SERIOUS RIOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 68, 21 March 1935, Page 7

SERIOUS RIOTS.

FANNED BY RUMOURS. Boy's Theft of Sweets in Harlem, New York. INFURIATED NEGROES AMOK. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) NEW YORK, March 20. The theft of a cent's worth of sweets by a 10-year-old negro in a large five and ten cent store in the Harlem section of New York city, which is almost exclusively inhabited by negroes, caused serious riots which had not been completely quelled by midnight. , According to the manager of the store the boy was caught stealing the sweets and severely bit the fingers of liis captors. The youthful offender was taken to the office, lectured and released, but either spontaneously or by the design of agitators a rumour spread that the child was being beaten. Soon throngs of negroes swept through the store overturning the counters and causing considerable damage, while a threatening mob of several thousand people gathered outside.

The appearance of a hearse gave rise to a rumour that -the boy was dead and almost instantly the crowd turned into a fighting mob. The plate glass windows of the store and of other establishments in the vicinity were shattered with brickbats and soon vandalism spread throughout the area.

Between 500 and 1000 policemen were called out and they managed to clear the immediate neighbourhood only to have rioting break out at other points.

The fury of the negroes was whipped up by Communist agitators, who within an hour of the outbreak of the disturbance, flooded the section with handbills denouncing the "bosses" for their persecution of negroes. Several of the rioters and police were injured, and dozens of people were arrested for inciting to riot or for assault.

In order to pacify the negroes the police ordered the. boy, whom the store officials claimed to be unharmed, to be produced to show the falsity of the reports. Unfortunately, however, he had disappeared as soon as he was released and the police found the greatest difficulty in convincing the negro population that he was not dead or at least seriously injured.