Folder 10 (Roll 184), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- “Minutes of the Mayor’s Commission on Conditions in Harlem, Friday, April 12, 1935," Subject Files, Box 383, Folder 10 (Roll 184), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- “Report of the Secretary, Meeting of April 19th, 1935," Subject Files, Box 383, Folder 10 (Roll 184), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- "Memo to Mr. Hays," May 1, 1935, "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 25, Folder 19, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University).
- "Mrs Nora Ford," April 13, 1935, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in Harlem - Police Brutality - 1935, Departmental Correspondence, Box 35, Folder 1 (Roll 171), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945.