Drug Abuse

VII. DETROIT

On Saturday evening, July 22, the Detroit Police Department raided five "blind pigs." The blind pigs had had their origin in prohibition days, and survived as private social clubs. Often, they were after-hours drinking and gambling spots.

The fifth blind pig on the raid list, the United Community and Civic League at the corner of 12th Street and Clairmount, had been raided twice before. Once 10 persons had been picked up; another time, 28. A Detroit Vice Squad officer had tried but failed to get in shortly after 10 o'clock Saturday night. He succeeded, on his second attempt, at 3:45 Sunday morning.

The Tactical Mobile Unit, the Police Department's Crowd Control Squad, had been dismissed at 3:00 A.M. Since Sunday morning traditionally is the least troublesome time for police in Detroit—and all over the country—only 193 officers were patrolling the streets. Of these, 44 were in the 10th Precinct - where the blind pig was located.

Police expected to find two dozen patrons in the blind pig. That night, however, it was the scene of a party for several servicemen, two of whom were back from Vietnam. Instead of two dozen patrons, police found a2. Some voiced resentment at the police intrusion.

An hour went by before all 82 could be transported from the scene. The weather was humid and warm—the tempera, Atm that day was to rise to 86—and despite the late hour, many people were still on the street. In short order, a crowd of about 200 gathered.

In November of 1965, George Edwards, Judge of the -United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and Corn. missioner of the Detroit Police Department from 1961 to 1963, had written in the Michigan Law Review:

It is clear that in 1965 no one will make excuses for any city's inability to foresee the possibility of racial trouble. ... Although local police forces generally regard themselves as public servants with the responsibility of maintaining law and order, they tend to minimize this attitude when they are patrolling areas' that are heavily populated with Negro citizens. There, they tend to view each person on the streets as a potential criminal or enemy, and all too often that attitude is reciprocated. Indeed, hostility between the Negro communities in our large cities and ' the police departments, is the major problem in law enforcement in this decade. It has been a major cause of all recent race riots.' ,

At the time of Detroit's 1943 race riot Judge Edwards told COMmission investigators', there was "open warfare between the Detroit Negroes and the Detroit Police Department." As l. 1961, he had thought that "Detroit was the leading e.an- _
didatf in the United States for a race riot."

There was a long history of conflict between the police department and citizens During the labor battles of the 1930s, ' union members had come to view the Detroit Police DepartMent as a strike-breaking force. The 1943 riot, in which 34 Persons died, was the bloodiest in the United States in--a span of two decades.

Judge Edwards and his successor, Commissioner Ray GirardIn, attempted to restructure the image of the department A.,' Citizens Complaint Bureau was set up to facilitate the filing • of Complaints by citizens against officers. In practice, however, this Bureau appeared to work little better than less enlightened and more curn ersome procedures in other cities.

On 12th Street with its high incidence of 'vice and crime, the issue of police brutality was a recurrent thane. A month earlier the killing of a prostitute had been determined by police investigators to be the work of a pimp. According to rumors • in the eottimunity the crime had been committed by a Vice Squad' officer.

At about the sante time, the killing of Danny Thomas,, a 27 year old Negro Artmy veteran, by a gang of white youths, had inflamed the community. The city's major newspapers played down the story in hope that the murder would not become a cause for increased tensions. The intent backfired. A banner story in the Michigan Chronicle, the city's Negro newspaper, began: "As James Meredith marched again Sunday to prove a Negro could walk in Mississippi without fear, a young woman who saw her husband killed by a white gang, shouting: "Niggers keep out of Rouge Park," lost her baby.

"Relatives were upset that the full story of the murder was not being told, apparently in an effort to prevent the incident from sparking a riot."

Some Negroes believed that the daily newspapers' treatment of the story was further evidence of the double standard: playing up crimes by Negroes, playing down crimes committed against Negroes.

Although police arrested one suspect for murder, Negroes questioned why the entire gang was not held. What, they asked; would have been the result if a white man had been killed by a gang of Negroes? What if Negroes had made the kind of advances toward a white woman that the white men were rumored to have made toward Mrs. Thomas?

The Thomas family lived only four or five blocks from the 'raided blind pig. A few minutes after 5:00 A.M., just after the last of those arrested had been hauled away, an empty bottle smashed into the rear window of a police car. A litter basket was thrown through the window of a store. Rumors circulated of excess force used by the police during the raid. A youth, whom police nicknamed "Mr. Greensleeves" because of the color of his shirt, was shouting: "We're going to have a riot!" and exhorting the crowd to vandalism.

At 5:20 A.M. Commissioner Girardin was notified. He immediately called Mayor Jerome Cavanagh. Seventeen officers from other areas were ordered into the 10th Precinct By 6:00 A.M. police strength had grown to 369 men. Of these, however, only 43 were committed to the immediate riot area By that time the number of persons on 12th Street was growing into the thousands and widespread window-smashing and looting had begun.

On either side of 12th Street were neat, middle-class districts. Along 12th Street itself, however, crowded apartment houses created a density of more than 21,000 persons per square mile, almost double the city average.

The movement of people when the slums of "Black Bottom" had been cleared for urban renewal had changed 12th Street from an integrated community into an almost totidlyiblack one, in which only a number of merchants remained white. Only 18 percent of the residents were homeowners Tweraty86 five percent of the housing was considered so substandard as to require clearance. Another 19 percent had major deficiencies.

The crime rate was almost double that of the city as a whole. A Detroit police officer told Commission investigators that prostitution was so widespread that officers made arrests only when soliciting became blatant. The proportion of broken families was more than twice that in the rest of the city.

By 7:50 A.M., when a 17-man police commando unit attempted to make the first sweep, an estimated 3,000 persons were on 12th Street. They offered no resistance. As the sweep moved down the street, they gave way to one side, and then flowed back behind it.

A shoe store manager said he waited vainly for police for two hours as the store was being looted. At 8:25 A.M. someone in the crowd yelled "The cops are coming!" The first flames of the riot billowed from the store. Firemen who responded were not harassed. The flames were extinguished.

By mid-morning, 1,122 men—approximately a fourth of the police department—had reported for duty. Of these, 540 were in or near the six-block riot area. One hundred and eight offt. cers were attempting to establish a cordon. There was, however, no interference with looters, and police were refraining from the use of force.

Commissioner Girardin said: "If we had started shooting in there . . . not one of our policemen would have come out alive. I am convinced it would have turned into a race riot in the conventional sense."

According to witnesses, police at some roadblocks made little effort to stop people from going in and out of the area. Bantering took place between police officers and the populace, some still in pajamas. To some observers, there seemed at this point to be an atmosphere of apathy. On the one hand, the police failed to interfere with the looting. On the other, a number of older, more stable residents, who had seen the street ;deteriorate from a prosperous commercial thoroughfare to one ridden by vice, remained aloof.

Because officials feared that the 12th Street disturbance might be a diversion, many officers were sent to guard key installations in other sections of the city. Belle Isle, the recreation area in the Detroit River that had been the scene of the 1943 riot, was sealed off.

In an effort to avoid attracting people to the scene, some broadcasters cooperated by not reporting the riot, and an effort was made to downplay the extent of the disorder. The facade of "business as usual" necessitated the detailing of numerous police officers to protect the 50,000 spectators that were expected at that afternoon's New York Yankees-Detroit Tigers baseball game.    -

Early in the morning a task force of community workers went into the area to dispel rumors and act as counter rioters Siteh a task force had been singularly successful at the time . orthe incident in the Kercheval district in the summer of 1966, when scores of people had gathered at the site of an =est. Kercheval; however, has a more stable population, , fewer stores, less population density, and the city's most effective police-community relations program.

The 12th Street area, on the other hand, had been determined, in a 1966 survey conducted by Dr. Ernest Harburg of the Psychology Department of the University of Michigan, to be a community of high stress and tension. An overwhelming majority of the residents indicated dissatisfaction with their environment.

Of those interviewed, 93 percent said they wanted to move out of the neighborhood; 73 percent felt that the streets were not safe; 91 percent believed that a person was likely to robbed or beaten at night; 58 percent knew of a fight within' the last 12 months in which a weapon had been employed; 32-percent stated that they themselves owned a weapon; 57 * percent were worried about fires.

A Significant proportion believed municipal services to be '-.•• inferior:. 36 percent were dissatisfied with the schools; 43 per-ie-cent with- the city's contribution to the neighborhood; 77 percent with the recreational facilities; 78 percent believed police did not respond promptly when they were summoned for help.

United States Representative John Conyers, Jr., a Negro, was notified about the disturbance at his home, a few blocks. from 12th Street, at 8:30 A.M. Together with other community leaders, including Hubert G. Locke, a Negro and assistant to the commissioner of police, he began to drive arounef the .area. I the side streets he asked people to stay in their homes. On 12th Street, he asked them to disperse. It was;
his own account, a futile task.

Numerous eyewitnesses interviewed by Commission investigators tell of the carefree mood with which people ran in, and out of stores, looting and laughing, and joking with the police officers. Stores with "Soul Brothers" signs appeared pa more immune than others. Looters paid no attention to residents who shouted at them and called their actions senseless. An epidemic of excitement had swept over the persons on the Street.

'Congressman Conyers noticed a woman with a baby in 88 her arms; she was raging, cursing "whitey" for no apparent reason.

Shortly before noon Congressman Conyers climbed atop a car in the middle of 12tn Street to address the people. As he began to speak he was confronted by a man in his fifties whofn he had once, as a lawyer, represented in court. The man had been active in civil rights. He believed himself to have been persecuted as a result, and it was Conyers' opinion that he may have been wrongfully jailed. Extremely bitter, the man was inciting the crowd and challenging Conyers: "Why are you defending the cops and the establishment? You're just as bad as they are!"

A police officer in the riot area told Commission investigators that neither he nor his fellow officers were instructed at to what they were supposed to be doing. Witnesses tell of officers standing behind saw-horses as an area was being looted and still standing there much later, when the mob had Aioved elsewhere. A squad from the commando unit, wearing Itehnets with face-covering visors and carrying bayonet-tipped -Carbines, blockaded a street several blocks from the scene of the riot. Their appearance drew residents into the street., Some began to harangue them and to question why they were in an area where there was no trouble. Representative Con-, Yks convinced the police department to remove the cornmandos.

By that time a rumor was threading through the crowd that a man had been bayoneted by the police. Influenced by such -.Stories, the crowd beca te belligerent. At aoproximately 1:00 P.M. stonings accelerated. Numerous officers reported injuries from rocks, bottles, and other objects thrown at them. Smoke billowed upward from four fires, the first since the one at the shoe store early in the morning. When firemen answered , the alarms, they became the target for rocks and bottles.

At 2:00 P.M. Mayor Cavanagh met with community and political leaders at police headquarters. Until then there had been hope that, as the people blew off steam, the riot would dissipate. Now the opinion was nearly unanimous that additional forces would be needed.

A request was made for state police aid. By 3:00 P.M. 360 officers were assembling at the armory. At that moment looting was spreading from the 12th Street area to other main thoroughfares.

There was no lack of the disaffected to help spread it. Although not yet as hard-pressed as Newark, Detroit was, like Newark, losing population. Its prosperous middle-class whites were moving to the suburbs and being replaced by unskilled-Negro migrants. Between 1960 and 1967 the Negro population rose from just under. 30 percent to an estimated 40 percent of the total.

In a decade the school system had gained 50,000 to 60,000 children. Fifty-one percent of the elementary school classes we overcrowded. Simply to achieve the statewide average, the system needed 1,650 more teachers and 1,000 additional - 'classrooms. The combined cost would be $63 million.

Of 300,000 school children, 171,000, or 57 percent, were Negro. According to the Detroit Superintendent of Schools, 25 different school districts surrounding the city spent up to $500 more per pupil per year than Detroit. In the inner city schools, more than half the pupils who entered high school became dropouts.

The strong union structure had created excellent conditions for most working men, but had left others, such as civil seryice and government workers, comparatively disadvantaged and . dissatisfied. In June the "Blue Flu had struck the city as
police officers, forbidden to strike, had staged a sick-out in September, the teachers were to go on strike. The starting , ages for a plumber's helper were almost equal to the salary .-24` a' police officer or teacher.

Some unions, traditionally dosed to Negroes, zealously otarded training opportunities. In January of 1967 the school system notified six apprenticeship trades it would not Open any new apprenticeship classes unless a large number of Negroes were included By fail some of the programs were still closed.

High school diplomas from inner city schools were regarded by personnel directors as less than valid. In July, janemployment was at a five-year peak In the 12th Street area it was estimated to be between 12 and 15 percent for Negro men and 30 percent or higher for those under 25.

The more education a Negro had, the greater the disparity ' between his income and that of a white with the same level of education. The income of whites and Negroes with a seventh trade education was about equal. The median income of whites with a high school diploma was $1,600 more per year than that of Negroes. White college graduates made $2,600 more In fact, so far as income was concerned, it made very little difference to a Negro man whether he had attended School for & years or for 12. In the fall of 1967, a study conducted at one inner city high school, Northwestern, showed that, although 50 percent of the dropouts had found work, 90 percent of the 1967 graduating class was unemployed.

Mayor Cavanagh had appointed many Negroes to key, positions in his administration, but in elective offices the Negro population was still under-represented. Of nine councilmen, one was a Negro. Of seven school board members, two were Negroes.

Although federal programs had brought nearly $360 million to the city between 1962 and 1967, the money appeared to have had little impact at the grassroots. Urban renewal, for which $38 million had been allocated, was opposed by many residents of the poverty area.

Because of its financial straits, the city was unable to produce on promises to correct such conditions as poor garbage collection and bad street lighting, which brought constant complaints from Negro residents.

On 12th Street Carl Perry, the Negro proprietor of a drug store and photography studio, was dispensing ice cream, sodas, and candy to the youngsters streaming in and out of his store.

For safekeeping he had brought the photography equipment fibm his studio, in the next block, to the drug store. The yOuths milling about repeatedly assured him that, although the market next door had been ransacked, his place of business was in no danger.
In mid-afternoon the market was set afire. Soon after, the drug store went up in flames.

State Representative James Del Rio, a Negro, was camping out in front of a building he owned when two small boys, neither more than 10 years old, approached. One prepared to throw a brick through a window. Del Rio stopped him: "That building belongs to me," he said.
"I'm glad you told me, baby, because I was just about to bust you in!" the youngster replied.

Some evidence that criminal elements were organizing spontaneously to take advantage of the riot began to manifest itself. A number of cars were noted to be returning again and again, their occupants methodically looting stores. Months later, goods stolen during the riot were still being peddled.

A spirit of carefree nihilism was taking hold. To riot and to destroy appeared more and more to become ends in themselves. Late Sunday afternoon it appeared to one observer that the young people were "dancing amidst the flames."
A Negro plainclothes officer was standing at an intersection when a man threw a Molotov cocktail into a business establishment at the corner. In the heat of the afternoon, fanned by the 20 to 25 m.p.h. winds of both Sunday and Monday, the fire reached the home next door within minutes. As residents uselessly sprayed the flames with garden hoses, the fire jumped from roof to roof of adjacent two and three-story buildings. Within the hour the entire block was in flames. The ninth house in the burning row belonged to the arsonist who had thrown the Molotov cocktail.

In some areas residents organized rifle squads to protect firefighters. Elsewhere, especially as the wind-whipped flames began to overwhelm the Detroit Fire Department and more and more residences burned, the firemen were subjected to curses and rock-throwing.

Because of a lack of funds, on a per capita basis the department is one of the smallest in the nation. In comparison to Newark, where approximately 1,000 firemen patrol an area of 16 square miles with a population of 400,000, Detroit's 1,700 firemen must cover a city of 140 square miles with a population of 1.6 million Because the department had no mutual aid agreement with surrounding communities, it could not quickly call in reinforcements from outlying areas, and it was almost 9:00 P.M. before the first arrived. At one point, out of a total of 92 pieces of Detroit fire fighting equipment and 56 brought in from surrounding communities, only four, engine companies were available to guard areas of the city outside of the riot perimeter.

As the afternoon progressed the fire department's radio carried repeated messages of apprehension and orders of caution:

There is no police protection here at all; there isn't a policeman in the area.... If you have any trouble at all, pull out! ... We're being stoned at the scene. It's going good. We need help! . . . 'Protect yourselves! Proceed away from the scene. .. . Engine 42 over at Linwood and Gladstone. They are throwing bottles at as so we are getting out of the area. . . . All companies without police protection—all companies without police protection, orders are to withdraw, do not try to put out the fires. I repeat—all companies without police protection orders are to withdraw, do not try to put out the fires!

It was 4:30 P.M. when the firemen, some of them exhausted by the heat, abandoned an area of approximately 100 square Was on either side of 12th Street to await protection from police and National Guardsmen.

During the course of the riot firemen were to withdraw 283 times.

Fire Chief Charles' J. Quinlan estimated that at least two-thirds of the buildings were destroyed by spreading, rather than fires set at the scene. Of the 683 structures involved, approximately one-third were residential, and in few, if any, of these was the fire set originally.

Governor George Romney flew over the area between 8:30 and 9:00 P.M. "It looked like the city had been bombed on the 'west side and there was an area two-and-a-half miles by three-and-a-half miles with major fires, with entire blocks in flames," he told the Commission.

In the midst Of chaos there were some unexpected individual 'responses.

Twenty-four-year-old E. G., a Negro born in Savannah, Georgia, had tome to Detroit in 1965 to attend Wayne State University. Rebellion had been building in him for a long time because,

You just had to bow down to the white man. . . . When the insurance man would come by he would always call out to my mother by her first name and we were expected to smile and greet him happily. . . . Man, I know he would never have thought of me or my father going to his house and calling his wife by her first name. Then I once saw a white man slapping a young pregnant Negro woman on the street with such force that she Just spun around and fell. I'll never forget that.

When a friend called to tell him about the riot on 12th Street, E. G. went there expecting "a true revolt," but was disappointed as soon as he saw the looting begin: "I wanted to see the people really rise up in revolt. When I saw the first person coming out of the store with things in his arms, I really got sick to my stomach and wanted to go home. Rebellion against the white suppressors is one thing, but one measly pair of shoes or some food completely ruins the whole concept."

E. G. was standing in a crowd, watching firemen work, when Fire Chief Alvin Wall called out for help from the spectators. E. G. responded. His reasoning was: "No matter what color someone is, whether they are green or pink or blue, I'd help them if they were in trouble. That's all there is to it."

He worked with the firemen for four days, the only Negro in an all-white crew. Elsewhere, at scattered locations, a half dozen other Negro youths pitched in to help the firemen.

At 4:20 P.M. Mayor Cavanagh requested that the National Guard be brought into Detroit. Although a major portion of the Guard was in its summer encampment 200 miles away, several hundred troops were conducting their regular weekend drill in the city. That circumstance obviated many problems. The first troops were on the streets by 7:00 P.M.

At 7:45 P.M. the mayor issued a proclamation instituting a 9:00 P.M. to 5:00 A.M. curfew. At 9:07 P.M. the first sniper fire was reported. Following his aerial survey of the city, Governor Romney, at or shortly before midnight, proclaimed that "a state of public emergency exists" in the cities of Detroit, Highland Park, and Hamtramck.

At 4:45 P.M. a 68-year-old white shoe repairman, George Messerlian, had seen looters carrying clothes from a cleaning establishment next to his shop. Armed with a saber, he had rushed into the Street,-flailing away at the looters, One negro youth was nicked on the shoulder. Another, who had not.been on the scene, inquired ,as to what had happened. After he had been told, he allegedly replied: I'll get the old man for you.

Going up to Messerlian, who had fallen or been knocked to the ground, the youth began to beat him with a club. Two other negro youths dragged the attacker away from the old, man. It was too late. Messerlian died four days later in the hospital.

At ,9:15 P.M. a 16-year-old Negro boy, superficially wounded while looting, became the first, reported gunshot victim.

At midnight Sharon George, a 23-year-old white woman, together with her two brothers, was a passenger in a car being driven by her husband. After having dropped off two Negro friends, they were returning home on one of Detroit's main avenues when they were slowed by a milling throng in the street A shot fired from close range struck the car. The bullet splintered in Mrs. George's body. She died less than two hours

An hour before midnight a 45-year-old white man, Walter tirtatika together with three white companions, went into the street. $hottly thereafter a market was broken into. Inside the show window a Negro man began filling bags with groceries stid handing them to confederates outside the store. Grzanka twice went over to the store, accepted bags, and placed them down beside his companions across the street. On the third occasion he entered the market When he emerged, the market owner, driving by in his car, shot and killed him.

In Orzanka's pockets police found seven cigars, four packages of pipe tobacco, and nine pairs of shoelaces.

Before dawn four other looters were shot, one of them accidentally while struggling with a police officer. A Negro youth and a National Guardsman were injured by gunshots of undetermined origin. A private guard shot himself while pulling his revolver from his pocket. In the basement of the 13th Precinct Police Station a cue ball, thrown by an unknown assailant, cracked against the head of a sergeant.

At about midnight three white youths, armed with a shotgun, had gone to the roof of their apartment building, located in ah all-white block, in order, they said, to protect the building from fire. At 2:45 A.M. a patrol car, carrying police officers and National Guardsmen, received a report of "snipers on the roof." As the patrol car arrived, the manager of the building went to the roof to tell the youths they had better come down.

The law enforcement personnel surrounded the building, some going to the 'front, others to the rear. As the Manager' together with the three youths, descended the fire escape in the rear, a National Guardsman, believing he heard shots from the front fired. His shot killed 23-year-old Clifton Pryor:

Early in the morning a young white firenman and a 49-year old Negro homeowner were killed by fallen power lines.

By 2:09,4 M. Monday, Detroit police had been augmented by 800 State 'Police officers and 1,200 National Guardsmen. An additional 8,000 Guardsmen were on the way. Nevertheless, Governor Romney and Mayor Cavanagh decided to ask for federal assistance. At 2:15 A.M. the mayor 'called Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and was referred to Attorney General Ramsey Clark A short time thereafter telephone contact was established between Governor Romney and the' attorney general.

There is some difference of opinion about what occurred, next. According to the attorney general's office, the governor was advised of the seriousness of the request and told that the applicable federal statute required that, before federal troops could be brought into the city, he would have to state that the situation had deteriorated to the point that local and state forces could no longer maintain law and order. According to the governor, he was under the impression that he was being asked to declare that a "state of insurrection" existed in the
city.

The governor was unwilling to make such a declaration, contending that, if he did, insurance policies would not cover the loss incurred as a result of the riot. He and the mayor decided to re-evaluate the need for federal troops. .

Contact between Detroit and Washington was maintained throughout the early morning hours. At 9:00 A M as the disorder still showed no sign of abating, the governor and the - mayor decided to make a renewed request for federal troops.
Shortly before noon the President of the United States authorized-the sending of a task force of paratroopers to Selfridge Air Vorce Base, near the city. A few minutes past 3:00- P.M., Lt. General John L. Throckmorton, commander of 'Task Force Detroit, met Cyrus Vance, former Deputy Secretary "of Defense, at the air base. Approximately an hour later the first; federal troops arrived at the air base.
After meeting with state and municipal officials, Mr, Vance,, =General Throckmorton, Governor Romney, and Mayor Cavanagh, made a tour of the city, which lasted until 7:15 P.M.

During this tour Mr. Vance and General Throckmortanitide pendently came to the conclusion that—since they had seen no looting or sniping, since the fires appeared te be coming wader control, and since a substantial number of National Guardsmen had not yet been committed—injection of federal troops would be premature.

As the riot alternately waxed and waned, onwarea of the ghetto remained insulated. On the northeast side the residents of some 150 square blocks inhabited by 21,000 persons had, in 1966, banded together in the Positive Neighborhood Action Committee' (PNAC). With professional help from the Institute of Urban Dynamics, they had organized block clubs and made plans for the improvement of the neighborhood. In order to meet the heed for recreational facilities, which the city was not providing, they had raised $3,000 to purchase empty lots for Playgrounds. Although opposed to urban renewal, they had agreed to co-sponsor with the Archdiocese of Detroit a housing project to be controlled jointly by the archdiocese and PNAC.

When the riot broke out, the residents, through the block s clubs, were able to organize quickly. Youngsters, agreeing to stay in the neighborhood, participated in detouring traffic. -While many persons reportedly sympathized with the idea of a rebellion against the "system," only two small fires were set —one in an empty building.

During the daylight hours Monday, nine more persons were killed by gunshots elsewhere in the city, and many others were seriously or critically injured. Twenty-three-year old Nathaniel Edmonds, a Negro, was sitting in his back yard when a young white man stopped his car, got out, and began an argument with him. A few minutes later, declaring that he was "going to paint his picture on him with a shotgun," the white man allegedly shotgunned Edmonds to death.

Mrs. Nannie Pack and Mrs. Mattie Thomas were sitting on the porch of Mrs. Pack's house when police began chasing looters from a nearby market. During the chase officers fired three shots from their shotguns. The discharge from one of these accidentally struck the two women. Both were still in the hospital weeks later.

Included among those critically injured when they were accidentally trapped in the line of fire were an 8-year-old Negro girl and a 14-year-old white boy.
As darkness settled Monday, the number of incidents re-reported to police began to rise again. Although many turned out to be false, several involved injuries to police officers, National Guardsmen, and civilians by gunshots of undetermined origin.

Watching the upward trend of reported incidents, Mr. Vance and General Throckmorton became Convinced Federal troops should be used, and President Johnson was so advised. At , 11:20 P.M. the President signed a proclamation federalizing the Michigan National Guard and authorizing the use of the, paratroopers.

At this time there were nearly 5,000 Guardsmen in the city,. but fatigue, lack of training, and the haste with which they had had to be deployed reduced their effectiveness. Some of the Guardsmen traveled 200 miles and then were on duty for , 30 hours straight. Some had never received riot training and were given on-the-spot instructions on mob control—only. to discover that there were no mobs, and that the situation they faced on the darkened streets was one for which they were unprepared.

Commanders committed men as they became available, often tn small groups. In the resulting confusion, some units were lost in the city. Two Guardsmen assigned to an intersection on Monday were discovered still there on Friday.

Lessons learned by the California National Guard two years earlier in Watts regarding the danger of overreaction and the necessity of great restraint in using weapons had not, apparently, been passed on to the Michigan National Guard. The ' young troopers could not be expected to know what a danger they were creating by the lack of fire discipline, not only to the civilian population but to themselves.

A Detroit newspaper reporter who spent a night riding in a oommand jeep told a Commission investigator of machine guns being fired accidentally, street lights being shot out by rifle fire, and buildings being placed under siege on the sketchiest reports of sniping. Troopers would fire, and immediately from the distance there would be answering fire, sometimes consisting of tracer bullets.

In one instance, the newsman related, a report was received t on the jeep radio that an Army bus was pinned down by suitor fire at an intersection. National Guardsmen and police, arriving from various directions, jumped out and began asking each other: "Where's the sniper fire coming from?" As one Guardsman pointed to a building, everyone rushed about, taking cover. A soldier, alighting from a jeep, accidentally pulled the - trigger on his rifle. As the shot reverberated through the daftness an officer yelled: "What's going on?' "I don't know," came the answer. "Sniper, I guess."

Without any clear authorization or direction someone opened fire upon the suspected building. A tank rolled up sprayed the building with .50 caliber tracer bullets. Law enforcement officers rushed into the surrounded building and discovered it empty. "They must be firing one shot and running," was the verdict.

The reporter interviewed the men who had gotten off the bus and were crouched around it. When he asked them about the sniping incident he was told that someone had heard a shot. He asked "Did the bullet hit the bus?" The answer was: "Well, we don't know."

Bracketing the hour of midnight Monday, heavy firing, injuring many persons and killing several, occurred in the southeastern sector, which was to be taken over by the paratroopers at 4:00 A.M. Tuesday, and which was, at this time, considered to be the most active riot area in the city.

Employed as a private guard, 55-year-old Julius L. Dorsey, a Negro, was standing in front of a market when accosted by two Negro men and a woman. They demanded he permit them to loot the market. He ignored their demands. They been to berate him. He asked a neighbor to call the police. As the argument grew more heated, Dorsey fired three shots from his pistol into the air.

The police radio reported: "Looters, they have rifles." A patrol car driven by a police officer and carrying three National Guardsmen arrived. As the looters fled, the law enforcement personnel opened fire. When the firing ceased, one person lay dead.

He was Julius L. Dorsey.

In two areas—one consisting of a triangle formed by Mack, Gratiot, and E. Grand Boulevard, the other surrounding Southeastern High School—firing began shortly after 10:00 P.M. • and continued for several hours.

In the first of the areas, a 22-year-old Negro complained that he had been shot at by snipers. Later, a half dozen civilians and one National Guardsman were wounded by shots of undetermined origin.

Henry Denson, a passenger in a car, was shot and killed when the vehicle's driver, either by accident or intent, failed to heed a warning to halt at a National Guard roadblock.

Similar incidents occurred in the vicinity of Southeastern High School, one of the National Guard staging areas. As early as 10:20 P.M. the area was reported to be under sniper fire. Around midnight there were two incidents, the sequence of which remains in doubt.

Shortly before midnight Ronald Powell, who lived three blocks east of the high school and whose wife was, momentarily, expecting a baby, asked the four friends with whom he ". had been spending the evening to take him home. He, together with Edward Blackshear, Charles Glover, and John Leroy climbed into Charles Dunson's station wagon for the short. drive. Some of the five may have been drinking, but none Was intoxicated.

To the north of the high school they were halted at a National Guard roadblock, and told they would have to detour around the school and a fire station at Mack and St. Jean Streets because of the firing that had been occurring. Follow, in orders, they took a circuitous route and approached Powell's home from the south.

On Lycaste Street, between Charlevoix and Goethe, they saw a jeep sitting at the curb. Believing it to be another roadbloct they slowed down. Simultaneously a shot rang out. A National Guardsman fell, hit in the ankle.

Other National Guardsmen at the scene thought the shot had ,coirie from the station wagon. Shot after shot was directed against the vehicle, at least 17 of them finding their mark. All occupants were injured, John Leroy fatally.

At approximately the same time firemen, police, and National Guardsmen at the corner of Mack and St Jean Streets, two and one-half blocks away, again came under fire from what they believed were rooftop snipers to the southeast, the 'direction of Charlevoix and Lycaste. The police and Guards-wen responded with a hail of fire.

When the shooting ceased, Carl Smith, a young firefighter lay dead. An autopsy determined that the shot had been fired at street level, and, according to police, probably had come from the southeast.

At 4:00 A.M. when paratroopers under the command Col A. R. Bolling, arrived at the high school., the area Was so dark and still that the colonel thought, at first, that he lied 'come to the wrong place. Investigating, he discovered National Guard troops, claiming they were pinned down by sniper fire, crouched behind the walls of the darkened building.

The colonel immediately ordered all the lights in the build- 4, ing turned on and his troops to show themselves as conspicuously as possible. In the apartment house across the street nearly every window had been shot out, and the walls were pockmarked with bullet holes. The colonel went into the building and began talking to the residents, many of whom . bad spent the night huddled on the floor. He reassured them no more shots would be fired.

According to Lt. Gen. Throcicmorton and Colonel Bolling, the city, at this time, was saturated with fear. The National Guardsmen were afraid, the residents were afraid, and thefl "police were afraid. Numerous persons, the majority of them Negroes, were being injured by gunshots of undetermined ,origin. The general and his staff felt that the major task of the troops was to reduce the fear and restore an air of normalcy.

In order to accomplish this, every effort was made to establish contact and rapport between the troops and the residents Troopers-20 percent of whom were Negro—began helping to clean up the streets, collect garbage, and trace persons who had disappeared in the confusion. Residents in the neighbor- , hoods responded with soup and sandwiches for the troops. In areas where the National Guard tried to establish rapport - with the citizens, there was a similar response.

Within hours after the arrival of the paratroops the area tteupied by them was the quietest in the city, bearing out• General Throckmorton's view that the key to quelling a disorder is to saturate an area with "calm, determined, and hardened professional soldiers." Loaded weapons, he believes, are unnecessary. Troopers had strict orders not to fire unless they could see the specific person at whom they were aiming. Mass fire was forbidden.

During five days in the city, 2,700 Army troops expended only 201 rounds of ammunition, almost all during the first few hours, after which even stricter fire discipline was enforced. (In contrast, New Jersey National Guardsmen and State police expended 13,326 rounds of ammunition in three days in Newark.) Hundreds of reports of sniper fire—most of them falsele —continued to pour into police headquarters; the Army logged only 10. No paratrooper was injured by a gunshot. Only one person was hit by a shot fired by a trooper. He was a young Negro who was killed when he ran into the line of fire as a trooper, aiding police in a raid on an apartment, aimed it a person believed to be a sniper.

General Throckmorton ordered the weapons of all military' personnel unloaded, but either the order failed to reach many National Guardsmen, or else it was disobeyed.

Even as the general was requesting the city to relight the streets, Guardsmen continued shooting out the lights, and there are reports of dozens of shots being fired to dispatch one light. At one such location, as Guardsmen were shooting out the street lights, a radio newscaster reported himself to be pinned down by "sniper fire."

On the same day that the general was attempting to restore normalcy by ordering street barricades taken down, Guardsmen on one street were not only, in broad daylight, ordering people off the street, but off their porches and away from the windows. Two persons who failed to respond to the order quickly enough were shot, one of them fatally.

The general himself reported an incident of a Guardsman "firing across the bow" of an automobile that was approaching a roadblock.

As in Los Angeles two years earlier, roadblocks that were ill ligted and ill-defined—often- consisting of no more than a barrel or similar object with Guardsmen standing nearby proved a continuous hazard to motorists. At one such roadblock National Guard Sergeant Larry Post, standing in the street was caught in a sudden cross fire as his fellow Guardsmen opened up on a vehicle. He was the only soldier killed in the riot.

With persons of every description arming themselves, and :guns being fired accidentally or on the vaguest pretext all aver the city, it became more and more impossible to tell who was , shooting at whom. Some firemen began carrying guns. One accidentally shot and wounded a fellow fireman. Another injured himself. -

The chaos of a riot, and the difficulties faced by police officep, are demonstrated by an incident that occurred at 2:00 A.M. Tuesday.    . .

A unit of 12 officers received a call to guard firemen from snipers. When they arrived at the corner of Vicksburg and 'Linwood in the 12th Street area, the intersection was well- . 'lighted by the flames completely enveloping one building. Sniper fire was directed at the officers from an alley to the " north, and gun flashes were observed in two buildings

As the officers advanced on the two buildings, Patrohnaii ..Tohnie [sic] Hamilton fired several rounds from his mac ' gyn. Thereupon, the officers were suddenly sublexted in flre, from a new direction, the east. Hamilton, struck by four bullets; fell, critically Injured, in the intersection. As two officers,ran to his aid, they too were hit.

By this time 'other units of the Detroit Police Department, state police, and National Guard had arrived on the scenes and the area was covered with a hail of gunfire.

In the confusion the snipers who had initiated the -shooting' - 'escaped.    ,

At 9:15 P.M. Tuesday, July 25, 38-year-old Jack Sydtkir, 'W,Negro, came home drunk. Taking out his pistol; he fired one `shot into an alley. A few minutes later the police arrived.Ar his common-law wife took refuge in a closet, Sydnor waited,„

ln hand, while the police forced open the door. Patrolman Roger Poike, the first to enter, was shot by Sydnor, Although -2'47 critically injnred, the officer managed to get off Six shots in - return. Police within the building and on the street then poured
a hail of fire into the apartment When the shooting ceased, Sydnor's -body, riddled by the gunfire, was found lying on the ground outside a window.

Nearby, a state police officer and a Negro youth were struck - and seriously injured by stray bullets. As in other cases where the origin of the shots was not immediately determinable, pollee reported them as "shot by sniper."

Reports of "heavy sniper fire" poured into police headmiarters from the two blocks surrounding the apartment house where the battle with Jack Sydnor had taken place ..National Guard troops with two tanks were ,dispatched to help flush out the snipers.

Shots continued to be heard throughout the neighborhood. At approximately midnight—there are discrepancies as to the, precise time—a machine gunner on a tank, startled by several shots, asked the assistant gunner where the shots were coming from. The assistant gunner pointed toward a flash in the window of an apartment house from which there had been earlier reports of sniping.

The machine gunner opened fire. As the slugs ripped through the window and walls of the apartment, they nearly severed the arm of 21-year-old Valerie Hood. Her 4-year-old niece, Tonya Blanding, toppled dead, a .50 caliber bullet hole in her chest.
A few seconds earlier, 19-year-old Bill Hood, standing in the window, had lighted a cigarette.

Down the street, a bystander was critically injured by a stray bullet. Simultaneously, the John C. Lodge Freeway, two brOcks."*Way, was reported to be under sniper fire. Tanks and National Guard troops were sent to investigate. At the Harlan louse Motel, ten blocks from where Tonya Blanding had died a,short time earlier, Mrs. Helen Hall, a 51-year-Old white businesswoman, opened the drapes of the fourth floor hall window.

Calling out to other guests, she exclaimed: "Look at the tanks!"

She died seconds later as bullets began to slam into the building. As the firing ceased, a 19-year-old Marine Pfc., carrying a Springfield rifle, burst into the building. When, accidentally, he pushed the rifle barrel through a window, the firing commenced anew. A police investigation showed that the Marine, who had just decided to "help out" the law enforcement personnel, was not involved in the death of Mrs. Hall.

R. R., a white 27-year-old coin dealer, was the owner of an expensive, three-story house on "L" Street, an integrated middle class neighborhood. In May of 1966, he and his wife and child had moved to New York and had rented the house to two young men. After several months he had begun to have problems with his tenants. On one occasion he reported to his attorney that he had been threatened by them.

In March of 1967, R. R. instituted eviction proceedings. These were still pending when the riot broke out. Concernedabout the, house, R. R. decided to fly to Detroit, When he arrived at the house, on Wednesday, July 26, he discovered the tenants were not at home.
He then called his attorney, who advised him to take physical possession of the house and, for legal purposes, to take witnesses along.

Together with his 17-year-old brother and another white youth, R. R. went to the house, entered, and began changing the locks on the doors. For protection they brought a .22 caliber rifle, which R. R.'s brother took into the cellar and fired into a pillow in order to test it.

Shortly after 8:00 P.M., R. R. called his attorney to advise him that the tenants had returned, and he had refused to admit them. Thereupon, R. R. alleged, the tenants had threatened to obtain the help of the National Guard. The attorney relates that he was not particularly concerned. He told R. R. that if the National Guard did appear he should have the officer in charge call him (the attorney).

At approximately the same time the National Guard claims it received information to the effect that several men had evicted the legal occupants of the house, and intended to start sniping after dark.

A National Guard column was dispatched to the scene. Shortly after 9:00 P.M., in the half-light of dusk, the column of approximately 30 men surrounded the house. A tank took position on a lawn across the street. The captain commanding the column placed in front of the house an explosive device similar to a firecracker. After setting this off in order to draw the attention of the occupants to the presence of the column, he called for them to come out of the house. No attempt was
made to verify the truth or falsehood of the allegations regarding snipers.

When the captain received no reply from the house, he began counting to 10. As he was counting, he said, he heard a shot, the origin of which he could not determine. A few seconds later he heard another shot and saw a "fire streak" coming from an upstairs window. He thereupon gave the order to fire.

According to the three young men, they were on the second floor of the house and completely bewildered by the barrage of fire that was unleashed against it. As hundreds of bullets crashed through the first and second-story windows and ricocheted off the walls, they dashed to the third floor. Protected by a large chimney, they huddled in a closet until, during a lull in the firing, they were able to wave an item of clothing out of the window as a sign of surrender. They were arrested as snipers.

The firing from rifles and machine guns had been so intense that in a period of a few minutes it inflicted an estimated $10,000 worth of damage. One of a pair of stone columns was shot nearly in half.

Jailed at the 10th Precinct Station sometime Wednesday night R. R. and his two companions were taken from their cell to an "alley court," police slang for an unlawful attempt to make prisoners confess. A police officer, who has resigned from the force, allegedly administered such a severe beating to R. R. that the bruises still were visible two weeks later.

R. R.'s 17-year-old brother had his skull cracked open, and was thrown back into the cell. He was taken to a hospital only when other arrestees complained that he was bleeding to death.

At the preliminary hearing 12 days later the prosecution presented only one witness, the National Guard captain who had given the order to fire. The police officer who had signed the original complaint was not asked to take the stand. The charges against all three of the young men were dismissed. Nevertheless, the morning after the original incident, a major metropolitan newspaper in another section of the country composed the following banner story from wire service reports:

DETROIT, July 27 (Thursday)—Two National Guard tanks ripped a sniper's haven with machine guns Wednesday night and flushed out three shaggy-haired white youths. Snipers attacked a guard command post and Detroit's racial riot set a modern record for bloodshed. The death toll soared to 36, topping the Watts bloodbath of 1966 in which 35 died and making Detroit's insurrection the most deadly racial riot in modern U. S. history.

In the attack on the sniper's nest, the Guardsmen poured hundreds of rounds of .50 caliber machine gun fire into the home, which authorities said housed arms and ammunition used by West Side sniper squads.

Guardsmen recovered guns and ammunition. A reporter with the troopers said the house, a neat brick home in a neighborhood of $20,000 to $50,000 homes, was torn apart by the machine gun and rifle fire.

Sniper fire crackled from the home as the Guard unit approached. It was one of the first verified reports of sniping by whites. . . .

A pile of loot taken from riot-ruined stores was recovered from the sniper's haven, located ten blocks from the heart of the 200- square block riot zone.

Guardsmen said the house had been identified as a storehouse of arms and ammunition for snipers. Its arsenal was regarded as an indication that the sniping—or at least some of it—was organized.

As hundreds of arrestees were brought into the 10th Precinct Station, officers took it upon themselves to carry on investigations and to attempt to extract confessions. Dozens of charges of police brutality emanated from the station as prisoners were brought in uninjured, but later had to be taken to the hospital.

In the absence of the precinct commander, who had transferred his headquarters to the riot command post at a nearby hospital, discipline vanished. Prisoners who requested that they be permitted to notify someone of their arrest were almost invariably told that: "The telephones are out of order." Congressman Conyers and State Representative Del Rio, who went to the station hoping to coordinate with the police the establishing of a community patrol, were so upset by what they saw that they changed their minds and gave up on the project.

A young woman, brought into the station, was told to strip. After she had done so, and while an officer took pictures with a Polaroid camera, another officer came up to her and began fondling her. The negative of one of the pictures, fished out of a waste basket, subsequently was turned over to the mayor's office.

Citing the sniper danger, officers throughout the department had taken off their bright metal badges. They also had taped over the license plates and the numbers of the police cars. Identification of individual officers became virtually impossible.

On a number of occasions officers fired at fleeing looters, then made little attempt to determine whether their shots had hit anyone. Later some of the persons were discovered dead or injured in the street.

In one such case police and National Guardsmen were interrogating a youth suspected of arson when, according to officers, he attempted to escape. As he vaulted over the hood of an automobile, an officer fired his shotgun. The youth disappeared on the other side of the car. Without making an investigation, the officers and Guardsmen returned to their car and drove off.

When nearby residents called police, another squad car arrived to pick up the body. Despite the fact that an autopsy disclosed the youth had been killed by five shotgun pellets, only a cursory investigation was made, and the death was attributed to "sniper fire." No police officer at the scene during the shooting filed a report.

Not until a Detroit newspaper editor presented to the police the statements of several witnesses claiming that the youth had been shot by police after he had been told to run did the department launch an investigation. Not until three weeks after the shooting did an officer come forward to identify himself as the one who had fired the fatal shot.

Citing conflicts in the testimony of the score of witnesses, the Detroit Prosecutor's office declined to press charges.

Prosecution is proceeding in the case of three youths in whose shotgun deaths law enforcement personnel were implicated following a report that snipers were firing from the Algiers Motel. In fact, there is little evidence that anyone fired from inside the building. Two witnesses say that they had seen a man, standing outside of the motel, fire two shots from a rifle. The interrogation of other persons revealed that law enforcement personnel then shot out one or more street lights. Police patrols responded to the shots. An attack was launched on the motel.

The picture is further complicated by the fact that this incident occurred at roughly the same time that the National Guard was directing fire at the apartment house in which Tonya Blanding was killed. The apartment house was only six blocks distant from and in a direct line with the motel.

The killings occurred when officers began on-the-spot questioning of the occupants of the motel in an effort to discover weapons used in the "sniping." Several of those questioned reportedly were beaten. One was a Negro ex-paratrooper who had only recently been honorably discharged, and had gone to Detroit to look for a job.

Although by late Tuesday looting and fire-bombing had virtually ceased, between 7:00 and 11:00 P.M. that night there were 444 reports of incidents. Most were reports of sniper fire.

During the daylight hours of July 26th, there were 534 such reports. Between 8:30 and 11:00 P.M. there were 255. As they proliferated, the pressure on law enforcement officers to uncover the snipers became intense. Homes were broken into. Searches were made on the flimsiest of tips. A Detroit newspaper headline aptly proclaimed: "Everyone's Suspect in No Man's Land."

Before the arrest of a young woman IBM operator in the city assessor's office brought attention to the situation on Friday, July 28th, any person with a gun in his home was liable to be picked up as a suspect.

Of the 27 persons charged with sniping, 22 had charges against them dismissed at preliminary hearings, and the charges against two others were dismissed later. One pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered gun and was given a suspended sentence. Trials of two are pending.

In all, more than 7,200 persons were arrested. Almost 3,000 of these were picked up on the second day of the riot, and by midnight Monday 4,000 were incarcerated in makeshift jails.

Some were kept as long as 30 hours on buses. Others spent , days in an underground garage without toilet facilities. An uncounted number were people who had merely been unfortunate enough to be on the wrong street at the wrong time. Included were members of the press whose attempts to show their credentials had been ignored. Released later, they were chided for not having exhibited their identification at the time of their arrests.

The booking system proved incapable of adequately handling the large number of arrestees. People became lost for days in the maze of different detention facilities. Until the later stages, bail was set deliberately high, often at $10,000 or more. When it became apparent that this policy was unrealistic and unworkable, the Prosecutor's office began releasing on low bail or on their own recognizance hundreds of those who had been picked up. Nevertheless, this fact was not publicized for fear of antagonizing those who had demanded a high-bail policy.

Of the 43 persons who were killed during the riot, 33 were Negro and 10 were white. Seventeen were looters, of whom two were white. Fifteen citizens (of whom four were white), one white National Guardsman, one white fireman, and one Negro private guard died as the result of gunshot wounds. Most of these deaths appear to have been accidental, but criminal homicide is suspected in some.

Two persons, including one fireman, died as a result of fallen power lines. Two were burned to death. One was a drunken gunman; one an arson suspect. One white man was killed by a rioter. One police officer was felled by a shotgun ,blast when his gun, in the hands of another officer, accidentally 'discharged during a scuffle with a looter.

Action by police officers accounted for 20 and, very likely, 21 of the deaths. Action by the National Guard for seven, and, very likely, nine. Action by the Army for one. Two deaths were the result of action by store owners. Four persons died accidentally. Rioters were responsible for two, and perhaps three of the deaths; a private guard for one. A white man is suspected of murdering a Negro youth. The perpetrator of one of the killings in the Algiers Motel remains unknown.

Damage estimates, originally set as high as $500 million, were quickly scaled down. The city assessor's office placed the loss—excluding business stock, private furnishings, and the buildings of churches and charitable institutions—at approximately $22 million Insurance payments, according to the State Insurance Bureau, will come to about $32 million, representing an estimated 65 to 75 percent of the total loss.

By Thursday, July 27, most riot activity had ended. The paratroopers were removed from the city on Saturday. On Tuesday, August 1, the curfew was lifted and the National Guard moved out.    Chapter 2 / Patterns of Disorder*

°A little over two hours earlier, at 11:55 P.M. Mayor Cavanagh had informed the U.S. Attorney General that a "dangerous situation existed in the 'City." Details are set forth in the Final Report of Cyrus R. Vance, covering the Detroit Riots, released on September 12, 1967.

< Prev		Next >