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

Vito Capozzio assaulted

Vito Capozzio may have been assaulted somewhere north of West 130th Street during the disorder. He was recorded as the complainant in the prosecution of Richard Jackson, a twenty-seven-year-old Black man, and Salathel Smith, a forty-seven-year-old Black man, in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20. No details of the case appear in any sources, but the men's arraignment in that court indicated they had been arrested within its jurisdiction, which began above 130th Street. Jackson appeared in the list of those arrested for assault in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, which included only his name and the charge. Smith was not included in that list. However, his name was recorded directly beneath Jackson in the docket book, with check marks indicating that the complainant, charge and arresting officer were the same in both cases. Although his name suggests Capozzio was likely a white man, there is no evidence of his race. The docket book recorded his address as "3764 Boulevard," which appears to be an incomplete address, perhaps referring to Southern Boulevard in the Bronx.

Other evidence in the docket book, and Jackson and Smith's absence from most newspaper reports of those arrested during the disorder, suggest that this incident was not part of the disorder. When Jackson and Smith appeared in court on March 20, the charge against them was the lesser offense of disorderly conduct, not assault, annotated with the word "fight." The reduced charge could simply indicate that Capozzio's injuries did not warrant a charge of assault. However, this is the only instance in which the charge was annotated with "fight." Another possible interpretation is that Jackson and Smith may have gotten into a fight in a business which Capozzio either owned or worked in rather than assaulting him. The area north of 130th Street where the men were arrested saw fewer incidents and arrests during the disorder. Jackson and Smith would not have been the only men who appeared in the court that day not arrested as part of the disorder; eleven of the forty-four recorded in the docket book on March 20 faced charges unrelated to the disorder, such as offenses against the Sabbath Law. While stories in New York Age and New York Herald Tribune reported Jackson's appearance in court, only the New York Age also mentioned Smith, the only time he appeared in the newspapers. That inconsistency, and the absence of the men from other stories about the court proceedings, suggest at least some confusion about whether their arrests related to the disorder. Magistrate Ford did convict both Jackson and Smith, but sentenced them to just two days in the Workhouse or a $5 fine.

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