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• 1 2022-11-11T17:05:33+00:00 Investigations (March 30-April 5) 38 plain 2024-01-27T03:19:45+00:00 While Arthur Garfield Hays likely left the hearing on March 30 wanting to know more about the shooting of Lloyd Hobbs as an example of police actions during the disorder, the boy’s death later that evening would have made gathering information about what had happened more of a priority. On April 1st, he wrote to Eunice Carter, the MCCH secretary, asking to "have our investigators find out all they can about [the Hobbs case]" and to have the Hobbs family attend the next hearing on April 6. Carter assigned the investigation to James Tartar, the thirty-year-old Black resident of Harlem and former shipping clerk who had sought witnesses to the causes of the disorder the previous week. He interviewed the Hobbs family, who gave him the names of two Black men who had contacted them to say they had witnessed the shooting. Tartar then interviewed those men, Howard Malloy and Arthur Moore. He also visited the 28th Precinct and made copies of the police blotter and a report from the precinct commander to the police commissioner.
  
  At the same time, Hays embarked on an investigation of police brutality both in the disorder and more broadly. While the MCCH had extended the subcommittee’s remit from the events of March 19 to crime, police brutality was not one of the topics under that umbrella in Randolph’s plan. It identified numbers gambling, ubiquitous in Harlem at this time, and juvenile delinquency, perceived to be increasing in the context of the Depression, as the topics to be investigated. While the NAACP was receiving complaints of police brutality about Black New Yorkers at this time, Hays’ concern with the topic more likely grew from the involvement of the ACLU in fighting the third degree and police violence against Communists and labor organizations. His intention was that the investigation of police brutality be a “separate project” of the subcommittee on crime, begun after the hearings on the events of March 19 had been completed and a report submitted to the mayor, he told members of the MCCH when they met on April 5. At that time, he reported that the subcommittee had decided another hearing on the events would be needed in addition to the one scheduled the next day. However, the two topics would prove to be intertwined. As a result, the subcommittee’s preliminary report would include both and argue that police brutality was a cause of the disorder as well as a feature of it.
  
  Hays had Hyman Glickstein, an attorney from his law firm, write to senior police officers, the district attorney, the medical examiner, and Harlem Hospital seeking records about six cases. Four involved men who died during the disorder, Hobbs and James Thompson, Andrew Lyons and August Miller. Questions about those deaths had been raised during the testimony of Captain Rothengast at the hearing on March 30. The other two incidents had not occurred during the disorder. Edward Laurie had died at the hands of police soon after the disorder, a case that had been widely reported in the press. Thomas Aiken, blind in one eye after a beating by police just over a week before the disorder, had been brought to the MCCH's attention by Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., to whom Aiken's mother had written. Glickstein asked that the police officers and physicians who had been involved in the cases be present at the next hearing. Laurie's family and witnesses to Aiken's beating were also asked to be at the hearing.
  
  To expand the investigation into police brutality, Hays again sought the assistance of the Communist Party. He had Glickstein write to the ILD lawyers James Tauber and Edward Kuntz, and James Ford, Robert Minor, and Carl Brodsky of the Communist Party, seeking “all complaints of alleged police misconduct, not only on March 19th, but also on other occasions.” He told them to send him that information as soon as possible so he could have the police officers and physicians involved appear at the next hearing. At some point, the Communist Party sent the MCCH a list of seventeen "Cases of Police Brutality, Discrimination and Mistreatment of Negroes in Harlem.” While it included the incidents involving Laurie, Aiken, and Frank Wells, an attack on an unidentified man, the arrest of a boy for lighting a fire in a school, and the eviction of an interracial couple, the list mostly consisted of clashes with police at Communist Party meetings and protests.
  
  Glickstein wrote to Hays on April 4 that “evidence on behalf of the various persons arrested, shot or beaten seems to be considerably more difficult to obtain. I am, however, keeping at it, and I think that at least three or four of the cases, and, perhaps more, will be presented in complete detail before the Committee on Saturday.” His requests for evidence from the police department were initially more successful. “You have my assurance that both the men and records will be made available to the Committee at its next hearing as well as subsequent meetings,” Valentine wrote to Glickstein. However, the day before hearing, District Attorney Dodge intervened to disrupt the MCCH’s plans to have police officers testify. He directed police commanders to “instruct all police officers who may have cases pending not to reveal any of their testimony at any public hearing.” Those instructions restricted what police officers could say, not their ability to testify, so the officers requested to be present nonetheless attended the hearing.
  
  Those officers joined a crowd of other witnesses called to appear at the April 6 hearing. As well as the new witnesses that Tartar and Glickstein worked to secure, the subcommittee still had unfinished business from the first hearing. Five witnesses on the list prepared for March 30 had not testified, Mrs. Jackson, Ida Hengain, Effie Diton and Fred Campbell, and from Steve Urban of the Kress store. There were also additional police officers on the scene and staff from the Kress store whose appearances had not been secured. Although twenty witnesses would appear at the hearing, more than at any of the subcommittee’s other hearings, testimony would be heard about only one of the cases that Hays had investigated, the killing of Lloyd Hobbs. At that time the evidence that the MCCH heard on the other fives cases would be limited to the medical records recounted by doctors on the staff of Harlem Hospital.
   
• 1 2022-12-11T18:57:33+00:00 Preparation for the public hearing on April 6 27 plain 2024-01-29T17:45:25+00:00 The report of the secretary for March 30th to April 5th contained less detail of the staff’s investigative work than Carter’s first report. The one activity that was included was that “Investigations were made of the facts in the Hobbs case and witnesses interviewed in order that this case might be heard at the hearing of the Commission on the events of March 19th, on Saturday.” Hays had written to Eunice Carter on April 1 asking to "have our investigators find out all they can about [the Hobbs case]" and to have the Hobbs family attend the next hearing, on April 6. Carter assigned the investigation to James Tartar, a Black staff member who had sought witnesses to the causes of the disorder the previous week. Copies of his reports are in both the Hays Papers and the records of Mayor La Guardia, and a narrative summary is in the Frazier papers. He interviewed the Hobbs family "as the first source," 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." On April 2, Tartar also spoke with ADA Saul Price, who told him he "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 in Tartar's report but mentioned in his testimony in the MCCH hearing 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."
  
  Hyman Glickstein, an attorney at Hays' law firm, undertook the work of gathering other evidence for the hearing. Copies of his correspondence are in both the Hays Papers and the records of Mayor La Guardia. It indicated that the investigation of the killing of Lloyd Hobbs was part of a shift in the subcommittee’s focus from the events of March 19 to police misconduct and brutality, which Hays described in the MCCH meeting on April 5. Letters dated April 2 to Inspector Di Martini and Commissioner Valentine, the district attorney, and the medical examiner and Harlem Hospital asked for the records of six cases. Four cases involved men who died during the disorder, Hobbs and James Thompson, Andrew Lyons, and August Miller. Questions about those cases had been raised during the testimony of Captain Rothengast at the hearing on March 30. The other two cases had not occurred during the disorder. Edward Laurie had died at the hands of police soon after the disorder, a case that had been widely reported in the press. Thomas Aiken, blind in one eye after a beating by police just over a week before the disorder, had been brought to the MCCH's attention by Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., to whom Aiken's mother had written. Glickstein asked that the police officers and physicians who had been involved in the cases be present at the next hearing. Witnesses to Aiken's beating and Laurie's family were also asked to be at the hearing.
  
  Glickstein also wrote to the ILD lawyers James Tauber and Edward Kuntz and James Ford, Robert Minor, and Carl Brodsky of the Communist Party seeking more cases, “all complaints of alleged police misconduct, not only on March 19th, but also on other occasions.” He told them to send him that information as soon as possible so he could have the police officers and physicians involved at the hearing. The requests continued the collaboration with the Communists that Hays had initiated the previous week. The Communist Party at some point sent the MCCH the "Cases of Police Brutality, Discrimination and Mistreatment of Negroes in Harlem" in the Hays Papers. While that list of seventeen cases included Laurie, Aiken, and Frank Wells, an attack on an unidentified man, the arrest of a boy for lighting a fire in a school, and the eviction of an interracial couple, it mostly consisted of clashes with police at Communist Party meetings and protests. Moreover, Glickstein wrote to Hays on April 4 that “evidence on behalf of the various persons arrested, shot or beaten seems to be considerably more difficult to obtain. I am, however, keeping at it, and I think that at least three or four of the cases, and, perhaps, more will be presented in complete detail before the Committee on Saturday.”
  
  The requests for evidence from the police department were initially more successful. “You have my assurance that both the men and records will be made available to the Committee at its next hearing as well as subsequent meetings,” Valentine wrote to Glickstein. The day before hearing, District Attorney Dodge intervened to disrupt the MCCH’s plans to have police officers testify. He directed police commanders to “instruct all police officers who may have cases pending not to reveal any of their testimony at any public hearing.” Those instructions restricted what police officers could say, not their ability to testify, so the officers requested to be present nonetheless attended the hearing. At the beginning of the hearing, Hays read Dodge's letter to Commissioner Valentine, and his brief letter to Glickstein, the MCCH attorney, summarizing what he had instructed the Commissioner, so those in attendance would know why police did not testify.
  
  Although there was no record of efforts to secure their attendance, during the hearing Hays sought testimony from three women and one man listed as witnesses for the previous hearing who had not testified, Mrs. Jackson, Ida Hengain, Effie Diton and Mr. [Fred] Campbell, and from Steve Urban of the Kress store. Battle had said early in the day that he would get Effie Diton to the hearing, but clearly was unable to do so. Hays also tried on the day of the hearing to secure the testimony of two more witnesses to events in the Kress store. During the hearing, James Tauber of the ILD requested a letter be sent Mrs. Williams of 2010 7th Ave, with the text of the letter read in the hearing. At some point on that day, a similar letter was sent to Mrs. DePass of 460 West 147th Street.