Revisiting the Dinkins Era and the 1991 Crown Heights Riot

Previous to this episode: In 1989, after narrowly defeating Republican candidate Rudolph Giuliani, David Norman Dinkins became the first African-American to win a mayoral election in New York City, and in 1990 he took office. With violent crimes considered the city’s most pressing problem, Dinkins promised to clean up the streets and lower the crime rate. He began with revitalizing housing projects and expanding the size of New York Police Department.

On August 19, 1991, social unrest erupted in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, where black residents made up about 80 percent of the population. The neighborhood is also the center for the Chabad-Lubavitch hasidic movement. Around 8:20 p.m. that day, Yosef Lifsh, who was driving the last car in the three-car motorcade of Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, hit another vehicle after crossing Utica Avenue on President Street. The car veered onto the sidewalk and fatally injured seven-year-old Guyanese immigrant Gavin Cato and severely injured his seven-year-old cousin Angela Cato, both black.

Within minutes of the accidents, an ambulance from the private Jewish ambulance service Hatzoloh arrived at the scene. Under police instructions, it took Lifsh and his passengers away to keep them from being attacked, while the two children were still being rescued from beneath the car. The rumor that the Hatzoloh ambulance crew ignored the critically injured children quickly spread. A spontaneous protest by black residents quickly turned into a three-day riot, pitting the African-American community against the hasidic community. A hasidic student was murdered, stores were damaged and looted and police were attacked. Dinkins went to Crown Heights two days after the accident, meeting with the family of Gavin Cato and with community leaders, and tried to calm down both communities. His effort was of little to no help.

Chapter IV Ending the Chaos

It was midnight on August 21, 1991, when Mayor Dinkins together with Deputy Mayor Milton Mollen arrived at Kings County Hospital to visit police officers injured in the riot. A sniper had wounded eight police officers by firing a shotgun from rooftop that evening. Despite 34 arrests, the riot continued with no signs of cooling down. Directly after the visit, Dinkins and Mollen went to a meeting in a private room at the hospital with Police Commissioner Lee Brown around 2 a.m. Mollen began questioning Brown over the details of police tactics.

Dinkins was furious that the police allowed the riot to continue over three nights. In his memoir he recalled receiving information about police effectively controlling the neighborhood after the car crash. He expected the unrest to cool down on Tuesday. It was after his visit to Crown Heights on Wednesday that he realized that the police were not doing enough. He angrily said to the commissioner that night, “How dare you let it get this way! I want every officer that can be sent to Crown Heights to be there tomorrow.”

Dinkins demanded that all possible tactics be employed and said there was no excuse to let the riot continue. He said that police officers were being placed at fixed posts and were unable to deal with the youth rioters who were running around the neighborhood. “If you have to use horses, add the horses,” he said. “Why don’t the sergeants have radios? I want it all.” Brown did not argue. After the officers were shot, the police department was already thinking of changing to more aggressive tactics.

Commissioner Brown met with the Brooklyn borough commander that morning at 7 a.m. and worked out a new plan for riot control. During the process, Brown was again called by Dinkins, who was stunned by The New York Times quoting a Crown Heights resident as saying he was “the first mayor who made a pogrom against Jews in America.” The word pogrom implies an organized, government-backed attack on Jews. Dinkins was deeply hurt by this accusation because he had stood with the Jewish community at various times in his career. He again demanded to have the problems solved by NYPD, while assuring Governor Cuomo that bringing in National Guard was unnecessary and inappropriate to the situation.

More than 1,800 police officers surged into Crown Heights on Thursday, August 22. They wore helmets, and were encouraged to use their nightsticks when under attack. They taped the windows of patrol cars to prevent them from being shattered by rocks. Officers with shields lined up at major intersections to prevent further clashes between the black and the Jewish communities. Police on horses and motorcycles patrolled the streets.

Dinkins and Brown held a press conference at City Hall Thursday afternoon, telling the public that the police had shifted their strategy. The wretched streets in Crown Heights, which were full of trash and broken bottles after three days of riot, were broken into small sections. The rule was “if anyone does anything, arrest them.” Whenever groups of young African-American began to gather, police officers would approach and break up the group. A large group of protestors gathered at President Street and Utica Ave around 3 p.m. Police soon assembled at the location as well. This time, fully equipped with riot-control gear, the police held the line and did not retreat as they had two days earlier. Arrests were made before the crowd could get violent.

At the same time, Dinkins went back to Crown Heights. He met with the Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden and 40 other elected officials and community leaders at P.S. 167, where the local leaders had been providing the community with real-time information. Out on the street, they signed a joint statement in front of a huge crowd, calling for an end to the violence. The mayor left for three local evening news broadcasts at 5 p.m., on which he repeated his plea for calm.

That call was not answered immediately. Rioters gathered on Crown Heights street corners into Thursday night. Molotov cocktails were thrown and police were still in the danger from rooftop snipers. Black protesters marched toward the Lubavitch Headquarter on Eastern Parkway twice that night. Police were able to control the crowd by outnumbering the protestors and making arrests with no hesitation. Mounted officers kept close watch nearby. When rocks and bottles began to fly, they rode the horses into the protesting crowd, forcing people to disperse. A group of young black protestors chanted anti-Semitic slogans for about 20 minutes, then left.

But the new police tactics seemed to work. On Friday morning, when New York Times reporter Ari Goldman drove from his home in Westchester to Crown Heights, everything had quieted down. Goldman has stayed near the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway for four days reporting on the riot. He remembered seeing black protestors lead by Rev. Al Sharpton marching into Lubavitch community. Sharpton had come to Crown Heights from New Jersey at the request of Gavin Cato’s father and had led protests of the black community in Crown Heights during that period. The protestors burned Israeli flags, chanted anti-Semitic slogans and threw rocks and bottles at the police line. Even as a journalist, Goldman felt endangered.

On Friday morning, all that had changed. Crown Heights was quiet. Thomas Gallagher, commanding officer of Patrol Borough Brooklyn, later wrote in a report that there were no major marches or demonstrations. There were no arrests. No police were injured, and no police vehicles damaged.

Richard Green, CEO of Crown Heights Youth Collective, who helped check out the situation on the street before any city officials were on the scene of the riot, also witnessed calm returning to the community. The resource center at P.S. 167, set up at the suggestion of Green, continued to provide residents with information concerning government decisions until Labor Day.

Dinkins was trying to preserve the hard-won peace in the neighborhood while rebutting criticism of the city’s response. In a press conference on Friday morning in front of the steps of City Hall, Dinkins said, “We must restore peace to this community; and we must address the roots of injustice. But we must also have faith in our system of government and our system of law if justice will prevail.”

Dinkins met Sharpton that evening at a wake for Congressman Ed Town’s mother. They arranged to meet again at 8 p.m. to discuss Sharpton’s demonstration, which was planned for Saturday afternoon. The meeting lasted for five hours. Dinkins attempted to persuade Sharpton to cancel the demonstration; Sharpton and other activists refused. Sharpton did assure the mayor before the meeting ended that there would no more violence on Saturday.

On Saturday morning, Dinkins went back to streets of Crown Heights. There were still around 1,600 police officers in the area, but the streets were calm and had been cleaned up. Accompanied by senior officers and a police escort, he visited the spots where Gavin Cato and Yankel Rosenbaum had died, and laid wreaths at both. Dinkins then walked down Utica Avenue in the African American community and Brooklyn Avenue in the Hasidic community. The group was not greeted with rocks and bottles as Dinkins and other officials had been on Wednesday.

Shortly after the mayor left, Al Sharpton arrived with about 500 black demonstrators at 2:30 p.m. Wearing a blue and white jacket, Sharpton led the march along Eastern Parkway from Utica Avenue. Walking alongside the demonstrators were lines of polices officers still equipped with riot gears. There were twice as many police as demonstrators. The march went on peacefully as the stream of people walked past the Lubavitch headquarters. They paused briefly at the house they believed Lifsh had lived. While no violence was stirred, the hasidic community thought it was a deliberate provocation as it occurred on the Jewish Sabbath. The demonstration was then directed out of Crown Heights and peacefully dispersed at 4:30 p.m. Four marchers were arrested after the demonstration ended.

As Crown Heights slowly returned to normal, news stories switched from reporting on the event to analysis of the cause of the riot and criticism of the city’s response. Many criticized Dinkins for not responding to the issue quickly enough and for initially telling the police to hold back.

Dinkins, stunned by the criticism, kept visiting Crown Height. On the Sunday morning after the riot, he spoke to an African-American audience at the First Baptist Church in Crown Heights. Mourning the loss of Gavin Cato and Yankel Rosenbaum, Dinkins criticized how people in the community looked at the fatal car accident. If, in the end, it was determined that the death of Gavin Cato was a crime, he said, “It would be a crime committed by an individual — not by the hasidic community; not by ‘the Jews.’”

He then went on talking about the perceptions held by the two communities about the riot — that black community thought the Jews were given preferential treatment and the Jewish community thought the police was not protecting it well enough. He pleaded for the crowd to hold hands together to end the violence and intolerance that resulted from these perceptions because it was not something that could be achieved by an individual alone. He praised Carmel Cato, father of Gavin Cato, for not participating in the violent demonstrations.

“There is hardly a greater loss than one’s own flesh and blood, the tender, innocent beauty of a child,” Dinkins said. “And yet Carmel Cato has smashed no windows, he has overturned no police cars, he has cast no stones.”

He also spoke to the youth in the community. He praised the youths who were helping to call the protestors off the street and urged the community to set up a positive model for them.

“The great majority of neighborhood youth did not participate in the violence. And they had a lot to say — to me and to you. What these young people cried out for above all else was hope — the chance to dream a dream that really might come true. And they cited several things that inspire them with hope. They cried out for role models — people from the community who have succeeded without resorting to crime or succumbing to drugs. Our success breeds hope for those younger than we.”

In the afternoon, Dinkins paid a visit to the Rabbi Menachem Schneerson. In front of dozens of cameras, Dinkins said he would bring “both sides” in the community back to peace. The Rebbe responded, “We are one side, one people, united by the management of New York City. May God protect the police and all the people of the city.”

While denied by the Jewish community the chance to attend Yankel Rosenbaum’s funeral, Dinkins decided that he could not miss the funeral of Gavin Cato on Monday August 26, 1991. He even invited some leaders from Jewish community to come with him. At first they accepted the invitation — and then changed their minds when they learned that Al Sharpton would be delivering the eulogy.

Dinkins was terrified when Sharpton decided to lead a march from the church where the funeral service took place to the cemetery. He did not want to see more violence. But the flame was lit early on. Sonny Carson, a Brooklyn black civil rights activist, shouted to the crowd not to forget how Gavin Cato had died as the white coffin was carried to the St. Anthony Baptist Church for the funeral. The conflict between Dinkins and Sharpton intensified at the event. The eulogy given by Sharpton inflamed the passions among the crowd again. Sharpton even turned to Dinkins and said, “You don’t want peace; you want quiet.”

Right after the service, people began gathering around the hearse for the march. Dinkins hugged Carmel Cato and then briefly talked with Al Sharpton before leaving for City Hall.

“I’m not worried about violence,” said Dinkins. “Am I, Al?”

His wishes were not granted. As people followed the hearse toward the cemetery, mourners shouted, “We want justice.” While no major violence erupted, three hasidic men were assaulted by African-Americans that night. Eight arrests were made.

The annual West Indian Day Parade that takes place on Eastern Parkway was scheduled for Monday, September 2, just after the riot. The Lubavitch community had long sought to reroute the parade away from 770 Eastern Parkway, Chabad’s headquarters. Edward Shapiro, in his book Crown Heights: Blacks, Jews, and the 1991 Brooklyn Riot said the Caribbean-American community at that time regarded the attempt to reroute the parade as showing “insensitivity toward West Indian culture and ceremony and an arrogance and insularity of typical Lubavitch.”

This year, the Lubavitch community leaders again demanded to change the route — or cancel the parade entirely, fearing that it would spark new violence. But it dropped the attempt after receiving assurance from government officials and parade organizers that violence would be prevented. “Peace on the Parkway” was chosen by the parade organizer as the slogan for the parade.

Around 2,200 police officers were guarding the parade area. The parade that year attracted around 700,000 marchers and viewers, much less that the average of one million participants in previous years, but still a very large crowd. It was reported that some people shouted anti-Semitic slogans when passing 770 Eastern Parkway. Rocks and bottles were thrown at the police guarding the Lubavitch headquarter. But the police were able to hold the damage to minimum and only two arrests were made. Green said it was significant to see how the parade proceeded in peace.

“You had one million people on the sides of Eastern Parkway just two weeks after the Crown Heights incident,” said Green, talking about the West Indian Day Parade. “We were able to pull that through.”

The black community, especially the West Indians, was seeking ways to mend relations with the Hasidic community.

Carlos Lezama, president of the West Indian American Day Carnival Association, invited prominent Lubavitch figures, including Shmuel Butman, a Crown Heights rabbi, to march in front of the parade together with Mayor Dinkins and West Indian leaders. Butman later said to the audience that he marched in the spirit of “brotherhood, camaraderie, friendship and peace.” A friendly joke about Butman spread during the march. “Did you hear what happened to Rabbi Butman?” “No I heard everything was quiet at Carnival.” “Yes, the rabbi won the best costume award.”

The act of hasidic Jewish leaders joining the parade was seen as a response to Dinkins’s call for communities to reach out more to each other. But Goldman said the participation of hasidic leaders was probably the only Jewish presence at the parade.

Holding the hands of Carlos Lezama and Rabbi Schmuel Butman high during the West Indian Labor Day parade seemed to be a symbolic moment for Mayor Dinkins as it somehow showed that the communities were placing the hatred behind and the violent story of Crown Heights Riot ended then. Following that would be a long period of healing and restoration within the community. What he didn’t expect is that how painful it would be to find the right method to rebuild the bridge between the African-American community and Jewish community. The Crown Heights riot kept haunting Dinkins’ political career, not only months or a year but all the way into the 1993 mayoral election in which Dinkins lost to Rudolph Giuliani by a tight margin.