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 subpoenas 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 Hall to protest
against the brutality and against the failure of the city authorities
to act, and to take measures for the prevention of such outbreaks in
the future. Fully thirty-five hundred people attended, and listened to
addresses by Rev. R. S. MacArthur, D.D., Rev. D. W. Cook, D.D., Rev. C.
T. Walker, D.D., Rev. W. H. Brooks, D.D., Rev. Bishop W. B. Derrick,
D.D., Miss M. R. Lyons, Hon. D. M. Webster.
A subscription was started, and measures were taken to make the
Citizens' Protective League a permanent and a vital institution.
The League and its representatives are using every possible lawful
measure to secure justice to its people, and to vindicate their right
to live in peace. They are having a difficult task to get a hearing.
Several cases have been brought by it in the Magistrates' Court,
but they are difficult to carry in the face of a solid and lusty
swearing lot of policemen, and they cannot show the crime in its mass,
and cannot reveal the responsibility of the higher officials for
the outbreak and for the failure to discover and punish the guilty
policemen and their commanders.
The Mayor has abundant authority to hear the matter, but he has washed
his hands of it, and the Police Board has not hesitated to write
another page of its damning history. There is no other way open for
a full and connected presentation of the case to the public except
by legal process through the Mayor and the Commissioners. A Grand
Jury investigation was had, and resulted in no indictment. Such an
investigation is necessarily held behind closed doors, and the sole
question is whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant the
indictment of a specific individual for a specific act, unrelated to
other acts, and with a reasonable probability of conviction.
I have advised the Citizens' Protective League of the great barriers
to be overcome in securing the conviction of even a patrolman, and of
the inadequacy of a criminal proceeding in an attempted presentation of
the great wrong that the Negroes have suffered. They need the sympathy
and support of the good people of New York to secure a vindication, and
to prevent a recurrence of the outbreak. Under my advice the appended
affidavits have been secured, and are now printed, so that they may
be read and considered in their relation to each other. I may say
that with hardly an exception the affiants have shown themselves to
be respectable, hard-working men and women. The dissolute Negroes who
are so often seen lounging about the "Tenderloin" and its neighborhood
are not to be found among the witnesses. They are the friends of the
police, contributing very largely to their comfort and happiness, and
it is quite clear that they had their warning and kept out of the way.
With this simple introduction, I present the affidavits, confident
that they will speak for themselves, and that they will lead to the
condemnation of the high official criminals, and contribute to the
overthrow of the infernal system that they represent.
Brutality and insolence of policemen have increased greatly, and the
Police Commissioners seldom, if ever, convict officers for these
offenses. Humble citizens of all races to-day are in more danger from
policemen's clubs than they are from the assaults of criminals. The
inaction of the Commissioners in the cases of the Negroes is entirely
consistent with their general conduct in all citizens' complaints.