the crime-ridden areas of the city until order is restored. Semi-martial law is not a pleasant idea. There seems, however, little choice. The lack of choice is demonstrated by the arson rate alone. Not counting the 488 intentional fires during the four-day riot period, there were 178 arsons or suspected arsons during April. This compares to 87 in the same month last yearan increase of nearly 100%. The wave of burning continues this month. In the face of such evidence, we are forced to conclude that use of troops is the only immediate and practical way to restore order. [Washington Post, May 17, 1968] An Open Letter to the President of the United States It can happen here. The District of Columbia has become a disaster area and a battleground. The field of combat is clearly defined. It is in the minds of the fawbreakers-and those ho are tempted to break the law, Dur most powerful weapon must be knowledge that the law will be enforced-fairly and firmly. The ultimate restraint for the lawless is not jail. It is the possibility of jail. When that possibility is diminished by lax law enforcement, orime becomes way of life. When lawlessness is blinked at, we're eyeball to eyeball with anarchy; "window shoppers" are encouraged-to break the window. Give a potential criminal an inch and he'll take everything he can get, along with human life. There are those who think that to deplore the incrense in the spiral of erime brands one a reactionary. We are not reactionaries but if we did not react to the growing lawlessness in our city with alarm and protest, we would be irrespon sible citizens. We repectfully urge you, Mr. President and Mr. Mayor, while you seek from Congress the needed legislation for the disadvantaged, to seek asso laws which will protect all eitizens from irresponsible elements in the community-and to seek the mones, if in your opinion you do not have them, to ouferes those laws. We ask you to onforns and reinforce the jaw's presunes– to alter the present climate which keeps salesmen of national manufacturers from visiting our stores in the Washington gren because of danger on the strentą, and prevents the law-abiding from feing übent their lawful pursuits. Escalate me, war against robbors, arsonists and murderern - to sohiove safety id qur odly and posed at home. Greater Washington Division of MARYLAND-DELAWARE-DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA JEWELERS' ASSOCIATION Affiliate of Retail Jewelers of America High Rents Spoiled Food Slave Wages Credit Crucifixion Cheated Children * Welfare Gestapo * Honkie Unions STOP SHUFFLIN' and BEGGIN' WHITEY BUILD 1. SEND MR. CHARLIE HOME No more Mom and Pop Stores, Slumlords and other Exploiters of Black People allowed in Black Communities. No more Honkie Unions-without Black members-and no more Honkie Owners and Contractors without Black participation allowed to build Black Neighborhoods. No more Welfare Gestapo allowed to walk Black Streets. 2. END THE SLAVE TRADE. No more Slave Wages-less than $2. 25 an hour-allowed anywhere. No more Slave Traders-employment agencies and programs supplying the Slave Market-allowed anywhore. this land is your land you have the riche and the povŠT to say who uses it for wit BUILD BLACK, 3800 14th Street, {{{D [From The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., May 17, 1968] WHEN TO SHOOT In his two-day appearance before the House District Committee, Public Safety Director Patrick Murphy clarified several important points about the conduct of Washington's police force in last month's riots. A good bit of the questioning dealt with the issue of the use of guns by policeno doubt prompted partly by Murphy's reported comment at a recent luncheon appearance to the effect that he would "resign" rather than issue blanket orders to shoot looters and arsonists under riot conditions. That generalized comment required clarification. Murphy's explanation to the committee placed the subject in its proper perspective. Asked specifically how an officer should deal with an arsonist caught in the act who refused to stop when told, Murphy replied: "Shoot him." That is the right answer. The safety director was equally right, however, in stressing that the use of firearms should be a measure of last resort, and that the decision is one which must rest in the final analysis with the discretion of the individual policeman. "I know of no way we can eliminate this area of discretion," Murphy said. "We impose upon our police officers a tremendous responsibility." Indeed, it is the most difficult of all responsibilities. The decision, as Murphy noted, depends upon circumstances which vary whenever the question arises. The officer in each instance must weigh-with very little time to do so-such factors as the seriousness of the offense, whether there is any way short of firing to apprehend the offender, whether the offender is an adult or a child, the possible danger to innocent bystanders if shots are fired-all as against the public danger which might result if the culprit escapes. These are not factors which lend themselves to the issuance of flat, firm policies. The crucial point emphasized by Murphy to the House committee, and confirmed by Chief Layton, was that no policy of leniency or non-interference in regard to arsonists, looters or other lawbreakers was expressed at the time of the riots. Given the circumstances, furthermore, the police performance was quite creditable, especially in terms of total arrests made as conditions began to stabilize. Murphy described a number of lessons learned which should further improve police effectiveness if such a crisis should arise again. The major lesson, however, was that no city police force can cope alone with a disorder of such dimensions. The real mistake made last month was the delay in bringing in massive numbers of troops as soon as the rioting broke out. CLARK WARNS ON USE OF DEADLY FORCE' By Jean M, White of the Washington Post Attorney General Ramsey Clark warned yesterday that police orders to shoot arsonists and looters during riots can lead to "a very dangerous escalation" of the Nation's racial crisis. His rebuke on get-tough police orders came in answer to a question on whether he approved of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley's directive to police to "shoot to kill" arsonists and "shoot to maim or cripple" looters in any future riots. Clark's answer drew applause from his audience at the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention. "I do not believe that the use of deadly force by law enforcement officers is permissible except in self-defense or when it is necessary to protect the lives of others," the Attorney General emphasized. In Chicago yesterday, Mayor Daley defended his controversial "shoot to kill or maim" directive before the City Council. But, at the same time, he said the policy of the Chicago police department is to use only the minimum force necessary to carry out its duties. John Dreiske, special correspondent for The Washington Post, reported from Chicago yesterday that Daley confidants, attempting to explain the Mayor's Monday outburst, say he was terribly upset at the prospect that Chicago might lose the Democratic National Convention to another city. Daley's sensitiveness on this matter was dramatized by special orders to Chicago police to convert the International Amphitheater into a near-fortress during the violence after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Another reason given for Daley's heated words was that the Mayor was just simply drained after six days of burning and looting on Chicago's West Side and spoke out in frustration. A Chicago police order to use "deadly force" if necessary against arsonists has been on the books since May, 1967-nearly a year before Daley's crackdown order. The 1967 order covers arson, attempted arson, burglary, and attempted burglary and says that "such force as necessary, including deadly force" shall be used to prevent the crime or the escape of the perpetrators. Shooting, however, is forbidden if there is a likelihood of serious injury to another person. In his speech here yesterday before an ASNE seminar on "Conflict in the Cities," Attorney General Clark told the editors that the public should "bless our police" for the restraint and balance shown in handling the violence that broke out after the King assassination. With trouble in 100 cities and widespread rioting in at least a dozen, Clark stressed there "were fewer deaths and less property damages in all of these than in one riot alone last year." It was apparent that the Attorney General was using the editors' conference as a forum to plead for support of the policy to use police power cautiously and place the protection of lives above the protection of property during riots. Restrictions on the use of deadly force were spelled out in the FBI's rewritten riot manual last fall and in 125 riot-control conferences sponsored by the Justice Department and the International Association of Police Chiefs during the winter. As he has done before, Clark singled out the beat policeman as "the most important man in the United States today." "He will determine whether we will have social stability, order under law, while we rebuild our cities and ourselves in the next few precious years," he told the editors. Before yielding to despair, he said, it is well to put today's racial violence in the perspective of the Nation's and world's history. In 1863, Clark noted, 2000 persons died in draft and race riots in three days in New York City-nearly ten times as many as in all the Nation's riots in the last five years. He also pointed to present-day riots in a disciplined society like Japan and an authoritarian country like Spain. It took a white priest-the Rev. James E. Groppi of Milwaukee-to strike home dramatically the anger and frustration of Negro ghetto dwellers for the editors yesterday. After three months of being tailed by policemen during the Milwaukee housing marches, Father Groppi said he drove into the driveway of his St. Boniface rectory one night and a police squad car came up behind. At that moment, his anger exploded, the Catholic priest said, and he wanted only "to plow the police car out of the driveway." "I put the car in reverse . . . I missed reverse and the car engine gunned. Then I got out and told the policeman to get off the property, that it was private property. He spit on me. "This what goes on daily in the black community," Father Groppi concluded. Another speaker, the Rev. Leon Sullivan, founder of the Opportunities Industrialization Centers, told the editors that the Negro problem is much more economic than racial. "You cannot integrate the suburbs with a relief check," he observed. ["Letters to the Editor," Washington Star, May 11, 1968] CROSBY NOYES ON MAYOR DALEY SIR: For years, I have read Crosby S. Noyes' articles and usually I find myself in agreement with his reasoning. His column, "Crackdown Urged on Inciters of Violence," was excellent, but he sure flunked his homework a few days before in his analysis of Mayor Daley's remarks. I will concede that Mayor Daley's statement-lifted out of context-is extreme, but I insist that his basic reasoning had much greater merit than the drivel of the sob sisters who refuse to separate lawlessness from legitimate civil rights issue. As a country we are morally and legally obligated to improve the status of the Negro, but, certainly, we have no obligation to supervise our own destruction through lawlessness and anarchy. Mr. Noyes erred in stating that there is an elementary principle of law enforcement which directs the police to avoid making arrests in dangerous situations. He would have been correct had he stated that police should use that force, and only that force, necessary to assure compliance with the law. The bleeding hearts about us would have us believe that restraint and permissiveness toward those who violate our laws is the only solution to our current wave of racial disturbances. They, and he, to a lesser degree, would like us to believe that the local authorities did everything right during our last wave of violence. They did not crack down quick enough or hard enough on the looters and the arsonists. Their failure to act then and since is nothing more than an open invitation to a return engagement. No citizen, white or black, will be safe on the streets of Washington until the police show their teeth and notify the would-be violators in advance that force will be met with superior force. It is the long neglected duty of the administration, state and city officials, and the press, to pass the word now in this period of relative calm. Let there cease to be doubt in anyone's mind of our willingness and ability to enforce our own laws, by whatever means are necessary, up to and including the blunt warning of Mayor Daley. This anarchy can be stopped and it can be stopped now, but it will take more than promises and long term ghetto programs. Let us proceed with meaningful programs, but let us also show a determination to return to constitutional government. If the laws aren't right, let's change them, but not ignore or violate them or permit them to be violated. I'm not willing to wait "until law-abiding people in both communities decide they have had enough and begin to work together to cure the conditions on which violence breeds." That's |