African Americans -- New York (State) -- New York; Riots -- New York (State) -- New York
I reside at 339 West 36th Street. On Thursday, August 16th, 1900,
about two A. M., while lying on a lounge in the front room of
my house, I was aroused by hearing a shot fired, followed by several
others. I went to the window, when some one in the street shouted with
a curse, "Get your head in there or I'll shoot it off." I withdrew my
head, and then realized that some of the shots had entered my windows.
One imbedded itself in the ceiling, and another passed through a glass
door leading into an inner room, and occupied by a lodger named Floyd
Wallace. I awoke the said Wallace, and told him that some one was
firing into the windows. Shortly after I heard sounds as of a number of
people coming down the stairs from the roof, past my door, and stopping
on the floor below me. In a very short while they returned, and without
asking to be let in broke open my door, and then I saw that they were
police officers in full uniform, six in number. They asked me if I
knew who fired the shots. I said I did not know. They then told me I
lied. Then they asked me if there were any guns in the house, and I
answered no; whereupon I was again told that I lied. I then said, "All
right, go ahead and search for them," which they proceeded to do. They
went from room to room, and broke into a closet in the front room,
which contained my husband's and my own clothes; they then opened a
small satchel in which was my pocketbook. In the said pocketbook I had
six dollars in bills and one dollar and seventy-five cents in silver.
While part of the men were making the search the others seized the
aforesaid Wallace and took him out into the hallway, where deponent
has been told they clubbed the said Wallace on the wrist and face.
When he came in, after the officers left, deponent saw that his face
and cheek were bruised and his wrist swollen. Deponent declares it to
be her belief that the bullets which were shot into her room (one of
which she has) could not have been fired from the street, but must have
come from the houses opposite. Further, that when the officers left
she remembered having left her pocketbook in the aforesaid satchel,
and immediately ran into the front room to see if it was safe; she
found that the six dollars in bills was gone, and declares it to be
her belief that the same was taken by the three officers who were in
the room making the search. Deponent further states that when her
husband returned on the following Saturday she told him of the visit
of the police officers. He then searched in the closet for some money,
amounting to about sixty dollars, which he stated to have left there
without my knowledge, and could not find it. Deponent declares it to
be her belief that this money was also taken by the police officers
aforementioned. Deponent further declares that there were no shots
fired from her apartments, and that no one therein had a firearm of any
sort.
MAGGIE TAYLOR.
Sworn to before me this 7th day of September, 1900.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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