Story of the Riot

Various

Story of the Riot

EAN 8596547095866

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: DigiCat@okpublishing.info

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Titlepage

COPY OF AN APPEAL TO THE MAYOR.

PERSECUTION OF NEGROES

COPY OF AN APPEAL TO THE MAYOR.

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New York

, September 12, 1900.

TO HIS HONOR, ROBERT A. VAN WYCK,

MAYOR, NEW YORK CITY.

Dear Sir

:

Your communication of the 7th inst. in reply to my letter received. We appreciate the consideration shown and interest manifested, but earnestly petition your Honor for a fair and impartial investigation. We condemn in unqualified terms lawlessness among our people, and by no means condone the crime of Harris, nor his associates; but this crime, as black as it may be, does not justify the policemen in their savage and indiscriminate attack upon innocent and helpless people.

We ask for no money consideration, and our counsel, Hon. Frank Moss, has been so advised. We are not responsible for what private individuals may do—the rights of citizenship we value above money.

We ask for the conviction, and removal from the force of those officers whom we are able to prove guilty.

We appeal to you, sir, as chief magistrate of this city, to give this matter special personal attention.

If the guilty are shielded it will encourage the mob to repeat the same offense, the officers to commit the same deeds, and our people to prepare for self-defense in spite of law or gospel. This can have no other termination than bloodshed and butchery.

This, I believe, may all be avoided by a course of simple justice. The color of a man's skin must not be made the index of his character or ability. From the many ugly threatening letters I have received I feel that my own life is not safe, but I am unwilling to purchase it by silence at the expense of my unfortunate race. We feel keenly our position, and again appeal to you for common justice.

I am, dear sir,

Yours,

W. H. BROOKS.

PERSECUTION OF NEGROES

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BY

Roughs and Policemen, in the City

of New York, August, 1900.

STATEMENT AND PROOFS WRITTEN AND COM-

PILED BY FRANK MOSS AND ISSUED BY THE

CITIZENS' PROTECTIVE LEAGUE.

STATEMENT OF THE PERSECUTION.

The riots and persecutions described in this pamphlet occurred mainly in the 20th Police Precinct, which is under the command of Acting Captain John Cooney, and within the jurisdiction of Inspector Walter L. Thompson. Chief William S. Devery resides in the precinct, near the scene of the disorder.

The district has a large colored population, and mixed with it are many dissolute and lawless white persons.

On August the 12th last a Negro named Arthur Harris was with his wife at 41st Street and 8th Avenue. He says that he left her to buy a cigar, and when he returned he found her in the grasp of a man in citizen's dress. This man was a police officer, named Robert J. Thorpe, who had arrested her, as he claimed, for soliciting. Harris says that he did not know Thorpe was an officer, and that he attempted to rescue his wife. The policeman struck Harris with his club, and Harris retaliated with his penknife, inflicting a mortal wound, and then ran away.

Thorpe was attached to the 20th Precinct, and was much liked by his comrades. Policemen thronged his home, and his funeral, on August 16th, was attended by Chief Devery, Inspector Thompson, and other officials.

Harris, the murderer, had disappeared, and many policemen who were interested in Thorpe were seized with a desire of vengeance on Negroes generally. During the day of the funeral there were rumors of coming trouble, and those colored people who have illicit dealings with the police—keepers of gambling, disorderly, and badger houses—seeing the signs of coming trouble, closed their places and kept off the streets. Several officers told informants of mine that they were going to punish the Negroes that night. There are numerous gangs of rowdies in the district who are hostile to Negroes and friendly with the unofficial powers that are now potent in police affairs. There was an understanding between the forces that night that resulted in the holding of the streets for hours by crowds of roughs who raced up and down Broadway, 7th and 8th Avenues, and the side streets from 34th to 42nd Streets in pursuit of Negroes, and were not attacked by the police except in one or two cases where they invaded Broadway hotels hunting for colored men.

The unanimous testimony of the newspaper reports was that the mobs could have been broken and destroyed immediately and with little difficulty. In many instances of brutality by the mob policemen stood by and made no effort to protect the Negroes who were assailed. They ran with the crowds in pursuit of their prey; they took defenseless men who ran to them for protection and threw them to the rioters, and in many cases they beat and clubbed men and women more brutally than the mob did. They were absolutely unrestrained by their superior officers. It was the night sticks of the police that sent a stream of bleeding colored men to the hospital, and that made the station house in West 37th Street look like a field hospital in the midst of battle. Men who were taken to the station house by officers and men in the station house were beaten by policemen without mercy, and their cries of distress made sleep impossible for those who lived in the rear of the station house.

Colored men being denied official protection, many of them obtained weapons, and if they were found armed, or if revolvers were found in their houses, then official brutality was redoubled.

The tumult of August 15th was repeated on a smaller scale on the night of the 16th, but public attention had been directed to the shameful conduct of our guardians of the peace, and the precinct swarmed with reporters and sightseers. Then the dilatory officials speedily quelled the riot and ended the punishment of the Negroes.

In the courts many false charges were made by policemen; and although some Negroes were discharged by the magistrates, others were convicted and punished on the false testimony of their accusers. One magistrate commented severely on the comparatively small number of white men that were arraigned before him for rioting.

Had a force of regular soldiers been sent to quell such a disturbance, and had it failed so utterly and so long as did the police, and had the soldiers abandoned their duty, and vied with the roughs in beating the men whom they should have protected, undoubtedly some guilty privates would have been punished—but the severest penalty would have fallen on their incompetent or derelict commanders. The commanders in this case were Acting Captain Cooney, Inspector Thompson, and Chief Devery.

The newspapers told of the shocking outrage, and printed many specific cases of cruelty, giving the addresses of the victims and the circumstances of their persecution. By this and other means the Police Commissioners and the Mayor were fully apprised of the facts. There was no suspicion of politics in the universal demand that went up for a prompt and efficient investigation and for the severe punishment of the offenders. This request was unheeded, until the acting Mayor called on the Police Commissioners to investigate the conduct of their subordinates. The Commissioners delayed, knowing full well how such cases deteriorate by delay, and after several weeks announced that they would investigate.

The colored people of the city, realizing their unexpected danger as a race, and discovering the surprising unwillingness of the city authorities to punish their assailants and to protect them in the future, formed The Citizens' Protective League. This society and the Society for the Prevention of Crime and the City Vigilance League communicated with the Mayor in writing and urged him to hold an investigation or to direct the Commissioner of Accounts to hold one for him. His answer was that the whole matter was in the hands of the Board of Police. A number of Negroes who had been injured retained Israel Ludlow, Esq., to bring suits against the city for damages inflicted on them by the mob. He filed with the Police Commissioners the affidavit of William J. Elliott, who had been clubbed in the station house. The Police Board began its investigation by calling Elliott and his witnesses on the 7th of September. The examination of witnesses was conducted by the President of the Board, Bernard J. York, and, with the approval of the Board, he refused to give subpœnas to Mr. Ludlow, and refused to allow him or any other lawyer to examine or cross-examine any witnesses, or to suggest any step to be taken. Elliott and all other colored witnesses were examined by the President as hostile parties, and their testimony was controverted by the policemen who were called at once and were carefully nursed and led by him. Glaring discrepancies and disagreements in their testimony were passed over in spite of specific protests by Mr. Ludlow. The writer appeared on behalf of the societies that had memorialized the Mayor, and filed a complaint of inefficiency and neglect of duty against the Captain, the Inspector, and the Chief of Police, and announced that he had much testimony to offer on the specifications, but insisted on his right to examine his own witnesses and to cross-examine the police witnesses. These rights were emphatically denied, and the complaint was disdainfully pigeonholed.

The Protective League separately asked the Mayor for justice; he responded that the whole matter was with the Police Board, and he made the same response to Mr. Ludlow, who complained to him of the farce that was being enacted at Police Headquarters. The hearing was continued several days. Witnesses were examined superficially in eight cases of cruelty by policemen, and were controverted by double the number of policemen, and it was suddenly announced that the hearings were closed. Claims of sixteen Negroes against the city were then on file in the Comptroller's office, the names and addresses of many more victims had appeared in the newspapers, and the writer had announced that he had in his possession over forty affidavits of police brutality. The investigation was a palpable sham.

At this date not a single complaint has been preferred by the Chief, the Inspector, the Captain, or the Commissioners against any police officer for brutality or neglect of duty during the riots.

On September 12th a great meeting was held at Carnegie