I. TAMPA

On Sunday, June 11, 1967, Tampa, Florida, sweltered in the 94-degree heat. A humid wind ruffled the bay, where thousands of persons watched the hydroplane races. Since early morning the Police Department's Selective Enforcement Unit, designed as a riot control squad, had been employed to keep order at the races.

At 5:30 P.M., a block from the waterfront, a photo supply warehouse was broken into. Forty-five minutes later two police officers spotted three Negro youths as they walked near the State Building. When the youths caught sight of the officers, they ducked into an alley. The officers gave chase. As they ran, the suspects left a trail of photographic equipment scattered from yellow paper bags they were carrying.

The officers transmitted a general broadcast over the police radio. As other officers arrived on the scene, a chase began thrOsugh and around the streets, houses, and alleys of the neighborhood. When Negro residents of the area adjacent to the Central Park Village Housing Project became aware of the chase, they began to participate. Some attempted to help the officers in locating the suspects.

R. C. Oates, one of 17 Negros on the 511-man Tampa police force, spotted 19-year-old Martin Chambers, bare to the waist, wriggling away beneath one of the houses. Oates called for Chambers to surrender. Ignoring him, 'chambers emerged running from beneath the house. A white officer, J. L. Calvert, took up the pursuit.

Pursuing Calvert, in turn, were three young Negroes, all spectators. Behind one of the houses a- high cyclone fence created a two-foot wide alley twenty-five feet in length.

As Chambers darted along the fence, Officer Calvert rounded the corner of the house. Calvert yelled to him to halt. Chambers ignored him. Calvert pointed his .38 revolver and fired. The slug entered the back of Chambers and passed completely through his body. Raising his hands over his head, he clutched at the cyclone fence.

When the three youths running behind Officer Calvert came upon the 'scene, they assumed Chambers had been shot standing in the position in which they saw him. Rumor quickly spread through the neighborhood that a white police officer had shot a Negro youth who had had his hands over his head and was trying to surrender.

The ambulance that had been summoned became lost on the way. The gathering crowd viewing the bloody, critically injured youth grew increasingly belligerent.

Finally, Officer Oates loaded Chambers into his car and drove him to the hospital. The youth died shortly thereafter.

As officers were leaving the scene, a thunderstorm broke. Beneath the pelting rain, the spectators scattered. When an officer went back to check the area he found no one on the streets.

A few minutes after 7:00 P.M., the Selective Enforcement Unit, tired and sun-parched, reported in from the races. A half hour later a report was received that 500 persons were gathering. A police car was sent into the area to check the report. The officers could find no one. The men of the Selective Enforcement Unit were told to go home.

The men in the scout car had not, however, penetrated into the Central Park Village Housing complex where, as the rain ended, hundreds of persons poured from the apartments. At least half were teenagers and young adults. As they began to mill about and discuss the shooting, old grievances, both real and imagined, were resurrected: discriminatory practices of local stores, advantages taken by white men of Negro girls, the kicking in the face of a Negro boy by a white man as the Negro lay handcuffed on the ground, blackballing of two Negro high schools by the athletic conference.

Although officials prided themselves on supposedly good race relations and relative acceptance by whites of integration of schools and facilities, Negroes, composing almost 20 percent of the population,2 had had no one of their own race to represent them in positions of policy or power, nor to appeal to for redress of grievances.

There was no Negro on the city council; none on the school board: none in the fire department; none of high rank on the police force. Six of every 10 houses inhabited by Negroes were Unsound. Many were shacks with broken window panes, gas leaks, and rat holes in the walls. Rents averaged $50 to $60 a month. Such recreational facilities as did exist lacked equipment and supervisors. Young toughs intimidated the children who tried to use them.

The majority of Negro children never reached the eighth grade. In the high schools, only 3 to 4 percent of Negro seniors attained the minimum passing score on the State's college entrance examination, one-tenth the percentage of white students.

A difference of at least three-and-a-half years in educational attainment separated the average Negro and white. Fifty-five percent of the Negro men in Tampa were working in unskilled jobs. More than half of the families had incomes of less than $3,000 a year. The result was that 40 percent of the Negro children lived in broken homes, and the city's crime rate ranked in the top 25 percent in the nation.

About a month before, police-community relations had been severely strained by the actions of a pail of white officers who were subsequently transferred to another beat.

When Officer Oates returned to the area he attempted to convince the crowd to disperse by announcing that a complete investigation would be made into the shooting. He seemed to be making headway when a young woman came running down the street screaming that the police had killed her brother. Her hysteria galvanized the crowd. Rock throwing began. Police cars driving into the area were stoned. The police, relying on a previous experience when, after withdrawal of their units, the crowd had dispersed, decided to send no more patrol cars into the vicinity.

This time the maneuver did not work. From nearby bars and tawdry night spots patrons joined the throng. A window was smashed. Haphazard looting began. As fluid bands of rioters moved down the Central Avenue business district, stores whose proprietors were particularly disliked were singled out. A grocery store, a liquor store, a restaurant were hit. The first fire was set.

Because of the dismissal of the Selective Enforcement Unit and the lack of accurate intelligence information, the police department was slow to react. Although Sheriff Malcolm Beard of Hillsborough County was in contact with the Department throughout the evening, it was not until after 11:09 P.M. that a request for deputies was made to him

At 11:30 P.M. a recall order, issued earlier by the police department, began to bring officers back into the area. By this time, the streets in the vicinity of the housing project were lighted by the flames of burning buildings.

Falling power lines whipped sparks about the skirmish line of officers as they moved down the street. The popping noise of what sounded to the officers like gunshots came from the direction of the housing project.

The officers did not return the fire. Police announced from a sound car that anyone caught armed would be shot. The firing ceased. Then, and throughout the succeeding two days, law enforcement officers refrained from the use of firearms. No officer or civilian suffered a gunshot wound during the riot.

Driving along the expressway, a young white couple, Mr. and Mrs. C. D., were startled by the fires. Deciding to investi- gate, they took the off-ramp into the midst of the riot. The car was swarmed over. Its windows were shattered. C. D. was dragged into the street.

As he emerged from a bar in which he had spent the evening, 19-year old J. C., a Negro fruit-picker from Arkansas, was as surprised by the riot as Mr. and Mrs. C. D. Rushing toward the station wagon in which the young woman was trapped, he interposed himself between her and the mob. Although rocks and beer cans smashed the windows, she was able to drive off. J. C. pushed through to where the white man lay. With the hoots and jeers of rioting youths ringing in his ears, J. C. helped him, also, to escape.

By 1:00 A.M., police officers and sheriff's deputies had surrounded an area several blocks square. Firemen began to extinguish the flames which, by this time, had spread to several other establishments from the three stores in which they had, originally, been set. No resistance was met. Control was soon re-established.

Governor Claude Kirk flew to Tampa. Since the chief of police was absent, and since the Governor regarded the sheriff as his "direct arm," Sheriff Beard was placed in charge of the combined forces of the police and sheriff's departments.
For the next 12 hours the situation remained quiet but tense. By afternoon of Monday, June 12, the sheriff's and police forces both had been fully committed. The men were tired. There were none in reserve.

As a precaution, the Sheriff requested that a National Guard contingent be made available.

Late in the afternoon Governor Kirk met with the residents at a school in the Central Park Village area. It was a tense meeting. Most speakers, whether white or Negro, were booed and hissed. The meeting broke up without concrete results. Nevertheless, the Governor believed it had enabled the residents to let off steam.

That evening, as National Guard troops began to supplant local forces in maintaining a perimeter and establishing roving patrols, anti-poverty workers went from door to door, urging citizens to stay off the streets.

A reported attempt by Black Muslims to incite further violence failed. Although there were scattered reports of trouble from several areas of the city, and a few fires were set—largely in vacant buildings—there were no major
mcidents. Several youths with a cache of Molotov cocktails were arrested. They were white.

All the next day false reports poured into Police Headquarters. Everyday scenes took on menacing tones. Twenty Negro men, bared to the waist and carrying clubs were reported to be gathering. They turned out to be construction workers.

Mayor Nuccio met with residents. At their suggestion that the man most likely to carry weight with the youngsters was Coach Jim Williams, he placed a call to Tallahassee, where Williams was attending a coaching clinic.

An impressive-looking man with graying hair, Williams arrived in Tampa almost 48 hours after the shooting of Martin Chambers. Together with another coach he went to an eatery called The Greek Stand, behind which he found a number of youngsters fashioning an arsenal of bottles, bricks, and Molotov cocktails. As in the crowds that were once more beginning to gather, the principal complaint was the presence of the National Guard, which, the residents asserted, gave them a feeling of being hemmed in. Williams decided to attempt to negotiate the removal of the National Guard if the people would agree to keep the peace and to disperse.

When Sheriff Beard arrived at a meeting called for the College Hill Elementary School, Robert Gilder of the NAACP was speaking to leaders of the Negro youth. Some were college students who had been unable to get summer jobs. One was a Vietnam veteran who had been turned down for a position as a swimming pool lifeguard. The youths believed that discrimination had played a part in their failure to find jobs.

The suggestion was made to Sheriff Beard that the National Guard be pulled out of the Negro areas, and that these young men, as well as others, be given the opportunity to keep order. The idea, which was encouraged by James Hammond, Director of the Commission of Community Relations, made sense to the Sheriff. He decided to take a chance on the Youth Patrol.

In another part of the city, West Tampa, two Negro community leaders, Dr. James 0. Brookins and attorney Delano S. Stewart, were advised by acquaintances that, unless the intensive patrolling of Negro neighborhoods ceased, people planned to set fires in industrial districts that evening. Like Coach Williams, Dr. Brookins and Stewart contacted neighborhood youths, and invited Sheriff Beard to a meeting. The concept of the Youth Patrol was expanded. Participants were identified first by phosphorescent arm bands, and later by white hats.

During the next 24 hours 126 youths, some of whom had participated in the riot, were recruited into the patrol. Many were high school dropouts.

On Wednesday, the inquiry into the death of Martin Chambers was concluded. With the verdict that Officer Calvert had fired the shot justifiably and in the line of duty, apprehension rose that trouble would erupt again. The leaders of the Youth Patrol were called in. The Sheriff explained the 'law to them, and pointed out that the verdict was in conformance with the law. Despite the fact that the verdict was not to their liking, the White Hats continued tokeep order.

2 Throughout the report, in the presentation of statistics Negro is used interchangeably with non-white. Wherever available, current data are used. Where no updating has been possible, figures are those of the 1960 census. Sources are the U.S. Bureau of the Census and other government agencies, and, in a few instances, special studies.