This page was created by Anonymous.
"Trouble Flares Anew as Officers Discover Snipers on Roof Trying to Pick Off Lone Cop - Man Falls to Street During Raid," Brooklyn Citizen, March 20, 1935 [clipping].
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2020-02-25T17:19:47+00:00
Lyman Quarterman shot
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2024-01-28T05:41:16+00:00
At around 10:30 PM, Lyman Quarterman, a thirty-four-year-old Black man, was part of a crowd at 121st Street and 7th Avenue that police were struggling to disperse when he was shot in the abdomen. A few minutes earlier, Anthony Cados, a thirty-four-year-old white man, reported being assaulted nearby by "some unknown colored person or persons." While Cados lived approximately ten blocks to the south, Quarterman lived at the other end of Black Harlem, at 306 West 146th Street.
Hospital records of the ambulance called to attend Quarterman simply recorded he had a "gunshot wound of the abdomen received when shot by some unknown person at the scene of riot." The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York American, Brooklyn Citizen, and Daily Mirror, and the Associated Press, reported on March 20, and the Chicago Defender on March 23, that Quarterman had died, a mistake the Home News attributed to "many conflicting reports during the night," and the New York Evening Journal attributed more specifically to a "report having been sent out on the police teletype." By late on March 20 the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle listed Quarterman among the injured, as did the Atlanta World on March 27 and the Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide on March 30. He was one of eight men still in hospital on March 21, the New York Herald Tribune reported, and still there as late as April 8 according to the New York Age, but there are no reports that he died.
The New York Times headlined the story it published on March 20, "Police Shoot Into Rioters; Kill Negro in Harlem Mob." However, the story itself was less definitive, saying only that the "police launched an investigation to determine who fired the fatal shot." However, other white newspaper stories discounted in various ways the possibility police shot Quarterman. The New York Herald Tribune, reported that no policeman in the vicinity could remember discharging his revolver, whereas the Times Union said many had, but “only into the air to frighten the mob.” The New York Evening Journal story made an oblique reference to shots being fired into the crowd, as the culmination of a narrative justifying police actions as a response to escalating violence, in which officers from the 123rd Street station surrounded by a crowd, first drew their nightsticks “to save their own lives,” and when the crowd armed themselves with baseball bats and clubs, drew their guns and exchanged shots with the crowd. No other newspapers reproduced this narrative. The New York American simply said Quarterman had been shot by an unknown assailant, the Daily Mirror by a “stray bullet,” and the Daily News reported his assailant had escaped, stories which all implicitly assumed the police were not responsible for his death. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle explicitly expressed such an assumption in reporting Quarterman had been shot “presumably by rioters.” Only the Brooklyn Citizen stated directly that “Whether he had been shot by police or other rioters could not be determined.”
Four of the six others shot and wounded during the disorder were Black men like Quarterman, one of unknown race, and one white police officer. As in his case, no one was arrested for any of those shootings (the man with whom the police officer struggled, James Thompson, was shot and killed by police).
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2022-12-15T16:03:39+00:00
Lino Rivera grabbed & Charles Hurley and Steve Urban assaulted (Part 2)
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2024-01-28T01:16:31+00:00
Until police found Rivera, newspapers described the boy caught shoplifting as a younger Black child, in line with the rumors and leaflets circulating in Harlem. Louise Thompson heard from the women she spoke to in Kress' store that a "colored boy" aged ten to twelve years had been beaten. The signs carried by the Young Liberators who picketed the store an hour or so later referred to a "Negro child," while the leaflets their organization distributed another hour later later described a "12 year old Negro boy." The first newspaper stories repeated those descriptions. The New York American mentioned a "colored boy" and a "10-year-old Negro boy," the Daily News a 12-year-old "colored boy," the New York Evening Journal a 15-year-old "Negro boy," the Daily Mirror a "little colored boy," the Home News a "young colored boy," and the New York Sun a "Negro boy." Early stories in some Black newspapers featured similar descriptions, a "small Negro boy" in the Norfolk Journal and Guide and a 10-year-old "colored boy" in the Indianapolis Recorder on March 23, or simply referred to the boy's age, not his race, a 16-year-old boy in the Atlanta World on March 21, a 12-year-old boy in the New York Age, a 14-year-old boy in the Chicago Defender, and a 16-year-old boy in the Afro-American and Pittsburgh Courier on March 23. Newspapers published on March 20 after police found Rivera identified him as a 16-year-old Puerto Rican, in the New York Post, New York World-Telegram, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle or a "Puerto Rican youth" in the New York Herald Tribune, Times Union, and Brooklyn Citizen (although later in that story Rivera was referred to as a "Negro"). (The New York World-Telegram also pointed to the differences between Rivera and the boy of the rumors by putting Negro in quotation marks when reporting the rumors and the text of the Young Liberators leaflet.) By contrast, the New York Times referred to a 16-year-old "Negro boy" even after Rivera had been found, as did the New York Sun and New York Evening Journal. While the New York Times did eventually identify Rivera as Puerto Rican when he appeared in the Adolescents court after the disorder, the New York Evening Journal continued to describe Rivera as "Negro," while the New York Sun made no mention of his race. Those newspapers' persistent use of "Negro" may have been intended to convey that Rivera was dark-skinned; the New York American described him in those terms, as a "dark-skinned 16-year-old Porto Rican" in a story reporting an interview with the boy in his home, while the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described him as a "Negro born in Porto Rico." Editions of the other newspapers published after Rivera was found, including the Black newspapers, simply switched to identify him as Puerto Rican. (Historian Lorrin Thomas argued that the New York Amsterdam News "failed to identify Rivera as Puerto Rican, referring to him instead as a 'young Negro boy,'" but did not provide a citation. The March 23 issue of that newspaper is missing the news sections, but the March 30 issue identified Rivera as a "16-year-old Puerto Rican youth.")
Stories in the New York Evening Journal, Home News, La Prensa, and Daily Worker misidentified Hurley and Urban as store detectives. None mentioned the store detective, Smith, perhaps because he was not bitten and therefore not identified in any official records. He may also have been confused with Jackson Smith, the store manager. Many stories gave the manager a larger role than he played, involved in grabbing Rivera and making the decision to release him with Rivera in this office. That expanded role came at the expense not only of the store detective but also the police. Only the Daily News, and a vague statement in the New York Post story of what Rivera said mentioned that officers were at the store. The Daily News included only Eldridge, misidentifying him as the officer who released Rivera. Rivera said “two policeman came in” after he bit the men, the New York Post reported. The New York Evening Journal, Daily News, Atlanta World, and Philadelphia Tribune stories quoting Rivera omitted that statement.
Several newspaper stories included a Black woman interceding or screaming when the store staff grabbed Rivera, which some accounts claimed precipitated broader disorder. The statements of those on the scene suggest any outcry came when Donahue and Urban took Rivera into the basement. Rivera testified in the public hearing that a woman screamed “They’re going to take him down the cellar and beat him up!” While Hurley made no mention of that scream, L. F. Cole, a thirty-year-old Black clerk, did testify that when he saw Donahue and Urban taking Rivera to the basement “a woman made a statement that the boy had been struck.” Cole's choice not to describe the woman as screaming suggests the possibility that the woman simply called out, with the gendered language of the press rendering any shouting by a woman as a scream. "They're beating that boy! They're killing him!" were the “screams” reported by the New York Evening Journal. Speeding up events, the New York American, New York Post, and Atlanta World, and the New Republic, describe the woman as running into the street, screaming "Kress beat a colored boy! Kress Beat a colored boy!" according to the New York American. The New York Sun made this response collective: “Emotional Negro women shouted that the boy was being beaten and this information was quickly relayed to the curious crowds which had gathered in front of the store.” Rather than reacting, the woman intervened in the narrative presented in Home News and La Prensa, and was pushed aside by Hurley, after which she screamed.
Margaret Mitchell was identified as the woman who reacted to Rivera being grabbed in the New York Evening Journal, Home News, Philadelphia Tribune, and La Prensa (and later in stories about those arrested in the New York Amsterdam News, Afro-American, New York Post, and New York Times). Here journalists with a truncated timeline of events were assuming that as she was arrested in Kress’ store it must have been when Rivera was grabbed. However, Donahue told the public hearing he had not made an arrest, and none of the store staff mentioned an arrest at this time. The circumstances of Mitchell's arrest recorded by police, the testimony of Louise Thompson, and the New York Sun story suggest that it took place after the store was closed, as police tried to clear out the women who remained inside, with an officer named Johnson making the arrest. Similarly, in describing customers struggling with Hurley and Urban or attacking displays as Rivera was taken away, the narratives of the New York Sun, La Prensa, and the Home News collapsed together events that took place at different times. Testimony in the public hearings identified that struggle as coming later, when Kress’ manager decided to close the store and police cleared out those inside.
Several newspapers also published statements by Rivera made either at the West 123rd Street station after Eldridge, awoken at 1:30 AM, had located him and brought him to a police station around 2:00 AM, or in his home the next day that provided more details of what happened before and when he was grabbed than the broad narratives. The New York Evening Journal, New York Herald Tribune, Daily News, New York Post, New York Sun, Atlanta World, and Philadelphia Tribune quoted Rivera at the police station describing biting the men and the threat to beat him that had precipitated that struggle. In an ANS agency photograph of Rivera standing with Lt. Battle taken at that time, journalists can be seen taking notes. It’s not clear if they questioned Rivera directly, or recorded answers he gave to police officers: the Daily News reported his statements as told to Deputy Chief Inspector Frances Kear, the New York Evening Journal and New York Sun reported he talked to Captain Richard Oliver, and the New York Herald Tribune quoted Eldridge rather than Rivera. The New York Evening Journal story also mentioned the reporter speaking with Rivera. The New York World-Telegram and New York Herald Tribune published stories quoting statements made by Rivera at this home later on March 20; a New York American story combined statements from the station and at his home. The Daily News simply published a photograph of Rivera flexing his biceps, presumably to demonstrate that he was unharmed. The information that before entering Kress', Rivera had gone to Brooklyn looking for work, having left high school six months earlier, that his mother needed help because his father was dead, was reported in the interviews published in the New York American and New York Herald Tribune. His father's death was also reported in La Prensa and the Brooklyn Citizen. Only the New York Herald Tribune, New York Evening Journal, and New York Sun reported that Rivera went to a show after returning from Brooklyn. Only La Prensa reported that Rivera had a job when he first left school. That interview with Rivera in his home focused on emphasizing his lack of responsibility for the disorder and willingness to try to pacify the crowds had he been asked, and contained no details of what had happened in the store as he did not want to talk about them. That focus was in line with La Prensa's concern to distance Puerto Rican residents from the disorder. Rivera gave an account of what happened in the store again when he appeared in the Adolescents Court on March 23 for inserting slugs in a subway turnstile before the disorder, in answer to questions from the magistrate.
The MCCH public hearings elicited more details of the assault, with Rivera, the two police officers, and Hurley all testifying, together with Jackson Smith, the store manager. Provided in five separate hearings spread over nearly six weeks, that testimony described the roles of Officers Donahue and Eldridge, which were missing from the initial newspaper reports. Few newspapers included these new details in their stories about the hearings. The most extensively reported hearing was the first, on March 30, in which Donahue testified. A majority of newspapers highlighted Donahue’s decision to release Rivera through the rear of the store rather than in view of concerned customers as a mistake, with several reporting that Donahue had admitted that mistake. However, the hearing transcript did not include such a statement. Instead, it was Edward Kuntz, one of the ILD lawyers in the audience, who offered that assessment while questioning the officer. After Donahue testified that crowds on 125th Street caused him to take Rivera into the store, Kuntz commented, “If you had let the boy go at that time there would not have been any excitement.” Eldridge and Hurley did not testify until three weeks later, and Jackson Smith until two weeks after that, when they were not given any attention in the briefer newspaper stories about those hearings.