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Crown Heights riot

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The Crown Heights Riot was a three-day riot in the Crown Heights neighborhood of New York City starting on August 19, 1991. The causes of the riots, motivation of the rioters, and overall meaning of the incident are debated to this day.

Many in the Jewish community view the riot as a purely anti-Semitic outburst, even terming it the Crown Heights pogrom (indeed, some called it a "pogrom" while it was still occurring) [1]. (There also was anti-police activity during the riot; some blacks at the time apparently saw the riot as a chance to strike back against "white rule," not merely Hasidim or Jews; this included, especially, the police. [2]) While the riot likely was a product of many causes, there also were a number of characteristics of the riot that could be interpreted as anti-Jewish violence, or as anti-police violence. The differing accounts of what happened in Crown Heights during the summer of 1991 may never be reconciled.

Causes of the riot

Returning from a cemetery visit to the grave of a leader of the Jewish community, Yosef Lifsh, driving east on President Street in a car owned by Yehuda Zirkland that was part of the procession of Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, which was led by police[3], was involved in an traffic accident with a car headed north on Utica Avenue. As part of the crash, Lifsh's vehicle veered into the sidewalk, striking a 7-year-old Guyanese boy named Gavin Cato and also seriously injuring his cousin Angela, also 7.

Lifsh, who subsequently returned to Israel and was never charged or given a citation for the incident, did not an American driver's license, although he may have had an international driver's license.[citation needed].

A private Hasidic ambulance from the Hatzolah Ambulance Corps arrived on the scene and removed the Hasidic driver on the orders of a police officer who also ordered this ambulance to leave the area without the injured Gavin. Because a city ambulance had been called for, the officers also believed there was an immediate threat to the safety of the volunteers, as the rioting already had begun. The rioters, however, felt this order to be racially motivated. The city ambulance arrived soon after to treat Gavin, who died of his injuries at a nearby hospital. The incident sparked a riot that was ultimately fueled by longstanding underlying tensions between the black and Jewish communities of the neighborhood.

Scope of the riot

Over the next four days, numerous African Americans — many of them from outside the Crown Heights neighbourhood — rioted, fueled by a belief that the treatment of the car accident victims was unequal. Fires were set, a police car overturned, a van set alight,[4] and shops were looted as the riot grew out of control. Blacks and Hasidic Jews threw bottles and rocks at each other on the second night of the riot;[3] however, the violence during the riot appears to have been committed largely by young black men against Jews and police.[4]

A visiting rabbinical student from Australia named Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, was killed during the rioting. Before dying, Rosenbaum was able to identify 16-year-old Lemrick Nelson, Jr. as his assailant.

Nelson was charged with the killing but later acquitted. Claims that he admitted to having stabbed Rosenbaum were dismissed by the jury. Even though Nelson was acquitted of murder by a state court, after protests by the Lubavitch community and others, Nelson was charged in federal court with violating Rosenbaum's civil rights and received a prison sentence of 19.5 years. In 2002, he was granted a new trial, at which he admitted he stabbed Rosenbaum, but his attorneys argued that the stabbing wasn't a hate crime triggered by Rosenbaum's religion, but merely the consequence of Nelson being drunk. One other man, Charles Price, 44, was charged with inciting a mob, including Nelson, to "get Jews." Price was charged in federal court one day before the expiration of the statute of limitations for that crime. Nelson was released to a halfway house on June 5, 2004.

Young African-Americans reportedly walked around in front of 770 Eastern Parkway, the Lubavitcher headquarters, shouting "Heil Hitler!" and throwing rocks, prompting the police to erect barricades in front of "770."[5] Police barricades also walled off the intersection of Utica Avenue and President Street, where the accident occurred; also, at least 110 arrests (an earlier police report had said 180) were made during the riots, including seven whites (the earlier report claimed 44 Hasidic men had been arrested); only seven of the people arrested were women.[5][6]

Fallout from the riot

Al Sharpton marched through Crown Heights and in front of "770", shortly after the riot, with about 400 noisy protesters (who chanted "Whose streets? Our streets!" and "No justice, no peace!"), in spite of Mayor David Dinkins' attempts to keep the march from happening. [7]

Dinkins was criticized for his poor handling of the riot.

In the report commissioned by Governor Cuomo, attorney Righard Girgenti demonstrated that although Dinkins was well informed about the situation, he refused to take action. Eighty Jews and a hundred police were injured. Still the mayor chose, in classic John Lindsay style, to let the mob "vent."

...

The rioting came to an end after three days only when deputy police Commissioner Ray Kelly took it upon himself to end it.

[8]

The turmoil proved to be a key issue in the next New York City mayoral election, contested in 1993 as a rematch between incumbent David Dinkins and Rudolph Giuliani, whom Dinkins had narrowly defeated four years earlier. On June 16, 1993, a rally was held outside City Hall in downtown Manhattan. The primary focus was to decry, in general, out-of-control criminal violence and to express continued bitterness over the events in Crown Heights. The Dinkins administration was viewed by the rally's attendees as being indifferent toward the crime problem. Several speakers at the rally, including then-candidate Giuliani and a Brooklyn-based Caribbean-American community activist Roy Innis, believed the Crown Heights riot to be a pogrom. Giuliani won the election, and subsequent polls showed a significant shift in the Jewish vote from 1989 was a contributing factor for his victory.

Longstanding Earlier Tensions

The events that ignited the Crown Heights riots, and its historic record, are mired in political and racially charged assertions and accusations.

Tensions existed in the neighborhood beforehand, on both sides: Some Jews were afraid to go into black parts of the neighborhood because of fear of getting mugged or shot; some blacks saw Jews as "taking over" Crown Heights and receiving preferential treatment from police and in public housing allocation[9].

There also had been earlier incidents between blacks and Hasidim: In the summer of 1986, blacks had allegedly beaten a Hasidic man to death in a subway station; in April 1987, some 400 blacks engaged in a protest march against what they considered to be Hasidic surveillance harassment; in March 1989, several Hasidic Jews reportedly crowded around and beat a young African-American, Chris Gilyard, who was 16 years old, who they suspected of slashing a Hasidic man, Shalom Rabkim, and his mother, Shoshana Rabkim, during a robbery[10], (a rabbi, Rabbi Israel Shemtov, and his son were arrested on charges they had been in that crowd, and Shemtov also was accused of other violations against blacks[11], and a grand jury decided not to indict that rabbi or his son; Shemtov claimed he had been picked out for harassment on account of his being in a volunteer anti-crime squad that made citizen's arrests.[12]).

There had been earlier incidents in the 1970s in Crown Heights.[13][14][15] New York City in the late 1980s and early 1990s suffered from a high rate of violent crime; non-Jewish people in the city also used protective measures and security systems[16], and news reports of shootings were common. Those influences — distrust between blacks and Jews in Crown Heights, distrust of police among blacks, fear of crime in New York City — contributed to growing tensions in the Crown Heights area in 1991.

Fictional portrayals in film and on television

Notes

References to the NY Times are to the first pages of articles that often flow over to other pages. Some material may be on the latter pages of the articles.

  1. ^ Clashes Persist in Crown Heights for 3d Night in Row by JOHN KIFNER New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 22, 1991; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. B1
  2. ^ For Many Young Blacks, Alienation and a Growing Despair Turn Into Rage New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 25, 1991; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003)pg. 36
  3. ^ a b Hasid Dies in Stabbing; Black Protests Flare 2d Night in a Row by JOHN KIFNER New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 21, 1991; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. B1
  4. ^ a b Three Nights, Three Moods In the Streets New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 25, 1991; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. 37
  5. ^ a b Police Brace For Protest In Brooklyn by JOHN KIFNER New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 24, 1991; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. 27
  6. ^ Official Tallies of Arrests Differ New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 25, 1991; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. 36
  7. ^ Blacks March by Hasidim Through a Corridor of Blue by JOHN KIFNER New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 25, 1991; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. 36
  8. ^ Siegel, Fred The Prince of the City (San Francisco, Encounter Books, 2005) pp. 81-2
  9. ^ The Bitterness Flows in 2 Directions by FELICIA R. LEE with ARI L. GOLDMAN New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 23, 1991; ProQuestHistorical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. B1
  10. ^ Crowd in Brooklyn, Angered at Slashing, Beats a 16-Year-Old by LISA W. FODERARO New York Times (1857-Current file); Mar 5, 1989; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. 42
  11. ^ Rabbi and Son Held in Beating Of Black Man by DAVID E. PITT New York Times (1857-Current file); Mar 30, 1989; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003)pg. B3
  12. ^ Jury Refuses to Indict Rabbi in Beating by ARI L. GOLDMAN New York Times (1857-Current file); Apr 13, 1989; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003)pg. B3
  13. ^ Fatal Crash Starts Melee With Police In Brooklyn by JOHN T. McQUISTON New York Times (1857-Current file); Aug 20, 1991; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. B1; note: no reference to any beating in the summer of 1986 has been found in the 1986 New York Times.
  14. ^ Racial Tensions Persist in Crown Heights by LYDIA CHAVEZ New York Times (1857-Current file); Apr 10, 1987; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. B1
  15. ^ Black Demonstrators March Through Hasidic Area by HOWARD W. FRENCH New York Times (1857-Current file); Apr 12, 1987; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. 43
  16. ^ Ministers in Poor Areas Arming Against Crime by STEPHANIE STROM New York Times (1857-Current file); Apr 23, 1990; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003) pg. B1
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