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Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 46, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
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2020-02-25T17:59:47+00:00
James Thompson killed & Detective Nicholas Campo shot
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2024-01-27T17:52:32+00:00
Around 5:30 AM James Thompson, a nineteen-year old Black man, was shot and killed by Detectives Nicholas Campo and Theodore Beckler.
The officers claimed that while driving on 8th Avenue they heard breaking glass in a damaged grocery store at 2364 8th Avenue near the southeast corner of West 127th Street. Police crime scene photographs of the store taken later showed that there were several large holes in the windows and no merchandise left in their displays. However, like many other businesses, the shelves inside the store were untouched. To get inside, Thompson smashed the glass in one of the entrance doors, making the noise that the detectives heard. Investigating, they entered the store, a branch of the A & P chain. Press reports offered a variety of different accounts of what happened next. The New York American, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Post reported a gun battle between the officers and Thompson, during which he was shot in the chest and Detective Campo in the hand. The New York Evening Journal sensationally reported an even larger gunfight in which "other rioters" returned the officer's shots. The New York World-Telegram reported a struggle between Thompson and Campo during which Thompson was shot; the officer then dropped his gun, causing it to go off and a bullet to hit his fingers. The New York Amsterdam News reported, several days later, that the officer’s gun went off accidentally, hitting Thompson.
The arrest report and police blotter made no mention of Thompson having a gun or struggling with the officers. Instead, as Campo and Beckler moved through the store, Thompson burst out of the rear storeroom and ran for entrance. He collided with Campo, causing the detective’s pistol to fire and the bullet to hit two fingers on his left hand. When Thompson got out on to the street, he ran across 8th Avenue toward his home at 301 West 127th Street. As the two detectives followed, they both shot at him; Campo fired twice, Beckler five times. Only one of those bullets hit Thompson, but it struck him in the chest, perforating his liver. One of the other shots hit Stanley Dondoro, a white man walking along the west side of 8th Avenue, in his left leg. A resident of Hoboken, New Jersey, Dondoro was likely on his way to work in one of Harlem’s businesses. The Home News and New York Post added the detail that a third bullet had passed through the trousers of a man with Dondoro without injuring him. Campo and Beckler caught up with Thompson in front of the building where he lived and arrested him. A note at the end of the hospital admission records indicated that Thompson died at Harlem Hospital at 9:30 AM, four hours after the shooting, a time of death that led to him being listed as the only fatality of the disorder in newspapers published on March 20. Campo appeared in lists of the injured published by the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, and New York American.
Police investigated the shooting after the disorder, according to the records gathered by the MCCH. A police blotter record of Captain Mulholland’s investigation identified the detectives as responsible for shooting Dondoro, specifying that Campo had shot twice at Thompson and his partner Detective Beckler had shot three times, as well as twice in the air, a warning to stop that was a common police practice. One of the bullets struck Thompson in the chest, killing him. The blotter also recorded Captain Mulholland’s conclusion that Campo sustained his injury “in proper performance of police duty and no negligence on the part of the aforesaid detective contributed thereto." Campo and Becker also appear not to have been disciplined or charged for killing Thompson. Asked in reference to the killing of Thompson and other Black men killed during the disorder in a hearing of the MCCH, “Has anyone been arrested, charged with using deadly weapons with which these men were killed?", Captain Rothengast replied, "Some of the detectives were exonerated."
Although the New York World-Telegram story reported Thompson as saying at the hospital that “he was hungry," “that others were stealing, anyway,” and that he was “long out of work,” there was no record of an admission in the report of the police investigation. James Tartar, an investigator for the MCCH, did interview Thompson’s aunt, Sarah Rhue, on April 20. She reported hearing from Thompson’s landlady that he had brought home canned goods during the disorder, with the implication that he had been looting prior to the shooting. However, she also reported that he worked at a barber’s shop, contradicting the statement that he was out of work in the admission reported in the New York World-Telegram.
The police records and newspaper for some reason all mistakenly identified the address of the grocery store as 2365 8th Avenue. However, a large bank building was at that address with no other businesses. The A & P grocery store was included in the MCCH business survey at 2364 8th Avenue and was visible in the Tax Department photograph of that address taken between 1939 and 1941. In addition, the NYPD crime scene photograph, taken soon enough after the shooting to show the damage to the store and debris still on the street, showed a distinctive raised stoop entrance to the upstairs apartments that was also visible in the Tax Department photograph of 2364 8th Avenue. -
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2022-11-09T23:43:21+00:00
The public hearing on March 30
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2024-01-29T23:36:36+00:00
There is no reliable record of what was said in the public hearing. A transcript of the hearings was recorded but it did not consistently identify who asked questions of witnesses or the reactions of the audience (nor the recess taken for lunch on March 30). Arthur Garfield Hays, who chaired the hearing, considered them a “poor report." By the same token, newspaper stories on the hearing varied widely in their emphases and detail. Reporters also appeared to have frequently misattributed comments made during the hearing. None of the newspaper stories reported testimony about events after disorder broke out on 125th Street or events beyond 125th Street described by witnesses.
Unsurprisingly, Harlem’s two Black newspapers provided the most extensive accounts of the hearing. The New York Age published the most detailed story, summarizing the testimony of all but two witnesses — Russell Hobbs and Inspector Di Martini (it did offer details of the shooting of Lloyd Hobbs elsewhere in the story). The New York Amsterdam News took a different approach, providing a summary of what it judged to be the key information: that Patrolman Donahue chose to release Rivera out of sight of those in the store; that the leaflets distributed by the Young Liberators and Communist Party did not appear until two hours after the disorder began; and that Rivera was the boy grabbed in the store. Only three other newspapers highlighted several of those issues: the New York Age, without giving Donahue’s testimony the same significance; and the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune, without attention to the identification of Rivera. Other newspapers emphasized only one of those topics.
In the largest group of newspapers, it was Patrolman Donahue’s decision to release Rivera out the rear exit and so out of sight of those in the store which was the focus. While the Home News, New York World-Telegram, Times Union, and New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Associated Negro Press reported Donahue had admitted that was a mistake, the transcript did not record such a statement. Instead, it was Edward Kuntz, one of the ILD lawyers in the audience, who offered that assessment while questioning the officer. After Donahue testified that crowds on 125th Street caused him to take Rivera into the store, Kuntz commented, “If you had let the boy go at that time there would not have been any excitement.” Rather than Donahue or Kuntz, it was unnamed “witnesses” to whom the New York Times and Afro-American attributed evidence that had there been “no mystery” about what happened to Rivera, there would have been no rioting. Both those stories, and the New York Amsterdam News, were the only accounts that also reported Inspector Di Martini had testified “he would have released the boy where all could see.” Again, that statement is not in the transcript. Instead, it records that Di Martini said, “The policeman who was there did not take those people into his confidence. I am of the opinion that the people did see this boy led from the store.” As Hays questioned Donahue, both ILD lawyers, Tauber and Kuntz, and James Ford, the head of the CP in Harlem, all interjected with questions of their own, likely leading some of those listening to confuse who was speaking and what was being said. As the MCCH's stenographer would have sat at the front of the courtroom, it was likely the reporters who were mistaken. It is striking given how those eight newspapers interpreted Donahue’s testimony that the New York Herald Tribune and New York Age reported Donahue’s testimony without mentioning its implications — and that the Daily News, Daily Mirror, and Daily Worker did not include it at all.
Testimony about the leaflets distributed by the Young Liberators and Communist Party were the focus of stories in the New York Herald Tribune, Daily News, and New York Age. That evidence provided the headline in the New York Herald Tribune: “Reds' Handbills Are Cleared As 'Chief Cause' of Harlem Riot - Came Out Two Hours After Peak of Fighting, Mayor's Board Learns at Outset.” The story did not identify the source of that testimony (Louise Thompson); it simply reported that “the committee learned” that information. The story also somewhat misleadingly described the source of the leaflets as the concern of “most of the hearing.” (The testimony of the leaders of the YL and CP constituted eleven of the fifty-one pages of testimony; in addition, several other witnesses — Battle, Cole, and Thompson — were briefly asked about the pamphlets. When Di Martini mentioned them, Hays responded by saying they were not distributed until after disorder, referencing Thompson's earlier testimony.) The Daily News, in a story under the byline of their crime reporter Grace Robinson, omitted the testimony about the time the leaflets appeared that became central to the MCCH’s narrative of events, instead continuing to cast them as “having brought the riot into being” and focusing on who was responsible for them. That story, which appeared in early editions, was headlined “Blank Drawn at Probe of Harlem Riot,” focusing on Taylor’s statement that “somebody upstairs” at the YL’s office had composed and distributed the leaflet while he was seeking information on what had happened to Rivera. The reporter characterized Taylor as having “neatly shrugged off” “blame for the riot.” (In later editions the headline was changed to “Harlem Riot Takes Its Fourth Victim” and the story was revised to not only lead with Hobbs’ death but to highlight an exchange between Hays and Di Martini about whether the police should put out leaflets of their own in the future, the Inspector’s testimony about the hearse that arrived at the rear of Kress’ store and other elements of Taylor’s testimony with only a passing mention of the pamphlets.) The New York Age also reported only that the testimony confirmed that the groups were the source of the pamphlets; it made no mention of the evidence that they were distributed too late to have triggered the disorder. Instead, the New York Age pointed to Louise Thompson’s testimony that the first window was broken in the Kress store before any speech was made as having “refuted” “reports that the Communists had taken the first steps in starting the actual violence.”
Seven additional newspapers mentioned the pamphlets without making them a focus. The New York Times included a subheading “Source of Pamphlet Sought” that drew attention to Tauber’s testimony that he did not know who printed the pamphlet. The story went on to note that “testimony” “indicated” that the pamphlets did not reach the street until after the disorder started, in the process noting that there had been two pamphlets, from the YL and CP, the only story to note that detail. Taylor’s testimony that the YL produced the leaflets was also reported by the New York American, without the detail that he did not know by who, and the Afro-American, which included his statement that it been “somebody upstairs.” Neither newspaper mentioned the time the pamphlets were distributed. It was Ford’s testimony about the second pamphlet, produced by the CP, that was reported in the Home News and in the Chicago Defender and Associated Negro Press stories. Those stories mentioned the time the pamphlets were distributed; they did not make clear that Ford was referring to the second and later of the two pamphlets nor report Taylor’s testimony. Unsurprisingly, the Daily Worker also noted testimony that the leaflets were distributed too late to have caused the disorder, attributing that evidence to "witnesses, including some of the police."
The stories in the New York World-Telegram, Times Union, and New York Post that made no mention of the pamphlets reported only testimony from the morning session of the hearings, suggesting that those reporters had left when the hearings recessed for lunch. The Daily Mirror reporter may have thought the hearing ended at the recess, as the paper’s story mistakenly claimed that “the inquiry into the origin of 5,000 incendiary pamphlets advocating Revenge for the murder of Martyr Rivera, which, distributed to milling pedestrians in 125th St., aroused them to their riot frenzy,” had been delayed to the next hearing, which it reported would be on Monday instead of the next Saturday.
Anti-Communist Hearst newspapers the New York Evening Journal, New York American and Daily Mirror that might have been expected to highlight testimony about the pamphlets circulated by radical groups chose to instead focus on clashes between lawyers affiliated with the Communist Party and witnesses and members of the MCCH. They likely did so because the testimony on the leaflets relieved the CP of blame for starting the disorder, as those publications had charged. The New York Post, which rejected efforts to blame CP for the disorder, also focused on those clashes. Other papers mentioned instances of conflict without focusing attention on them; for eg, the Daily News noted that the hearings “developed at times into a field day for Communist exponents and cop-baiting attorneys for the International Labor Defense.” There was no mention of such incidents in the New York World-Telegram and Times Union.
The most widely reported exchange involved ADA Kaminsky, the third witness to testify, and ILD lawyers. It was the focus of the New York Evening Journal and New York Post stories and their headlines, and mentioned with details in the New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York Age, and New York Amsterdam News, and the Daily Worker, and in passing in the Chicago Defender. The New York Evening Journal led with the “verbal clash,” but described only Tauber demanding to question the ADA and him responding "I prefer not to be a party to a field day by irresponsible persons." The story also mentioned Tauber’s claim that police had raided the offices of several organizations affiliated with the CP after the disorder, targeting those groups because of their political views — hence the story’s headline: “RIOT TERROR CHARGED TO POLICE.” Kaminsky’s response to Tauber’s effort to question him and the charges made by Tauber were also reported by the New York Post, which extended the exchange to include protests by the ILD lawyers and an exchange between Hays and Kaminsky: “'I don't think you ought to call these men irresponsible because their views are different from yours,' Mr. Hays told Mr. Kaminsky, who shrugged and said: 'That's your viewpoint.'” The Daily Worker reported Kaminsky's statement and the same retort from Hays without a further response from Kaminsky. The Home News story included the same exchange, while the New York Amsterdam News included elements of it, Hays “chiding” Kaminsky without a response from the ADA. The elements in those exchanges appeared differently in the transcript. Before Tauber sought to question the ADA, Hays asked Kaminsky about whether those indicted before the DA’s grand jury had been charged “for their political views?” Kaminsky responded, “I am quite sure that the grand jury would not indict people for their political views.” When Tauber asked to question Kaminsky, Hays simply said, “I think not,” before Kaminsky declared “I refuse to be a party to a field day by irresponsible persons. So far this has been simply an occasion for police baiting.” When Tauber and Minor raised the raids, Hays asked Kaminsky if he knew anything about them, which he said he did not. He then sat by while Hays asked the ILD lawyers about their allegations, eventually asking to be excused as he was not a witness . The story in the New York Herald Tribune reported it was an audience member who called out “that’s your viewpoint,” not in response to Hays, but after Kaminsky claimed the ILD was using the hearing for "police-baiting.” In that narrative, Hays refused to allow Tauber to question Kaminsky before the ADA made his remark about irresponsible people. Similarly, no exchange between Hays and Kaminsky featured in the New York Age's account. Like the New York Herald Tribune and Daily Worker, it included the audience reaction, applause for the lawyers’ protests and hissing when the ADA left the stand. Kaminsky’s response to Tauber was mentioned in the New York Times, which added that he accused Tauber of “police baiting,” and that Hays refused to allow the questioning on the grounds that the lawyers would be representing men prosecuted by the DA. (The New York World-Telegram and Times Union mentioned Kaminsky’s evidence without reference to the clash.)
If the garbled reporting and transcription of this exchange might be explained by the difficulty of discerning what was being said when people shouted at and over each other, those circumstances do not explain the complete absence from the transcript of another clash reported by several newspapers. In that case, the Home News and the Chicago Defender and Associated Negro Press reported that when Battle, a Black police lieutenant, was recalled to testify for a second time in the afternoon, Charles Romney questioned him until stopped by Schieffelin declaring “there would be no more 'police baiting.'” The passage was identical in all three stories; the stories in the Black newspapers were published after the Home News story, so may have taken the text from that story. However, Bessye J. Bearden, credited as the author of the Chicago Defender story, worked as a New York correspondent for the paper, so could have been in the courtroom.
The police officer who was recalled to the stand in the afternoon in the transcript was Captain Rothengast, a white officer; after Hays asked him about the circumstances in which police shot Lloyd Hobbs, his testimony was interrupted so that Russell Hobbs, Lloyd’s younger brother could testify. When Rothengast returned to the stand, Romney was one of those who questioned him. Later, when someone questioning Rothengast complained that the officers who had killed people during the disorder had “gone free,” Hays interjected to say, “We are not here to investigate the police.” The New York Times and New York American identified the subject of that “rebuke” as Minor not Romney; the New York Times, which attributed the statement to Schieffelin not Hays, described what Minor said as police baiting, while the New York American described it as “as similar rebuke” to an earlier accusation of police baiting (which could refer to Kaminsky’s statement, as there was no intervention in Rivera’s testimony, which is when the story said it took place). The New York Herald Tribune reported that Hays said “he would have no police baiting at the hearing” during Donahue’s testimony; there was no intervention by him in the transcript of that testimony other than offering people the opportunity to ask questions. While Rothengast was a white officer, and Battle a Black officer, it does appear that these stories misreported the name of the officer testifying during this clash. The Daily Mirror reported another exchange during Rothengast’s testimony as “another highlight” of the hearing. The story described Schieffelin warning Tauber, one of the ILD lawyers, to treat witnesses with politeness. That statement did appear in the transcript, without a clear identification of who said it, and addressed to “Mr Allen,” a name that otherwise did not appear in the transcript.
Reactions from the audience likely contributed to focusing attention on those incidents. Newspaper stories portrayed those reactions in different, somewhat contradictory terms. The New York Amsterdam News and New York Age described a tense crowd that on occasion made their feelings known. Those outbursts came at the end of the day according to the New York Amsterdam News: “The undercurrent of the antagonism against the police, noticeable throughout the day in the audience, surged to its height during Rothengast's stay on the stand, culminating in numerous audible taunts and cat-calls just before the hearing ended for the day.” Such outbursts were more frequent in the New York Age’s account and tied to the actions of the ILD lawyers and their supporters on which the Hearst newspapers focused: “The hearing itself was characterized by an air of unrest and incipient disorder on the part of the crowd which was greatly augmented by the presence and active participation in the proceedings of numerous lawyers representing various 'left wing' organizations. A large part, if not the entire crowd of spectators also exhibited definite 'radical' leanings and frequently interrupted the hearing with their audible comments and criticism.” The Daily News and New York Evening Journal, portrayed the audience in similar but less threatening terms as “restless and sometimes irritable” and having “stirred uneasily” when the ILD lawyers questioned witnesses. By contrast, the New York World-Telegram and Home News highlighted outbursts of laughter as illustrating that the audience was “interested and even jovial” and “good-natured,” portrayals that conjured racist stereotypes.
Only Harlem’s Black newspapers focused attention on the identification of Rivera as the boy who had been arrested and released in the Kress store. That topic was mentioned in only three white newspapers, the New York Post, Home News, and Daily Worker. Both reported only Battle’s testimony that he had no evidence Rivera was not the boy; neither mentioned Cole’s testimony affirmatively identifying Rivera (which was reported only in the New York Age and New York Amsterdam News). In contrast, neither the New York Age nor New York Amsterdam News mentioned Battle’s testimony on the boy’s identity. Instead, the New York Age presented Cole’s testimony as “one of the most important revelations of the day’s testimony.” Rather than either man’s testimony, the New York Amsterdam News highlighted the testimony of Rivera himself and “the failure of any interested person to accept the committee's invitation to present evidence to the effect that another youth was the real victim.” The Daily Worker more generally noted that, "Throughout the hearing, the Mayor's Committee sought to dispose of rumors, still persisting in Harlem, that the Rivera boy had been substituted by the police for the real victim."
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2022-11-11T22:47:08+00:00
Hays' "rough draft" of the subcommittee report
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2023-12-17T19:01:36+00:00
The ”rough draft” Hays wrote shaped the testimony in the public hearings into a narrative. Villard would reorganize that material, create a section devoted to “The Conduct of Police,” and add interpretations and judgements of the events that Hays had described.
Hays' narrative focused on events in the Kress store and on 125th Street and the killing of Lloyd Hobbs, making only passing mention of the rest of the disorder. He began with Hurley and the store detective grabbing Lino Rivera, included Patrolman Donahue and Officer Eldridge becoming involved and police called to the store being unable to convince shoppers no harm had come to Rivera, and ended with the arrest of speakers on 125th Street and the distribution of leaflets by groups affiliated with the Communist Party after the disorder had begun. That narrative followed the testimony the MCCH had heard with only a handful of minor discrepancies. Hays omitted how Hurley's intention to charge Rivera with assault for biting him led to Eldridge leaving and Donahue having to make the decision about how to release the boy. Omitted also was the later arrest of the three picketers. Hays' narrative also mistakenly had the window in the Kress store broken after Daniel Miller was arrested, not as causing the arrest.
Hays followed that narrative with an extended discussion of what happened to Lloyd Hobbs that summarized the accounts offered by Russell Hobbs, the eyewitnesses, and Patrolman McInerney and his partner before offering some assessment of each in turn. The report highlighted that the items Hobbs had allegedly stolen were not seen until McInerney brought them to the DA's office on April 1st; it did not mention the additional week before the patrolman turned them into the property clerk. Hays also pointed out that the police testimony was "wholly out of line with the testimony of many other witnesses and with the character and standing of Lloyd Hobbs."
Events beyond 125th Street received only brief and general mention. “The disturbance spread along 125th Street and in nearby avenues. Windows were broken and in many cases stores were looted. There were many arrests. The police were out in great number. Their effort was to keep crowds from gathering. Radio patrol cars sped from place to place. The police arrested about a dozen men who were charged with larceny, burglary and other crimes.” At the end of the report, Hays returned to those events to dismiss the claim that crowds had focused on stores owned by Jewish merchants. Instead, “such looting as there was was indiscriminate and seemed to have been indulged in chiefly by the hoodlum element.” (Hays characterized the hoodlums as "not the kind of people who would be influenced by such leaflets" as those distributed by Communists but who "may have used the rumors and leaflets as an excuse.") Most of the crowd that Hays put at “only a few thousand people” were “orderly.” He also asserted that “There was no element of a race riot involved in any way shape or manner, a fact which is greatly to the credit of both our colored and white citizens.”
In characterizing the events the disorder spread beyond 125th Street in that way, Hays was following police testimony in the hearings. Only Captain Rothengast used the term hoodlums to describe participants. Both he and Inspector Di Martini claimed the number of participants was small, smaller in fact than Hays reported, a few hundred rather than a few thousand. Di Martini mentioned they included the unemployed. Hays did not identify the participants as mostly young, aged in their late teens and early twenties, as both Rothengast and Di Martini did. It was Di Martini and Lieutenant Samuel Battle who described the looting as indiscriminate. Both Battle and Rothengast answered in the negative when asked if the events had been a race riot. Just what damage was done during the disorder was not addressed in the draft, leaving the impression that police largely maintained order. Nor was there any mention of assaults, injuries, or deaths. To the contrary, the assertion that the events were not a race riot implied that there had been no violence between Black and white New Yorkers during the disorder.
Hays enumerated seven topics raised by the narrative, which he called “a rather cursory statement of facts.” The identity of the boy in the store, which he concluded had been established as Rivera; that the Communist leaflets were false; that those leaflets were distributed too late to cause the disturbance; that Gordon had been mistreated by police after his arrest for trying to speak to the crowd; that Donahue was mistaken in his decision to release the boy out the back of the store, but “we do not feel he is to be condemned for this”; that police were concerned to “suppress any excitement” rather than providing information to the crowd; and that the “repressive treatment” of police had antagonized Harlem residents and contributed to causing the disorder. (He also criticized the Assistant District Attorney who appeared at a public hearing for being unwilling to testify.) The first and last of those topics, the boy's identity and the actions of police, had been introduced in the hearings by questions from the audience and their reaction to testimony rather than being on the MCCH's program. Police officers failing to provide crowds with the information they sought was primarily the testimony of Louise Thompson, the only witness quoted in the report, and L. F. Cole, as was the conclusion that the leaflets appeared after the disorder had begun.
The remainder of the report described incidents of police brutality as examples of the behavior that had antagonized the community, covering the cases of Thomas Aikens, Edward Laurie, and Robert Patterson. The "general condition" that Hays concluded was illustrated by police actions during and around the disorder was the view asserted by the audience at the hearings: "The rights of Negroes are not respected by police, nor is the law generally observed in police dealings with Negroes." The final section offered two recommendations, for a committee and that the district attorney should take action against police officers who allegedly broke the law.