This page was created by Anonymous.

This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

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

"'Red Scare' Aims To Hide Negro Misery," Daily Worker, March 23, 1935, 1.

This page has tags:

Contents of this tag:

This page is referenced by:

Charles Saunders arrested Around 2 AM, as Detective Jeremiah Duross of the 6th Division drove a police car on 7th Avenue, the sound of breaking glass drew his attention to a group of people in front of Ralph Sirico's shoe repair store at 1985 7th Avenue, according to a Probation Department investigation report. The noise was not caused by the store windows being smashed; the superintendent of the apartments above 1985 7th Avenue, Mr C. T. Berkeley, reported two men had done that earlier, between 11.30 PM and midnight. As the detective pulled his car up next to the store, the crowd in front of it scattered. He leapt out of the car and claimed he saw Charles Saunders, a twenty-four-year-old Black unemployed elevator operator jump out of the store window and run down the street. Duross gave chase and arrested Saunders, who he claimed had been drinking and had a fresh cut on his hand, which he implied had resulted from breaking glass in the window.

Saunders offered a different account than Duross, according to the Probation Department investigation report. He lived nearby, in a furnished room at 1967 7th Avenue a block south of the store, with his wife Anna Gregory. Around midnight, Saunders left home to buy cigarettes. Walking toward a crowd in front of Sirico's store, he saw shoes and hats being thrown through the broken window on to the street, where people in the crowd were picking them up. Saunders claimed he followed the lead of those around him, and picked up a pair of shoes, cutting his hand on glass on the street in the process, and headed home. At that point Duross arrested him. Saunders denied having been drinking; the detective said Saunders did not have a pair of shoes in his hands when arrested.

In fact, it seems that Duross did not find anything from the store in Saunders' possession, as none of stolen goods were recovered, according to the Probation Department investigation report. Nonetheless, Saunders appears to have been charged with taking all the goods that the report recorded Sirico said had been stolen: "18 or 20 hats which had been cleaned and blocked by him; about 25 pair of shoes which he had repaired; 5 or 6 pairs of unfinished shoes; one dozen leather soles; two and a half dozen rubber heels and a quantity of polish and shoe laces," with a total value he estimated as $66.75. While the District Attorney's case file is missing, the Probation Department investigation report summarizes the indictment against Saunders as accusing him of taking merchandise worth $66.95. The two newspaper reports of the case are less specific, with both the Home News and Daily Worker reporting the charge as stealing "several pairs of shoes."

Saunders is included in the lists of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, at which time Magistrate Renaud held him on $1000 bail to reappear, an outcome recorded in the docket book and reported only in the Home News. When Saunders was brought back to the court on March 22, detectives presented bench warrants indicating that the District Attorney had already filed an indictment against him. Magistrate Renaud consequently dismissed the charges against Saunders so the detectives could rearrest him, as happened with two other men, James Hughes and Isaac Daniels, an appearance reported in the New York Post. With the District Attorney's file missing, the date the grand jury indicted Saunders is unknown; it would have been several days prior to April 1, when Saunders appeared in the Court of General Sessions to plead guilty to petit larceny. That plea bargain is at odds with the statement in the report that none of the stolen property had been recovered. A district attorney generally offered it to those indicted for burglary after the disorder found with stolen goods in their possession; those found with nothing in their possession, as the Probation Department investigation report implied Saunders was, generally pled guilty to unlawful entry.

Immediately prior to Saunders appearing for sentencing in the Court of General Sessions on April 12, the Probation Department notified the judge of a letter from the Savannah Juvenile Court stating that Saunders' older sister Vable Greatt had offered to provide a home for him in Savannah, Georgia, and the Juvenile Court Probation Department would assist in his supervision, should the judge place him on probation. After a delay, presumably to confirm those arrangements, Judge Nott gave Saunders a suspended sentence and placed him on "indefinite" probation on the condition he go to Savannah (the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the suspended sentence, not the probation). Of the nine other men sentenced in the Court of General Sessions, only Arnold Ford was also placed on probation. Both men remained under supervision for the maximum period of three years, until 1938.

Saunders told a Probation officer that he had been born in Dublin, Georgia, the youngest of six children. His mother died when he was five years of age, and around that time he and his family moved to Savannah. After leaving school at age thirteen, Saunders did odd jobs and worked with his father, a carpenter. In 1929, his father remarried, and Saunders decided to go to New York City, where his brother Albert and sister Lola lived. After eighteen months living with Albert at 215 Edgecombe Avenue and working as a porter in a barber's shop at West 135th Street and 7th Avenue, ill-health forced him to return to live with his sister in Savannah for six months. Returning to New York City in 1931, Saunders lived with an aunt at 162 West 143rd Street until May 1933, when he met and then moved in with Anna Gregory. The Probation Department investigation report described her as "separated from her husband"; a letter in the file from the Brooklyn Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, to who the Family Court had referred Gregory in 1922, said her husband had abandoned her, leaving the state with funds provided by his mother. Saunders and Gregory were "known as man and wife," the Probation officer reported. In the fluid marriage patterns still practiced in working-class communities such informal relationships were not uncommon but the Probation Department did not recognize them, instead describing Gregory as Saunders' "mistress" and "sweetheart." Dr Charles Thompson of the Court's Psychiatric Clinic also saw a problem in Gregory being ten years older that Saunders, labeling him as immature for looking to her "for direction." In response to questions by a Probation officer, Gregory described Saunders as a good provider and their life as "harmonious."

Gregory worked as a laundress, Saunders in a barber's shop at 142nd Street and 7th Avenue, then part-time for a moving company based at 143rd Street and 7th Avenue, and beginning in September 1934 as an elevator operator at 385 Edgecombe Ave. After living for two years at 268 West 146th Street, the couple moved to 1967 7th Avenue in December 1934. Two months later Saunders lost his job after a dispute with the new building superintendent; the management company fired the superintendent soon after, and told a Probation officer that they saw him not Saunders as at fault. That fitted with the opinions of Saunders' employers and co-workers, which the Probation officer summarized as considering him honest, industrious and dependable; he and Gregory were similarly "well regarded" by their neighbors. The Probation Department investigation report followed Dr Thompson's examination report in attributing his alleged looting to "mob spirit." Thompson explained that concept as being "in company with several others under the influence of prejudice and aggressiveness," in the case of events in Harlem against "a background of racial antagonism, occasioned largely by the present lack of employment." Saunders' sister Vable Greatt explained his alleged looting, according to a letter from the Savannah Juvenile Court, as probably a result of him becoming "pretty well discouraged in his search for work," a "spiritual condition [that] caused him to fall to the temptation to steal."

While a good reputation and steady employment would have helped make Saunders a candidate for probation, Judge Nott's decision appears to have been largely a response to an offer from his sister and Savannah Juvenile Court Probation Department to supervise him. His sister Vable followed through on that offer, sending funds for Saunders' railway fare to Savannah; the Juvenile Court Probation Department did not do their part. Saunders' Probation officer's letters to his Georgia colleagues went unanswered for six months. During this time his only news of Saunders were reports he mailed weekly, using a form and stamps sent to him by the department. Soon after Saunders arrived in Savannah his sister became very sick, causing him to move in with his brother. In perfunctory answers to the questions on the form, he reported being unemployed, and involved in no education or social activities other than attending weekly services at a Protestant church.

As an alternative to the Juvenile Court, the Probation Department secured the help of the Savannah Family Welfare Society. Their worker's investigation in February 1936 solicited a very different picture of Saunders' life in Savannah from his sister and sister-in-law than he provided in his reports. Both complained he "never stayed home at night," was "drunk most of the time" and had become "lazy and shiftless," not willing to "keep a job when given one." The caseworker did not interview Saunders himself. The Probation Department responded by writing directly to Saunders, warning that his behavior was in violation of the terms of his probation, and the judge could take "disciplinary action" against him unless he improved his conduct and made "diligent efforts to obtain employment." They also requested the Savannah Family Welfare Society let Saunders report to them in person. In August 1936, Mrs Mamie Belcher, a caseworker, began countersigning Saunders' reports. The Society reported "no further complaints" about his behavior, which the Probation Department to unambiguously mean Saunders had changed his behavior. In June 1936, Saunders relocated to live again with his sister Vable. It took six more months before he found work, at a box manufacturing company. Nothing else changed in his answers on the report form until after a lapse in reporting in May 1937, when he wrote that he had moved to live with his sister Lois, who had returned from New York City. Only in Saunders' Discharge from Probation did the Probation officer mention that this change in circumstances came after his sister Vable was killed in a car accident. By the end of 1937 Saunders had moved back in with his brother and begun working irregularly as a stevedore.

Throughout his time in Savannah Saunders appears to have remained in contact with Anna Gregory. She came to the Probation Department at the end of 1935 concerned that he had been warned that his sentence could be reviewed if he failed to report regularly and seeking to have him return to the city. When Gregory applied for Home Relief, she described Saunders as her husband, prompting the Emergency Relief Bureau to contact the Probation Department in May 1937, who in turn sought information from Saunders about whether the couple had formally married. In the Discharge from Probation, the Probation officer described Saunders as "discontented as he missed New York, and Mrs Gregory, his mistress," information apparently passed on by the Savannah Welfare Society. Their caseworker also reported in January 1938 that Saunders' sister Lois "was anxious to have Charles return with her to New York." The Probation Department wrote to the Society, to Saunders and to his brother immediately before the end of his probation in April 1938 urging that "his best interests will be served" by remaining in Savannah. They also asked Saunders to advise the department of his plans. He did not reply. There is no evidence of what Saunders chose to do.
Ralph Sirico's shoe repair shop looted Between 11.30 PM and midnight, the superintendent of the apartments above 1985 7th Avenue, Mr C. T. Berkeley, reported two men smashed the window of the shoe repair shop in the building, operated by Ralph Sirico, a forty-one-year-old Italian immigrant who lived at 293 East 155th Street in the Bronx, according to a Probation Department investigation report. The period from roughly 11.30 PM to 12.30 AM saw incidents of violence the length of 7th Avenue below 125th Street, with Alice Gordon allegedly assaulted and Mario Pravia's candy store looted south of Sirico's store, and Sarah Refkin's delicatessan looted, stones thrown at Fred Campbell's car and other vehicles, and James Pringle arrested for allegedly urging crowds to attack police in the blocks to the north. That only windows were broken in Sirico's shop appears to be due to the presence of Berkeley, given that he got close enough that he thought he could identify the men if he saw them again. He apparently did not stay at the store. Around 2 AM, as Detective Jeremiah Duross of the 6th Division drove a police car on 7th Avenue, the sound of breaking glass drew his attention to a group of people in front of the shoe repair store. As the detective pulled his car up next to the store, the crowd in front of it scattered. He leapt out of the car and claimed he saw Charles Saunders, a twenty-four-year-old Black unemployed elevator operator jump out of the store window and run down the street. Duross gave chase and arrested Saunders, who he claimed had been drinking and had a fresh cut on his hand, which he implied had resulted from breaking glass in the window. Although there are fewer incidents of disorder reported on 7th Avenue by the time of Saunders' arrest, a crowd had looted Jack Garmise's cigar store four blocks to the south only a few minutes earlier, at an intersection where police were stationed.

Saunders offered a different account than Duross, according to the Probation Department investigation report. He lived nearby, in a furnished room at 1967 7th Avenue a block south of the store, with Anna Gregory. Around midnight, Saunders left home to buy cigarettes. Walking toward a crowd in front of Sirico's store, he saw shoes and hats being thrown through the broken window on to the street, where people in the crowd were picking them up. While there are few accounts of goods being thrown into the street, there are descriptions of merchandise spread over sidewalks and streets, suggesting that some of those who attacked goods destroyed or distributed goods in this manner, rather than taking them themselves. Saunders claimed he followed the lead of those around him, and picked up a pair of shoes, cutting his hand on glass on the street in the process, and headed home. At that point Duross arrested him. Saunders denied having been drinking; the detective said Saunders did not have a pair of shoes in his hands when arrested.

In fact, it seems that Duross did not find anything from the store in Saunders' possession, as none of stolen goods were recovered, according to the Probation Department investigation report. Nonetheless, Saunders appears to have been charged with taking all the goods that the report recorded Sirico said had been stolen: "18 or 20 hats which had been cleaned and blocked by him; about 25 pair of shoes which he had repaired; 5 or 6 pairs of unfinished shoes; one dozen leather soles; two and a half dozen rubber heels and a quantity of polish and shoe laces," with a total value he estimated as $66.75. While the District Attorney's case file is missing, the Probation Department investigation report summarizes the indictment against Saunders as accusing him of taking merchandise worth $66.75. The two newspaper reports of the case are less specific, with both the Home News and Daily Worker reporting the charge as stealing "several pairs of shoes."

Saunders is included in the lists of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. The Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book records his arraignment on March 20, at which time Magistrate Renaud held him on $1000 bail to reappear. When Saunders was brought back to the court on March 22, detectives presented bench warrants indicating that the District Attorney had already filed an indictment against him. Magistrate Renaud consequently dismissed the charges against Saunders so the detectives could rearrest him, an outcome only reported in the New York Post (the District Attorney's file is missing). On April 1, Saunders appeared in the Court of General Sessions to plead guilty to petit larceny. In other cases after the disorder in which defendants did not have goods in their possession when arrested a district attorney generally offered a plea bargain for a different charge, unlawful entry. He appeared for sentencing in the Court of General Sessions on April 12, and then again on April 30, when Judge Nott gave him a suspended sentence and placed him on "indefinite" probation on the condition he go to Savannah to live with his sister (the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the suspended sentence, not the probation). Saunders spent the maximum period of three years under supervision.

Sirico had insurance that paid the cost of replacing his store windows. The business was included in the MCCH Business survey in the second half of 1935, and Sirico was still operating the store when he registered for the draft in April 1942, giving his first name as Raffaele. He had arrived in New York City in 1919. Sirico appears likely to have been in business in Harlem by the time of the 1930 census, when the census enumerator recorded that he worked in a shop. At that time he lived at 293 East 155th Street in the Bronx, with his wife and four children aged between eight years and fifteen months.
Arthur Merritt arrested About 1.30 AM, Officer George Nelson of the 15th Precinct was “on duty” near Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store at 343 Lenox Avenue when he saw a group of about five people gathered around the store, he later told a Probation officer. As he watched, Arthur Merritt, a forty-two-year-old Black painter, allegedly broke the store window with a hammer. The group then climbed through the windows and took 126 pounds of butter, 90 dozen eggs, eight cartons of cigarettes, a ham and other food products, as well as $14 from the cash register. By the time Nelson got to the store, the group had run back out, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit; he told a Probation officer he arrested Merritt “a short distance away.” He found two cans of beans, a can of mile and a can of tuna in Merritt's possession, as well as a hammer. Those details of what was allegedly found on Merritt are not included in the affidavit, although that evidence is crucial to the charge made against him. Notes on the affidavit do record the total stock lost, with calculations that seem to be an effort to establish the value of that stock.

Merritt denied looting the store or participating in the disorder, telling a Probation officer he was on his way home after visiting his sister, Pauline. She lived at 108 West 130th Street; he lived at 134 West 121st Street. Both address were between 7th and Lenox Avenues, so his route home could have taken him down Lenox Avenue. He would been walking through the blocks north of 125th street that saw the most extensive reported looting of the disorder, much of which occurred around the time Nelson arrested him. As Merritt was the only one of the group Officer Nelson claimed he saw that was arrested, it is likely he was on his own or with another officer. That Nelson saw the attack on the store without being able to prevent it suggests he was some distance away, most likely on one of the corners of Lenox Avenue and West 127th Street, allowing some possibility that he misidentified Merritt among the crowds milling about.

Arthur Merritt appeared in the Harlem Magistrate’s Court on March 20. He appears in the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. His criminal record showed an arrest for grand larceny in 1920, which resulted in a suspended sentence, so he was held without bail. Returned to the court on March 22, he was held for the grand jury, an appearance reported in the Daily Worker, New York Daily News, and New York Evening Journal. After being indicted on April 9, he agreed to plead guilty to Petit Larceny on April 12. Ten days later, Judge James Garrett Wallace sentenced him to three months in the workhouse, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter as well as the Probation Department case file.

Born in New Jersey, Merritt had lived in Harlem for fifteen years, likely arriving after his discharge from the US Army in 1919. His Probation Department case file provides fragmentary information on his life. He had married twenty-one-year-old Blanche Morris two months before arriving in the city, in Newport News, Virginia, where he was stationed. Blanche had a six-year-old son, Charles. At the beginning of 1920, Merritt started work as a porter for Weingarten Bros., at 151 West 30th Street, living at 434 Lenox Avenue. After nine months he lost that job after being caught stealing dresses from his employers; twenty-four dresses worth $700 were found in a trunk in his apartment, but he allegedly stole clothing worth $2000. No other details of the circumstances are recorded by the Probation officer, but Merritt and his wife pled guilty to Petit Larceny and received a suspended sentence, a lenient punishment for a theft of that scale. The Probation Investigation records May 1922 as the date of arrest, but based on the criminal record that appears to be the date the couple were discharged from Probation. There is no mention that they had jobs during those years, but their first daughter was born in 1922.

Around 1923, Merritt began working as a painter, and as a janitor at 1027 Avenue St John in the Bronx until 1926, living in the building, according to the Probation Department case file. However, the family appears in the 1925 New York State census living at 906 Intervale Avenue, in a large household that now included three children, and also Arthur's sister and brother-in-law, and two of Blanche's brothers, aged nineteen and twenty years. After the janitorial job ended, Merritt, his wife and children relocated first to 200 West 128th Street, and then to 109 West 144th Street, where a census enumerator found them in 1930.

Later in 1930, Arthur and Blanche separated, a result of his heavy drinking, according to the Probation Department investigation. For three years, the three children lived with Merritt, in apartments at 2170 7th Avenue for two years and then 34 West 132nd Street. He worked sporadically as a painter for a contractor based at 160 East 116th Street. However, in 1932 he was discharged as they had insufficient work for him. Several months later Merritt found work for a real estate agent, but it was seasonal. By the beginning of 1934 he was evicted from his apartment after falling two months behind in the rent, and became unable to support his children. Found to be neglected children, they were put in their mother's care, after which Merritt appears to have had limited contact with them and did not contribute to their support. He moved to a furnished room at 112 West 113th Street, leaving after a year for the room at 134 West 121st where he lived at the time of the disorder. Merritt remained in Harlem, and estranged from his family, after the disorder. When he registered for the draft, he gave his sister's address as his home, and an employer in the Bronx.
Arthur Davis arrested Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Arthur Davis, a thirty-six-year-old Black resident of 42 West 126th Street. Davis appeared in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter also recorded the charge against Davis as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot." The Daily Worker more precisely described his alleged offense as "stealing groceries," although that statement may have reflected the story being told by the paper, that the disorder had been an "upsurge of starving Negro workers," rather than details given when Davis was sentenced. There is no complainant listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, or named in any of the newspaper stories about Davis' court appearances, so the location he allegedly looted is unknown.

Davis was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20 with two other individuals arrested by Detective Phillips, Elizabeth Tai and Herbert Hunter, also charged with burglary, perhaps arrested at the same time and place. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips name and precinct; the story in the Daily Worker identified him as a detective. Both the docket book and 28th Precinct Police Blotter gave Davis' age as thirty-six years; both lists and all three newspaper stories gave his age as thirty-two-years.

When Davis appeared in court again, on March 22, Magistrate Renaud convicted and sentenced him. While the docket book records no change in the charge against Davis, stories in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal reported he had been convicted of disorderly conduct, not burglary, as had Tai and Hunter. In Tai's case, the docket book does record that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct. Only that lesser offense could have been dealt with in the Magistrates Court rather than as a misdemeanor in the Court of Special Sessions or a felony in the grand jury and Court of General Sessions. Had the prosecutor presented evidence Davis had stolen merchandise he would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; the charge of disorderly conduct suggests he may have allegedly broken store windows without taking anything.

Renaud sentenced Davis to pay a fine of $25 or serve five days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter and stories in the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker record his sentence as five days in the Workhouse, making it likely that Davis was unable to pay the fine.
Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store looted At about 10:00 PM, Sol Weit closed the grocery store at 343 Lenox Avenue that he co-owned with Isaac Popiel, according to a Probation Department investigation. About 1.30 AM, Officer George Nelson of the 15th Precinct was “on duty” nearby when he saw a group of about five people gathered around the store. Then Arthur Merritt, a forty-two-year-old Black painter, allegedly broke the store window with a hammer. The group then climbed through the windows and stole 126 pounds of butter, 90 dozen eggs, eight cartons of cigarettes, a ham and other food products, as well as $14 from the cash register. By the time Nelson got to the store, the group had run back out, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit; he told a Probation officer he arrested Merritt “a short distance away.” He found two cans of beans, a can of mile and a can of tuna in Merritt's possession, as well as a hammer. (The details of what was allegedly found on Merritt are not included in the affidavit; the Probation officer included them in the report of his investigation). Merritt denied looting the store or participating in the disorder, telling a Probation officer he was on his way home after visiting his sister, Pauline. She lived at 108 West 130th Street; he lived at 134 West 121st Street. Both address were between 7th and Lenox Avenues, so his route home could have taken him down Lenox Avenue.

Weit and Popiel’s store was in the area of Lenox Avenue north of 125th street that saw the most extensive reported looting of the disorder, most of which occurred around the time the store was looted. That was late enough in the disorder, and at least an hour and a half after widespread lotting began, that police were on the street, but not in sufficient numbers to protect stores or make arrests on a significant scale. As Merritt was the only one of the group Officer Nelson saw that was arrested, it is likely Nelson was on his own or with another officer. Weit lived in Harlem, on 5th Avenue between 118th and 119th streets, ten blocks south and east of store, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit, but apparently did not return to the store during the disorder.

Appearing in the Magistrate’s Court, Weit put the value of the stolen stock at $100. When he appeared before the grand jury three weeks later, he offered the more precise total of $126.02, according to the Probation Department investigation. Questioned by a Probation officer a week or so after that testimony he revised the total again, to $167.86. Unusually, neither the Magistrate’s Court affidavit nor the Probation Department investigation placed a value on the goods found on Merritt, but they were clearly a small fraction of that loss. Insurance paid $48.69 to replace three broken windows, according to the Probation Department investigation. Weit and Popiel are not among the storeowners identified as suing the city for failing to protect their business, so there is no indication if they received any award of damages. Nonetheless, the store remained in business. The MCCH business survey found a white-owned grocery store at the address in the second half of 1935, and the store is visible in the Tax Department photograph taken in 1939-1941. In 1942, Isaac Popiel identified himself as still the owner of the store in his draft registration, by which time he was living at 1047 Faile Street in the Bronx. Sometime soon after the disorder Weit also made the Bronx his home. A census enumerator found him at 1976 Vyse Avenue, which he said was also his address on April 1, 1935.

Arthur Merritt appeared in the Harlem Magistrate’s Court on March 20. He appears in the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. His criminal record showed an arrest for grand larceny in 1920, which resulted in a suspended sentence, so he was held without bail. Returned to the court on March 22, he was held for the grand jury, an appearance reported in the Daily Worker, New York Daily News, and New York Evening Journal. After being indicted on April 9, he agreed to plead guilty to Petit Larceny on April 12. Ten days later, Judge James Garrett Wallace sentenced him to three months in the workhouse, recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter as well as the Probation Department case file.
Amie Taylor arrested Officer Harmon of the 18th Division arrested Amie Taylor, a twenty-one-year-old Black butcher, near Mario Pravia's candy store at 1953 7th Avenue around 11.30 PM. Harmon and at least one other police officer, Detective Harry Wolf of the 28th Precinct, reported seeing Taylor throw a stone at the store window and take merchandise from the window display. Wolf appears as a witness on the Magistrates Court affidavit and an arresting officer with Harmon on Taylor's criminal record. Taylor was also not alone; "about 5 others" threw stones at the store and took merchandise at the same time, while Pravia and his wife watched from inside, but police managed to arrest only Taylor.

The New York Evening Journal identified a different officer as making the arrest, Deputy Chief Inspector John Ryan, in a vignette within the paper’s narrative of the disorder:
Deputy Chief Inspector John Ryan, in charge of all Manhattan detectives, figured in another incident in which police were forced to draw their revolvers, although no shot was fired. While speeding to the trouble zone, Ryan saw a group of men looting a store at 1952 Seventh ave. The detective chief, with his chauffeur, swung into action and attempted to round up the thieves. there was a terrific battle, but Ryan emerged from it with Amie Taylor, 21, as his prisoner.
No other sources support that account. The story's framing of the incident in relation to the force used by police does direct attention to the unremarked upon means by which police made arrests. The New York Evening Journal was one of several white newspapers that claimed that police showed restraint in responding to the disorder, and did not shoot at crowds until the after midnight, when looting became widespread. If police drew their revolvers but did not fire them in this "terrific battle," they likely used the gun butts as clubs, as they are in several photographs taken during the disorder.

Crowds had moved down 7th Avenue from West 125th Street around 10 PM. This event was the first this far south on the avenue. Taylor may have come from the opposite direction. He lived south of the store, at 1800 7th Avenue, next to Central Park, in an area home to Black, white and Spanish speaking residents. Taylor's first name caused confusion about his identity. In the 28th Precinct Police Blotter the name is "Annie," and he is identified as female, information likely responsible for Annie also being used in the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. While the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book identifies Taylor as male, the clerk recorded the name as Annie on his examination, and on the back of the Magistrates Court affidavit, where it is struck out and Amie written underneath.

When Taylor appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud remanded him to appear again on March 22. Reporters from the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker were in court when Taylor appeared again; the Daily Worker somehow misreported his name as Annie. Renaud sent Taylor to the grand jury, who on April 3 transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions. Two weeks later, on April 17, the judges acquitted Taylor, according to the Police Blotter. Given the low value of the what Taylor allegedly stole – a total of 54c – it would not have been surprising to see him receive a minor punishment; but to acquit him the judges would have had to find fault with the evidence against him provided by Officer Harmon and Detective Wolf. The sources are silent on what alternative account of events Taylor offered, but others arrested in the disorder claimed to have been bystanders mistakenly grabbed by police trying to pick offenders out of crowds.
Elizabeth Tai arrested Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Elizabeth Tai, a twenty-eight-year-old Black resident of 1654 3rd Avenue. Tai appeared in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter also recorded the charge against Tai as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot." The Daily Worker more precisely described her alleged offense as "stealing groceries," although that statement may have reflected the story being told by the paper, that the disorder had been an "upsurge of starving Negro workers," rather than details given when Tai appeared for sentencing. There is no complainant listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, or named in any of the newspaper stories about Tai's court appearances, so the location she allegedly looted is unknown.

Tai was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20 with two other individuals arrested by Detective Phillips, Arthur Davis and Herbert Hunter, also charged with burglary, perhaps arrested at the same time and place. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips name and precinct; the story in the Daily Worker identified him as a detective. Tai is the name recorded in the docket book; it is mistakenly recorded differently in the other sources: as Tae in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, as Pae in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal and as Cay in the Daily Worker.

When Tai appeared in court again, on March 22, Magistrate Renaud convicted and sentenced her. The docket book recorded that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct, the original charge crossed out, and stories in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal reported she had been convicted of disorderly conduct, not burglary, as had Davis and Hunter. Only that lesser offense could have been dealt with in the Magistrates Court rather than as a misdemeanor in the Court of Special Sessions or a felony in the grand jury and Court of General Sessions. Had the prosecutor presented evidence Tai had stolen merchandise she would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; the charge of disorderly conduct suggests she may have allegedly broken store windows without taking anything.

Renaud sentenced Tai to pay a fine of $25 or serve five days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, as was Davis. He gave Hunter a longer sentence of ten days without the alternative of a fine. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter and stories in the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker record her sentence as five days in the Workhouse, making it likely that Tai was unable to pay the fine.