African Americans -- New York (State) -- New York; Riots -- New York (State) -- New York
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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