In the Newark riots of 1967, the fear of black snipers changed the game for the police
What were once unorganized skirmishes turned into ‘running gunfights,’ according to authorities
On July 12, 1967, John Weerd Smith, a black cab driver, was pulled over by police officers John DeSimone and Vito Pontrelli on 15th Avenue in Newark. In the encounter that followed, Smith was arrested and beaten so badly that he was unable to walk into the precinct under his own power. When word reached a nearby housing project, hundreds of residents made their way to the scene. A riot that would last five days broke out.
Newark was just the latest Northern city to see racial unrest, but it was different in kind. As the summer progressed, the strategy of black activists was evolving. The scattershot violence of rock-throwing and even firebombing was turning into more deliberate engagement, which reportedly included the tactical use of snipers.
According to a Life magazine account, the snipers’ group, founded by activists in the Deep South, had sent members to different cities with clear directives: Embed themselves in their respective locales, recruit like-minded residents, and embrace violent tactics when necessary. While in Newark most were local, others had come from as far as California.
The police and National Guard were mostly prepared for protests by mid-July, but this was closer to urban warfare.
Also, the authorities may have been unaware, but in a 52 percent black city with a 90 percent white police force, the snipers had a fair amount of support. During an interview given in an upstairs apartment, members of the group assured Russell Sackett, who was covering the Newark story for Life, that other cities would see similar tactics unfold on their streets.
One sniper made it clear to Sackett that many frustrated citizens in Newark were keen to help. “Whose apartment windows were they shooting from?” he explained. “Why didn’t anyone turn them in? Once a riot is on, this community isn’t about to turn in any black man.”
“When people are that hot,” another added, “no one controls a thing like that, once it’s started.”
Shotguns were issued to police after an officer was hit by a brick, and 1,400 cops were given the go-ahead to fire on rioters when necessary. Authorities had what they described to the New York Times as “several running gunfights” on Springfield Avenue while dealing with sniper fire, which killed one officer. A firefighter told the Times that the “jeering and the snipers’ shots” were larger problems than the fires.
Police turned their guns on any window they thought could hide a sniper in trouble spots. Since any window could have been occupied by a sniper-in-wait, many buildings had each window shot out by police. Rebecca Brown was hit when her second-floor apartment window was shot out. She died on July 15th.
An 11 p.m. curfew was instituted citywide, and Newark Police were joined by the National Guard to handle what Mayor Hugh Addonizio called an “ominous situation.” Addonizio had been warned of youths rioting from the onset — in fact for more than a year — but he didn’t show up until he got word of snipers.
The snipers themselves told Life that killing wasn’t the name of the game. Their organization, which had recently ditched their nonviolent approach, wasn’t interested in death tolls. While police dealt with them, local folks, who had long known of the group’s presence but had never supported or encouraged them, could grab supplies and appliances they desperately wanted and needed. “Five or six shots,” according to one sniper, was enough to draw cops while giving them time to escape. “We had other things on our minds than killing,” he told Sackett.
But to authorities in Newark, the police and National Guard were now facing gunmen with a plan. That summer, concerned white Americans had to consider — many for the first time — that their nightmare could not only shoot back, but shoot first.
In a visit during August of 1966, Stokely Carmichael, the 25-year-old firebrand organizer who had recently risen to national prominence, laid out the situation with the authorities in Newark. “In all other cities, they’re scared of a rebellion,” he urged the audience. “But in Newark, New Jersey, they’re not even afraid of you.”
By 1967, that had changed. At the riot’s peak, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, reiterating support offered by President Lyndon Johnson, offered to send federal Marshals. They were afraid. And they would get more afraid.
Sixteen miles to the south, on the second night of Newark’s riot, patrolman John Gleason was set upon by black teenagers, beaten, and shot to death with his own service weapon in Plainfield, New Jersey.
If the brazen killing of a police officer wasn’t terrifying enough to authorities, that same night the Plainfield Machine Company in nearby Middlesex was burglarized. Forty-six rifles and 500 rounds of ammunition went missing.
With snipers already on the roofs in Newark and more guns on the loose, Plainfield would see police make 100 arrests, along with the arrival of more than 120 national guardsmen in a day. A town of fewer than 50,000 people, which had seen fit to police itself with fewer than 100 full-time police officers, saw its police presence nearly triple.
The five-day Newark riot would see more than two dozen die in its wake, along with millions of dollars worth of damage. In the days, weeks, and months after the theft, authorities searched for the missing New Jersey weapons to no avail. Police never found a single stolen gun.
But the gun theft was a tactical shift in the eyes of government. No offensive took place, demands were neither made nor met, and not a single gun turned up between Plainfield and Newark. Regardless, the black community was now armed.
For years after, Newark, which had recently branded itself a city “with something to teach,” was left desolate, tense, and isolated. Former assemblyman George C. Richardson would tell the New York Times that agitation wasn’t to blame, the riots were “frustration and reaction to hopelessness from from almost 20,000 unemployed men from 16 to 25.”
Detroit would be next.
