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The MCCH investigation of the shooting of Lloyd Hobbs
The MCCH responded to the information from the Urban League by including “Mr Lloyd Hobbs and family" on the list of eyewitnesses asked to give testimony to the first public hearing on March 30. Near the end of the day-long hearing, as Captain Rothengast was being questioned about who had been shot during the disorder, the chairman, Arthur Garfield Hays, asked did he "know anything specifically about a boy by the name of Hobbs?" Hays then had Mrs. Carrie Hobbs stand up, to ask her if her son Russell was present, and called the boy up to testify. Rothengast knew nothing beyond what was in the arrest report, so Hays excused him so Russell could be questioned. His testimony, or at least as recorded by the stenographer, was a somewhat garbled version of what he had told his parents. He talked of stopping on 125th Street, not 7th Avenue, and the patrolmen running up on the pavement on a horse, not in a patrol car. Few newspapers stories about the hearing mentioned Russell's testimony, even as they reported Lloyd's death later that night. Hays, however, did pay attention to the testimony, not only because Lloyd had died. Hays made investigating deaths during the disorder and victims of police brutality the next focus of his subcommittee's hearings.
On April 1, Hays wrote to the MCCH's secretary, Eunice Carter, telling her to have the Hobbs family attend the next hearing, on April 6, and to "have our investigators find out all they can about [the Hobbs case]." He also had an attorney at his law firm assisting him, Hyman Glickstein, write to Police Inspector Di Martini and the superintendent of Harlem Hospital to obtain their records relating to Lloyd Hobbs. Carter assigned the investigation to James Tartar, one of the staff who had sought witnesses to the causes of the disorder the previous week. He did what Detective O'Brien had not; he interviewed the Hobbs family "as the first source," having the advantage of knowing that Russell had been with Lloyd when Mcinerney shot him. Tartar complied a "social and economic history of the family" and took statements from Russell and his mother. He also learned from Lawyer Hobbs that he had been contacted by two eyewitnesses, Howard Malloy and Arthur Moore.
Tartar met with the men at 213 West 128th Street, the apartment building in which they both lived, and recorded "their story." Malloy said he had walked past the automobile store almost two hours before McInerney alleged he had heard the window breaking and Hobbs taking items and the windows had been entirely broken with no merchandise remaining inside them. Not long before the Hobbs brothers arrived, he and Moore had come out to get ice cream for their wives, who were in the Moores apartment. As they arrived at the northwest corner of 128th and 7th Avenue, they saw a "commotion" on the block of 7th Avenue to the south. As they watched, people began to move toward them, breaking into a run. When Lloyd Hobbs turned west on 128th Street, they saw the patrolman shoot the boy without calling on him to halt. Nothing fell to the ground when the shot hit the boy. They also contradicted the officers' claim that objects had been thrown at them, saying that seeing both men had guns caused people in the area to stay away.
On April 2, Tartar also spoke with ADA Saul Price, who told him "that the officer had not been exonerated, due to the fact that he was waiting to hear the story from the Hobbs family, particularly Russell Hobbs." An interview with the police department's ballistic expert produced no information as he had not received the bullet that hit Lloyd. Tartar's visit to Harlem Hospital was more successful, as Dr. Steinholz shared the boy's chart, which the investigator copied. An additional interview with Inspector Di Martini not mentioned in Tartar's report allowed him to make a copy of a report to Commissioner Valentine from commander of the 28th Precinct, Captain George Mulholland, on the subject of "The shooting of prisoner by Patrolman." It described McInerney observing Hobbs leaving the store window "with several objects in his hands," giving that evidence a far more prominent and specific place than they had in O'Brien's reports. Threats to the patrolman also received more attention, with allegations that "the colored people in the immediate vicinity threw bottles and other objects from the windows with the intent to strike the officer” and that the officers "dispersed a large crowd of colored men and women who had threatened them" before they could leave the scene.
Tartar was among those who testified at the MCCH's April 6 public hearing, with Russell Hobbs and both his parents, Malloy and Moore, and a third man who had been with them when Lloyd Hobbs was shot, Samuel Pitts. Pitts' name was added in pencil to the MCCH's typewritten witness list, indicating they had not known he would be present. He likely came with Malloy and Moore, although he lived some distance from them, at 112 West 127th Street. Pitts witnessed the shooting from the same corner as those men, where he had been since about 10:00 PM, "looking after people and cops shooting[, and] talking about the riot." Russell's testimony was more in line with his statement than the previous week. Having continued to run up 7th Avenue fearing a beating by police, he had not, however, seen his brother shot. His parents testified that when they found Lloyd in the hospital, he told them, “Mother, the officer shot me for nothing. I was not doing anything.” McInerney, guarding the boy, said "Why didn't you halt when I told you to?" Malloy, Moore, and Pitts, who all had seen the shooting, described the same details. Arthur Garfield Hays had also expected Patrolman McInerney to testify, but although he was at the hearing, District Attorney Dodge had refused to allow officers involved in cases in the legal system to give evidence. The police officer who did testify, also not on the MCCH list of witnesses, was Detective Thomas McCormick, the stenographer who recorded Lloyd's statement at Harlem Hospital. He read that statement, which echoed what the boy had told his parents when they found him in the hospital: he had done nothing but run when the patrol car pulled up but McInerney had shot him. The hearing also heard from medical staff from Harlem Hospital. The case of Lloyd Hobbs was the first about which Hays asked them. All Dr. Arthur Logan could tell him was the nature of the boy's injuries; he had not said anything in the doctor's presence and no items had been found in his clothing. While the Black press (except for the New York Amsterdam News) highlighted the testimony on the case, among white publications only the radical Daily Worker and New Masses gave it similar prominence in reporting the hearing, and only the New York Times and Home News among the mainstream white press even mentioned Lloyd Hobbs.
Hays announced plans to continue hearing evidence about the killing of Lloyd Hobbs at his subcommittee's next public hearing, in two weeks, the New York Times, New York Age, and Afro-American reported. However, Detective O'Brien delivered subpoenas to the three eyewitnesses after they appeared before the MCCH. Two days later, ADA Saul Price drew the men into the police investigation.
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- "Statement Made by Mr Lloyd Hobbs," Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 1 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- James Tartar, "Investigator's Report Re: The Shooting of Lloyd Hobbs by Patrolman McInerny on the Morning of 3/20/1935," "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 25, Folder 19, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University).
- "Continue Inquiry at Courthouse as Three Men Are Sentenced to Workhouse for Riot Activities," New York Age, April 13, 1935, 1, 2.
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 77, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 43, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Hyman Glickstein to Arthur Garfield Hays, April 4, 1935, "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 26, Folder 1, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University).
- "Police Department [list of 9 names]," undated, "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 25, Folder 19, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University).
- James Tartar, "Interview with Howard Malloy and Arthur Moore, 213 W. 128th St.," (April 5, 1935), "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 25, Folder 19, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University)
- Pauline Godfrey (New York Urban League) to Charles Roberts, March 26, 1935, Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 3 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 44, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- James Tartar, "Interview with Asst. District Attorney Saul Price, 4-2-35," "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 25, Folder 19, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University).
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 182-83, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 100-1, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- "Cops Caused Spread of Harlem Riot, Head of Mayor's Committee Avers," Home News, April 7, 1935, 1.
- "Harlemites Insist Beating of Youth Preceded Riot," Afro-American, April 13, 1935, 12.
- "Harlem Riot Laid to Economic Ills," New York Times, March 26, 1935, 5.
- "Crowd Turbulent at Harlem Inquiry," New York Times, April 7, 1935, 6.
- Cyril Briggs, "Killer of Negro Exposed," Daily Worker, April 8, 1935, 1.
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 80-81, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Arthur Garfield Hays to Eunice Carter, April 1, 1935, "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 26, Folder 1, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University).
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 89, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 87-88, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 86, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 85, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 82, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- "Murder in Harlem," New Masses, April 16, 1935, 6.
- Public Hearings - Outbreak (March-April 1935), 78, Subject Files, Box 408, Folder 8 (Roll 194), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- "Hyman Glickstein, 91, Dies; Lawyer and Political Leader," New York Times, February 17, 1998, 11.