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

The police investigation

At 1:20 AM On March 20, Detective John O'Brien was assigned to investigate the shooting of Lloyd Hobbs. A detective based at the 28th Precinct on West 123rd Street, he was at the station at Lenox Avenue and West 118th Street at the time. Even though Harlem was still in disorder, the police department was following its procedure of investigating shootings. O'Brien immediately went to Harlem Hospital with his partner, Detective Foley. He found a stenographer from the Homicide squad who had already recorded a statement Hobbs gave to two detectives from that squad. Those officers were at the hospital when the boy arrived and, having been told someone had been shot, took the statement because the boy was seriously injured and might have died. Detective Martin's questioning of Hobbs had taken place in the x-ray room, while an attendant set up the x-ray machine. Patrolman McInerney was not present, according to the stenographer. Asked what happened, Hobbs said "Some one threw a brick into a window and I was shot by a cop." After asking about other details, the detective repeated the question. "I was standing in the street and someone threw a brick and I ran," Hobbs responded. Even though that statement had been taken, O'Brien also questioned the boy, telling a hearing of the MCCH that he thought he "would get something additional."

O'Brien also talked with Patrolman McInerney, but did not write down his statement. In the Complaint Report he completed later that day, O'Brien summarized what he had been told: McInerney had seen Hobbs break a window in the automobile supply shop, take merchandise and run north on 7th Avenue. The patrolman pursued the boy, called on him to stop, and when he did not, shot him. O'Brien did not ask about the automobile accessories Hobbs had allegedly taken, which McInerney did not have with him at the time. He was more concerned with getting to the scene of the shooting. Around fifteen minutes after he arrived, O'Brien left Harlem Hospital. Although the Hobbs family were at the hospital around that time, the detective never crossed paths with them.

Arriving at 7th Avenue and 128th Street around 1:45 AM, O'Brien found bits of glass in the street, together with bricks, stones and other heavy objects. At the automobile supply store four of the display windows were broken, as well as one of the windows in the door. What O'Brien did not find were what he was looking for, witnesses to the shooting. It seems unlikely he found no one on the street, as many in the crowd on the corner when Hobbs was shot had been there for several hours at that time. However, the detective kept no record of who he spoke to. After about thirty minutes, O'Brien called the station. At that time he was assigned another case to investigate: August Miller, a white man injured during the disorder, at Joint Disease Hospital. He should not have been investigating two cases at the same time, O'Brien later told a hearing of the MCCH. Nonetheless, that was what he had been told to do, so he and Foley went to that hospital.

The next day, O'Brien returned to the scene of the shooting to again seek witnesses. He spoke to those he found in the stores and to residents, again without success. (He had equally little success finding witnesses to what had happened to August Miller, at West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue). With those efforts, O'Brien apparently decided that if there any witnesses they would "show up at the police station."

By March 28, O'Brien had taken statements from McInerney and his partner Patrolman Watterson.  A Supplementary Complaint Report he filed on that date quoted more detailed narratives of the shooting. McInerney stated that he had been in a patrol car when the noise of smashing glass drew his attention to the automobile supply store. After Hobbs failed to stop, the patrolman said he fired one shot only, which caused Hobbs to fall. The boy also "held in his hands objects which were later found near where he fell." Watterson's testimony put Hobbs inside the window, passing out items, when the officers' attention was drawn to the store. What Watterson did after McInerney jumped out of the car to pursue those outside the store was not included in the report. However. O'Brien did add that both officers stated that "unknown colored persons were throwing bricks and other objects at them" as Hobbs was being chased.

Sometime in the following days O'Brien interviewed Louis Eisenberg, the owner of the automobile supply store. He had had to wait to speak to him; McInerney had not. Eisenberg told the detective that the patrolman had talked to him on March 20 and had him identify items that the officer claimed he found on the ground by Hobbs. That O'Brien was asked in a hearing of the MCCH, "Did McInerey get any articles or automobile accessories from the store the next morning?," indicated that others thought the patrolman had gone to Eisenberg seeking items he could use to defend himself. What O'Brien learned from Eisenberg was that when a brick had been thrown through the store window around 10:00 PM, he and three employees had fled out the rear of the store, and remained in the rear yard for some time before flagging down a taxi to escape the crowds. They were gone long before McInerney shot Hobbs. Eisenberg also gave O'Brien "a long list of stuff taken," which he included in the Supplementary Complaint Report quoting the storeowner's statement. Although unrecorded in that report, the detective told an MCCH hearing that he had asked shopkeepers when other windows were broken, and was told none were damaged at 10:00 PM (which is not what they later told the MCCH's investigator).

The death of Lloyd Hobbs on the evening of March 30 prompted O'Brien to put the case in the hands of the District Attorney's office. When he called with the news, an ADA told him to have "all witnesses" at their office on April 1. O'Brien arranged for McInerney, Watterson and Eisenberg to appear. After hearing from them, ADA Saul Price had O'Brien deliver subpeonas to Russell Hobbs and his father to appear on April 3. Price told James Tartar, the MCCH investigator, that he delayed their hearing until after Lloyd's funeral on April 2. Delivering the subpeonas was Detective O'Brien's first contact with the Hobbs family, which he later explained to the MCCH was because he was unaware that Russell had been with Lloyd and thus a witness. When Russell and Lawyer Hobbs gave their statements to the ADA, the police investigation intersected with the MCCH investigation. Lawyer Hobbs said he knew of five eye-witnesses to the shooting but that he did not know their addresses. He must also have told Price that the men would be testifying at the MCCH hearing three days later. The ADA gave O'Brien subpoenas for the witnesses and told him to go to the hearing to serve them.

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