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1. 1 2020-02-25T17:01:43+00:00 Anonymous Looting in the courts (60) Anonymous 10 plain 2021-04-24T17:57:05+00:00 Anonymous
2. 1 2020-02-25T16:52:05+00:00 Anonymous In the Court of General Sessions (15) Anonymous 9 plain 2021-04-19T21:10:58+00:00 Anonymous
3. 1 2020-02-25T16:51:47+00:00 Anonymous In the Grand Jury (46) Anonymous 5 plain 2021-04-05T20:41:09+00:00 Anonymous

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• 1 2020-10-22T01:25:04+00:00 Jack Garmise's cigar shop looted 10 plain 2021-06-05T17:06:47+00:00 Around 12.30 AM, Jack Garmise, a twenty-two-year-old white clerk locked the cigar store his father Emanuel owned at 1916 7th Avenue, in the Regent Theatre building, according to the Probation Department Investigation, and likely went across town to the family home at 1274 5th Avenue. Most businesses were already closed by that time; the cigar store may have remained open to cater to movie-goers leaving the theater. By the time Garmise left, crowds and disorder had been spreading from 125th Street ten blocks to the north for at least two to three hours, although may not yet have reached as far south as the store, which was near the corner of West 116th Street. Lyman Quarterman was shot while part of a crowd at 121st Street and 7th Avenue, five blocks north of the store, at 10.30 PM. Alice Gordon had allegedly been assaulted a block north at 11.20 PM, and a candy store looted a block further north at 11.45 PM. Around the time Garmise left, Fred Campbell drove up 7th Avenue, and reported attacks on stores around 121st Street, despite the presence of unusual numbers of police. He did not report noticing similar disorder around the Garmises’ store at 116th Street. However, Garmise’s route home was away from the growing disorder, to the southeast, so he would not have encountered crowds as he left the store.
  
  Both crowds and police arrived in the area of the cigar store not long after Garmise closed it. Store windows were broken on the opposite corner, and along West 116th Street to the east, and Giles Jackson was injured by flying glass in the area of the intersection. Around 1.45 AM the cigar store became a target. Patrolmen Kalsky and Holland of the 28th Precinct saw a group of people around the store, and then a milk can thrown through the plate glass windows. In the Magistrate Court affidavit, Kalsky alleged that he saw Thomas Jackson, a thirty-four-year-old Black driver throw the milkcan. Jackson denied thowing anything at the store, or being part of an attack on it, when question by a Probation officer. Instead, he claimed he had been walking along the street to visit a friend on West 116th Street when he had become caught in a crowd moving toward the store, and someone in the crowd had been pushed him through the smashed window. Throwing an object would have been more difficult for Jackson than most in the crowd; after an accident in 1930, his left arm had been amputated above the elbow. Kalsky also alleged he saw Jackson reach his hand through the smashed window and take merchandise from the display. Garmise reported pipes, clocks, watches, razors and other goods worth about $100 were stolen. Neither the affidavit nor the Probation Department Investigation specify what, if any, of that merchandise was found on Garmise. Kalsky told a Probation officer that as he approached, Jackson threw “some of the merchandise” back in the window. That phrasing suggests Jackson may not have had any merchandise on him when Kalsky arrested him, as does his later agreement to plead guilty to unlawful entry, rather than petit larceny, as others arrested for looting who made plea bargains did.
  
  The other officer, Holland, arrested a second man, Raymond Easley, a twenty-one-year-old Black man. He allegedly took cigars from the store window, according to a report in the Home News, wording that suggests the officers reported seeing him reaching into the window and found cigars in his possession Holland also found that Easley was carrying a knife. (He is not mentioned in the affidavit in the District Attorney’s case file for both him and Thompson, nor is there an examination. The only document in the case file referring to Easley is a criminal record; he had no previous prosecutions). Two arrests at the same incident of alleged looting was unusual during the disorder, suggesting that the officers were closer to the store than in other instances, perhaps only having to cross West 116th Street rather than 7th Avenue.
  
  While the appearance of the two patrolmen clearly stopped the group attacking the store, the broken window made it easier for others to take more merchandise. Police guarded only a small number of damaged businesses during the disorder, but the Garmises’ store had the advantage of being near a major intersection, close to the commercial blocks of West 116th Street, an obvious place for police to be stationed. At 3:00 AM, just over an hour after the arrests of Thompson and Easley, when the level of disorder was diminishing, Officer Charles Necas allegedly saw Robert Tanner, a seventeen-year-old Black student, put his hand through the broken window and take a pipe, according to the Magistrates Court affidavit. Necas then arrested Tanner. That he allegedly took a single pipe suggests that there was little merchandise in the window at that time, that most of the looting had occurred earlier. Tanner lived on West 116th Street only three buildings west of 7th Avenue, at 218 West 116th Street. There is no mention of a crowd.
  
  The Garmises’ total loss of $100 of merchandise is well below the damage in stores whose interiors were looted, suggesting that only the window displays may have been looted. The Garmises are not among those identified as suing the city for damages for failing to protect their business. Unlike many other businesses, they did not have insurance for their store windows, they told a Probation officer, but as part of the United Cigar chain, they did have burglary insurance. However, they could collect that insurance only if the disorder was not a “riot,” an unlikely determination after the city lost in the civil courts. Nonetheless, the Garmises were able to remain in business. The MCCH business survey found a United Cigar Store in the same building (although it misidentified the address as 1910 not 1916 7th Avenue). In 1940, Jack Garmise listed the store as his workplace in his draft registration. The Garmises had opened the store and moved to Manhattan sometime after 1930; the family appeared in the 1930 and 1920 censuses living in the Bronx, with Russian-born Emanuel working in linen supply and as a laundry salesman. They were still at 1974 5th Avenue in the 1940 census.
  
  Thomas Jackson (whose real name was Thomas Dean), Raymond Easley and Robert Tanner all appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud sent all three to the Grand Jury on the charge of burglary, and Easley also to the Court of Special Sessions charged with possession of a weapon. While Jackson and Tanner were indicted, and then agreed to plead guilty, Easley had the charges against him dismissed. There is no evidence to explain that decision. Neither the 28th Precinct Police Blotter or the District Attorney’s case file recorded the outcome of his prosecution for carrying a knife. Judge Donellan sentenced Jackson to six months in the workhouse; and Judge Nott sentenced Tanner to the New York City Reformatory, in line with his age.