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• 1 2020-02-25T18:03:35+00:00 Lloyd Hobbs killed 45 plain 2021-09-14T16:48:06+00:00 Lloyd Hobbs, a sixteen-year-old Black teenager, was shot and killed by Officer John McInerney, who claimed Hobbs had been looting an auto supply store.

  Hobbs and his fifteen-year-old brother Russell had made the short trip from their home on St Nicholas Ave to the Apollo Theater on 125th Street for the 7 PM movie show, not emerging until 12.30 AM. When they stepped back onto 125th St, they saw crowds down the block at the intersection with 7th Ave, and went to investigate. They followed as police pushed the crowd north on 7th Ave. As people milled in front of a damaged auto parts store at 2150 7th Avenue near 128th Street, two officers in a radio car pulled up and called on the crowd to ‘break it up.’ Fearing that they had been mistaken for rioters, the boys ran in separate directions, Russell up 7th Ave, and Lloyd diagonally west on to 128th Street. Officer John McInerney then drew his gun and shot Lloyd. McInerney claimed that the officers had seen Hobbs throw a stone through the window of an auto supply store and steal goods, and that he called on him to halt before opening fire.
  
  Several witnesses watching events from the corner of 128th and 7th Ave testified to seeing the crowd moving up the avenue, and Hobbs rush from the crowd as police pulled up, but not any looting, any goods on Hobbs, or any call for him to halt before McInerey shot him. The storeowner's complaint to police described the store window as having been broken, and looting starting, several hours earlier, at 10 PM. After the shooting, the officers loaded Hobbs into their car and drove him to Harlem Hospital.
  
  Russell Hobbs reported what happened to their father, Lawyer Hobbs, who tried several times to identify and make a complaint against the officer who had shot his son. He also appears to have gone to the MCCH: an undated statement by Hobbs in the Commission's files describes Lloyd's shooting and his failed efforts to get police to investigate the case. According to a story in the New York Amsterdam News, after enlisting Fred Moore, the former alderman and editor of the New York Age, Hobbs succeeded in getting the police to agree "they would look into the case."
  
  Hobbs did not die until the evening of March 30, so he does not feature in the initial newspaper reports of those killed during the disorder, but instead in all seven lists of the injured, published in the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, New York Daily News, New York American, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
  
  Hobbs was the fourth of those killed in the disorder to die. A few hours earlier, his brother Russell testified before the first hearing of the Mayor’s Commission. While the New York Times, New York Age, and New York Amsterdam News referred to that testimony in reporting Hobbs' death, the New York Herald Tribune, Times Union, Home News, Daily Mirror, New York American and Chicago Defender reported the death in their stories on the hearing without mentioning Russell. He would testify again at a later hearing, together with his father and two eye-witnesses.
  
  The Grand Jury twice heard the case against McInerney. The first hearing took place on April 10, after the Mayor's Commission hearings. McInerney testified before the grand jury, but it is not clear who else they heard from before they voted not to indict the officer. The MCCH nonetheless continued to gather evidence, hearing testimony from  further witnesses to the shooting, including McInerney's partner and another officer, at subsequent hearings in late April and mid-May. Angry crowd members interrupted the police officers, leading the Commission to hold a closed hearing to take the testimony of McInerney, his partner, and the detective assigned to investigate the case, according to the World Telegraph. As a result of the MCCH investigation, the District Attorney present the case to the grand jury for a second time on June 10. Sixteen witnesses gave testimony, after which the grand jury declined to hear from McInerney and again voted not to indict him.
  
  Notwithstanding that outcome, the MCCH gave a central place to McInerney killing Hobbs in its report on the events of the disorder, first released on August 10, 1935.
  
  Police Commissioner Valentine's written response to the draft report on April 30 covered six typewritten pages, including sections on six cases of police brutality. He devoted only six and a half lines to the "Case of Lloyd Hobbs," significantly less than any of the other five. The killing was simply "the outcome of Hobbs burglarizing premises 2150 7th Avenue," an interpretation confirmed by the Grand Jury who, after hearing from McInerney, "exonerated him."