As for snipers, police responded to as many as nine calls for snipers in one afternoon but found that the jittery public was mistaking firecrackers and backfire for gunfire. Only one man was arrested as a sniper and it turned out he was firing at random in some woods instead of shooting at a chosen target. One set of rumors is not being denied by police. Instead, they want to pin down whatever facts exist behind the rumors. These are the rumors that businessmen are being told they must contribute to the Poor People's Campaign or some other cause or their buildings will be burned down. Others, according to rumor, have been told to close today in observance of the late Malcolm X's birthday and some businessmen victims of the rioting have been warned that if they open for business again, they'll be burned out. Plenty of rumors are reaching police but they're not getting the complaints from victims of the alleged extortion. Wilson said that where the merchants have complained, police usually have been able to make arrests but their hands are tied when they don't know who is being victimized. Since businessmen may be afraid to report these threats and extortion demands through the usual channels, precinct commanders are going to the businessmen in their precincts and telling them that police will accept their complaints as confidential and they won't have to go to court. The precinct commanders themselves will take the complaints. Police also are trying to cope with another riot aftermath-juvenile gangs preying on merchants. To curb the juvenile marauders, police have been ordered to step up enforcement of antiloitering laws and truancy regulations. ["Letters to the Editor" Washington Evening Star, May 21, 1968] LET PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME SIR: To prevent more civil disturbance, offending individuals must learn to substitute constructive acts for destructive acts. How? If their rearing has omitted training to respect the persons and property of others, public agencies must provide that training. Since the offenders deal in physical acts, the initial training, to be understood, must involve tangible things, and it should relate directly to the nature of the offense. Let's start with having the offenders work (under the supervision of law-enforcement officers, if necessary) to clean up the areas they've damaged. Then teach them the skills to rehabilitate these areas. Eventually they might be taught to assist their neighbors whose businesses and homes have been destroyed or damaged. When these individuals who have upset us can show callouses of constructive work, we can welcome them as fellow citizens of the District. They can earn our forgiveness. FLORENCE SIFFERD. SIR: Citizenship is not just a question of rights; it is also civil responsibility. Let's pass out shovels to those who are so ready to leave others homeless and jobless and let them clean up the mess they made. Mrs. GEORGIA COUNCIL. SIR: Jail sentences are certainly in order for the militant leaders and more serious rioters but for the thousands of otherwise good citizens I have other ideas. Anyone who participated in any way with the mob violence against our established government should be punished in a constructive manner. If each of those individuals is sentenced to three or four hours a day at hard labor cleaning up the mess they have created, it would accomplish two purposes. First, it would save many hard-earned dollars and, second, it would make those people who participate in the reconstruction less apt to tear down the product of their own hard labor. LIEUTENANT COLONEL, USAF. NO RIOT AT WAKEFIELD SIR: On Friday, April 5, some of the radio broadcasting stations reported rioting in many of the area high and junior high schools, including Wakefield. An inexcusable wrong was committed to all the students of Wakefield High School as a result of this negligent and irresponsible reporting. The Negro students of Wakefield deserve every honor for their behavior on that day. They, and many white students, assembled in a peaceful demonstration of their grief over the tragic murder of Martin Luther King. There were no fights and no sign of violence of any sort. Instead, there were some of the most eloquent and moving speeches by the students I have ever heard on the subject of racial problems. Their behavior should serve as an example of what can be gained where people use reason instead of violence. WHITE STUDENT AT WAKEFIELD. AFTER 44 YEARS IN BUSINESS SIR: We are owners of a hardware store in Northeast Washington. We write in behalf of the many who share our problems. We have obeyed the laws, paid our taxes, and insured ourselves, though it was expensive. We are more than equalopportunity employers, as the majority of our help is Negro, and has been for years. We have been father-confessor, banker, and adviser to our customers, with whom we have dealt honestly and fairly. We are charter members of the Business and Professional Association of Far Northeast, and have worked diligently for local improvements and closer cooperation between consumers and merchants. We are for civil rights for all men. Prior to April, 1968, we had lost money on bad checks, burglary, shoplifting, and vandalism, all repaired or replaced at our expense. We have taken needed hours from our business to sit in court at the request of police, only to see the judges postpone the cases or dismiss the defendant. We are constantly in need of more reliable help. We have had trouble for years. Since April 5, 1968, we have been the victims of repeated looting, and vandalism. Our store was closed for two weeks in order to repair the major damage done to us on that date. Since we reopened for business, we have been broken into twice and have had numerous broken windows and doors. Insurance may or may not cover a portion of these expenses. The bills for repairs to our property, and merchandise and equipment that was damaged or stolen are arriving daily. We have lost our expected busy spring season. We are frustrated with the past and pessimistic about the future. Now, we receive word that the insurance on our building is to be canceled. Since conditions in the District are so bad, this could be the end of our business. We can obtain jobs in the suburbs and lower our standard of living. We can do without the responsibilities of owning a business and all that entails. We can manage. We will not need welfare. But the taxes the District collects will be lost. All of our years of endeavor will be wasted. Our employees will probably need some financial assistance. Our customers will lose the convenience and service they depend on. To our way of thinking, this benefits no one and hurts many. Is this what is to become of us after forty-four years in business, Is this what is to become of our employes who have been responsible supporters of their families? Is the city to be left an empty shell of families living on relief? Citizens must be protected. Criminals must be jailed. The police must have the men and the methods to do this. Businessmen must be able to obtain insurance. We are willing to pay for it. Of all the groups now clamoring for help, how many are offering to help themselves as we have done and hopefully will continue to do? We and all the others in our predicament are watching our life's work go down the drain, along with our children's education and our security. ABRAHAM AND IDA WOLF. [From The Washington Post, May 21, 1968] 8 PERCENT OF $145,667 RIOT FUNDS SPENT Private contributors gave more than $145,667 to the Urban Coalition's emergency fund for victims of last month's riot, but only $11,269.95, less than 8 percent, of that had been spent as of May 15. Flaxie Pinkett, local real estate agent and chairman of the emergency fund committee, made the figures public yesterday. The Urban Coalition's executive committee will meet Thursday to decide what to do with the $134,000 left in the fund, Miss Pinkett said. She announced three weeks ago that the emergency fund committee thought the money should be saved for future use. She said she will make this proposal to the Coalition's executive committee. Miss Pinkett has said that the emergency fund provided money to all victims of the riot who could not get assistance from public sources or other private sources. Winifred G. Thompson, director of the District's Department of Public Welfare, confirmed this yesterday. Miss Thompson said everyone who sought help as a result of the riot got what he needed. "There was not the real demand for crisis money that we thought would grow out of the disorder," Miss Thompson said. "Most of the damage was done in the area of commercial property," she added, and said a surprisingly small number of private citizens needed assistance after the riot. There were fewer families burned out than expected, Miss Thompson said. She added that although her Department was "very generous" with its own cash assistance to eligible victims of the riot, not as much of her emergency fund was spent as she had expected. [From the Washington Evening Star, May 29, 1968] RIOT CASES OVERTAX COURT, CURRAN SAYS (By John Fialka and William Basham) The chief judge of the U.S. District Court here said today that the impact of about 400 anticipated felony cases stemming from the April riots will almost nullify his court's "crash program" to reduce its backlog. Chief Judge Edward M. Curran told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that U.S. Atty. David Bress has estimated that a special grand jury now hearing riot cases will indict 500-600 persons in about 400 felony cases. Curran also urged the subcommittee to push for legislation to set up a new court for felony cases in the District. The Grand Jury has already returned 35 indictments. About 860 felony cases resulted from the riots. The majority of suspects were charged with seconddegree burglary in the looting. Most of the remaining cases, Curran said, would be sent back to General Sessions Court for trial as misdemeanors. He said that by using visiting judges from other jurisdictions on civil cases and by concentrating District judges on criminal cases, the court's backlog dropped from 1,100 cases last October to 700 just before the riot began in April. "Now we'll almost be back where we were," Curran told Sen. Joseph D. Tydings, D-Md., who chaired the subcommittee hearings. Curran said he will assign three judges to a special "Emergency calendar" to hear the riot cases, which, he said, could be disposed of at a rate of two per judge per day. The chief judge also told the subcommittee that next Monday he will hold a meeting of District Court judges and propose a plan to give immediate trials to defendants up for bail hearings whom the judges feel present a danger to the community. Under the Bail Reform Act, he said, judges cannot consider danger to the community when they set bail. Both Curran and Tydings agreed that the act needs "tightening up." SPACE SITUATION ACUTE Curran said the District Court space situation was so critical that some new judges may have to commute to their courtrooms from chambers across town in the new U.S. Court of Claims building on Madison Place NW, where he has borrowed office space. He added that the administrative office of the federal court system has offered to provide the District Court with rented space at the Dodge Hotel, near the Capitol. Curran said he didn't think the hotel was a "proper place" for a federal court because among other non-judicial features, he said, "they've got a bar in there." Curran said that he felt the ultimate solution for court backlogs in the District would be to set up a new Superior Court of Criminal Jurisdiction to try felony cases. He said it should be served by a chief judge and 10 associate judges appointed for 15-year terms. "As Washington moves ever close to home rule," Curran said, "it is only logical that a truly local court system be established." He said the new court would handle crimes now prosecuted in his federal court. They are the so-called common-law crimes, such as murder, rape, robbery, burglary, abortion and assault with a dangerous weapon. In other jurisdictions, the chief judge pointed out, these common-law crimes are not federal offenses. They are tried in state, county or city courts. "Local crimes should be tried in a local court as they are everywhere else," he said. [From the Washington Post, June 1, 1968] SHARP DROP IN TOURISM NOTED HERE (By Elsie Carper) The Washington Convention and Visitors Bureau yesterday reported a "severe" decrease in the number of tourists coming to Washington in the wake of the April rioting. Twenty-five per cent of room reservations were canceled in April and 22 per cent in May, the Bureau said. One medium-sized hotel has told the Bureau that a single tour company had canceled reservations for 2300 visitors this summer. Another hotel, catering to conventions and tourists, says it has 125 fewer employees than it would normally use during this period, a payroll reduction of $45,000 a month. The hotel has estimated that it will pay the city $12,000 less in taxes in May than it ordinarily would. A third hotel reports it has 116 fewer employes, with a payroll loss of $30,000 and a tax loss of $10,000, and a smaller tourist hotel, which normally operates with 80 employes, has cut back to 60. The report of what has happened to tourism, the city's largest single source of private money, was presented to the Senate District Appropriations subcommittee by Clarence A. Arata, executive director of the Bureau, and Victor O. Schinnerer, the immediate past chairman. The Bureau has asked Congress to appropriate $200,000 in the fiscal year beginning July 1 to recapture the tourist and convention trade. Business firms have been asked to subscribe to a special emergency fund, Schinnerer told the subcommittee, "to launch a massive campaign to tell America and the world that Washington is again free from disturbances and unrest and that visitors can again feel safe in the Nation's Capital." In addition, he said, the businessmen expect to raise $350,000 to expand the operation of the Bureau, which now operates on a more limited budget. Arata said that if the present trend continues, there will be substantial tax losses to the city. Last year, direct revenues from tourists brought in $21.6 million. In April and May alone, revenues were approximately $1.5 million less than normally would have been anticipated. "We find that cancellations of tour groups is continuing into the months ahead-all because of the widespread unfavorable publicity which the city has received and is receiving currently," Schinnerer told the subcommittee. Two major conventions scheduled to come to Washington next year "are skittish" about meeting here, Arata said. "We thought we had a convention of 9000 people tied down for 1973 but the decision of whether to meet in Washington or move to another city has been postponed until October," he said. "We are extremely hopeful that crime and unrest in Washington will soon pass. If we could see the terminal point we could go out and fight. We have a tremendous problem in promotion." Travel agents are being shown where the riots took place and where tourists stay and visit to point out that there is no close relationship, Arata told the subcommittee. He said that the rioting and the Poor People's Campaign have replaced crime here as the major deterrent, although crime is still a factor in keeping tourists away. Subcommittee Chairman Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) said that he has talked to a score of merchants since the riots. Loss of business is a combination of all three of those elements, Byrd said. "If something is done about crime to preserve law and order, the tourists will come back," Byrd declared. Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.) commented that of all cities, Washington is the safest from a "cataclysmic" riot. "The President would bring in troops-order would be restored quickly, it has to be," Proxmire said. During the day-long hearings the subcommittee heard the heads of 33 city agencies present requests for operating funds during the coming fiscal year. Proxmire commended city officials for their proposal to establish an Office of Consumer Affairs. "There is a terrific need for this," Proxmire said, after referring to a report by the Federal Trade Commission, which showed that poor people pay substantially more for goods that are inferior to goods that can be purchased outside the slums. FIGURES ON TOURIST DECLINE The number of visitors to Washington's tourist attractions in April was dramatically lower than in April of last year in most cases, official figures show. Attendance at some attractions was as much as 40 per cent lower than it was last year. In a handful of isolated cases, however, this year's April attendance was higher than last year's. Officials of the institutions involved released these attendance figures for April of last year and this: The Park Service could not explain why the Lee Mansion and Lincoln Memorial were better attended in April when other attractions had many fewer visitors. The aftermath of Washington's riot, the then-impending Poor People's Campaign and reports of violence here are all said to have contributed to the decline of tourism. A spokesman for the National Park Service noted yesterday that in normal times April should have been a significantly better month than April of 1967 because Easter was in March last year and April this year. Easter week traditionally brings thousands of tourists to the city. These figures tend to confirm the contention of restauranteurs and hotel keepers that tourism-the city's largest private industry-is in serious trouble. [From the Evening Star, Washington, June 10, 1968] GUARD CHIEF URGES TOUGHER RIOT ROLE The commander of the D.C. National Guard today suggested two major changes in the Guard's operations to protect the city in any future riot and to avoid a call for federal troops. Maj. Gen. Charles L. Southward said he thinks teams of marksmen should be assigned to each unit with orders to shoot to kill any sniper or other person threatening lives. Southward said the marksmen would be told: "There's the target-get it." This, said the general, would be a last resort. Southward went on to say that if he had another 1,500 men added to his present force of 1,750 they, working with metropolitan police, probably could control the situation without federal troops. |