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

William Norris arrested

Officer Phillips of the 28th Squad arrested William Norris, together with Charles Wright, for allegedly having "thrown an ashcan through the window" of the Lokos Clothes store at 2275 8th Avenue, according to a story in the Home News. There are no details of the time or circumstances of the arrests. The store was located just north of West 122nd Street, on the west side of 8th Avenue. Across the street, at 2275 8th Avenue, Max Newman was assaulted as he closed his grocery store at 10:30 PM. The men's arrest likely happened around the same time. Violence had begun intensifying away from 125th Street around half an hour earlier the store as more people left 125th Street. Sufficient police had arrived at the Kress store for some to be deployed on the avenues in response to that change. Phillips was likely among the first officers to arrive this far south on 8th Avenue. The only other reported incident around this intersection was not until after midnight, when someone on the street threw a rock that hit Patrolman Harry Whittington as he traveled on an Emergency truck. That was too late for groups to be focused on breaking windows.

Norris, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, was recorded as residing at 201 West 122nd Street in all the records of his arrest, only a block east of the clothing store. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with malicious mischief. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions for trial, and held him on bail of $500. His decision indicated that the value of the damage to the building was less than the $250 required for the charge to be a felony. The judges in the Court of Special Sessions convicted him, and on April 1st sentenced him to three months in the Workhouse. The prosecution of Wright followed the same process and brought the same result. Phillips was also the arresting officer of three other individuals, Arthur Davis, Herbert Hunter and Elizabeth Tai.

Pauline Lokos of 2275 8th Avenue was identified as the owner of the store whose windows Norris allegedly broke in the Home News and recorded as the complainant in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book when he appeared in court on March 20. Norris appeared in the lists of those arrested during the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide and in the New York Evening Journal, but the two lists differed in the charge made against him. The Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide included him among those charged with burglary, while the New York Evening Journal and  the 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded the charge as inciting a riot. That offense appeared to be the charge initially made against many of those arrested during the disorder. The charge malicious mischief made in the Magistrates Court was recorded in the docket book and reported in the Home News. That change reflected a general practice of replacing the initial charge of riot made at the time of an arrest with a more specific charge that fitted what police officers alleged an individual had done.

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