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• 1 2021-09-07T19:32:37+00:00 Louis Tonick arrested 25 plain 2024-01-28T05:30:34+00:00 Sometime during the disorder, Officer Cusberita [?] of the 28th Precinct arrested Louis Tonick, an eighteen-year-old white man who lived at 1052 Bryant Avenue in the Bronx. The charge against Tonick recorded in the 28th Precinct police blotter was robbery, with the note "Robbed store during riot," while he was named as one of those charged with burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. Robbery required taking merchandise from someone, while burglary required taking merchandise from an unoccupied store. Tonick was also recorded as charged with robbery in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, with John Masdaym of 237 West 111st Street as the complainant and likely victim of the robbery. In this case, the address did appear to be Masdaym's residence, as there are no business identified on the street in the MCCH Business survey. There was no evidence of the location of the store in which the robbery took place.
  
  Tonick was one of only eight men identified as white arrested during the disorder; he and Jean Jacquelin were the only members of that group arrested for looting. His identity was recorded as white in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book and in the list published in the New York Evening Journal. Neither the 28th Precinct police blotter nor the the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide included information on an individual's race. While Jacquelin lived in Harlem, at 222 West 128th Street on the same block as the business he allegedly looted, Tonick lived in the Bronx, well beyond the neighborhood's boundaries.
  
  
  
  Tonick appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Like Edward Larry, the only other person charged with robbery after the disorder, Tonick was held without bail by Magistrate Renaud. The magistrate continued that custody when Tonick returned to court on March 25, and again on March 28. When Tonick appeared in court on April 1, Renaud dismissed the charges against him, an outcome also recorded in the 28th Precinct police blotter. That the Magistrate released Tonick indicates a lack of evidence rather than evidence only of taking merchandise or damaging a store, which would have resulted in reduced charges. In other cases it was the inability to locate a complainant that led to the discharge of defendants.
  
  While the docket book records the name as Tonick, the newspaper lists record it as Tunick, and the 28th Precinct police blotter as Tonisle (the later an error made when the blotter was transcribed for the MCCH). A man named Louis Tonick of the correct age appeared in census schedules in 1930 and 1940 living at different addresses in the Bronx. The child of Russian immigrants who worked as a fruit peddler, he lived with his parents and four siblings in 1930. By 1940, his three older sisters were no longer recorded in the household, which included only his parents, Louis and his (twin?) brother, and an uncle who also worked as a peddler. Tonick was unemployed at the time of that census and also when he registered for the draft in 1943.