'Kindness day’ ends in strife

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33532, 13 May 1974, Page 13

'Kindness day’ ends in strife

(N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright/ WASHINGTON, May 12. “Human kindness day” was celebrated in Washington yesterday. Festivities in the grounds of the Washingtor monument ended with people throwing rocks and bottles, looting concession stands, and beating others up. Park Service police armed with tear-gas pellets formed a line of men and horses and moved across the monument grounds to break up crowds of youths, who threw bottles and shouted jeers.

Large numbers of metropolitan policemen patrolled the business area near the monument, as festival-goers began breaking windows and damaging cars

The police said several people, most of them white, were taken to local

hospitals after being beaten by the youths. The injuries were not believed serious. There were at least 10 arrests on the outskirts of the monument grounds.

The crowd at the festival, celebrated each year, was largely black, as is Washington’s population.

One woman said the disorders began after rumours spread through the crowd that a black woman had been trampled by a police horse. A police spokesman said the crowd became unruly after a day in which many people attending the annual festival “smoked marijuana and drank liquor” The “human kindness day” festival, sponsored in part by the United States Park Service, included a free concert attended by such celebrities as Muhammad Ail and the singer, Nina Simone