RACE RIOTS OF 1967

An Analysis of Police Violence in

Detroit and Newark

ALBERT BERGESEN
University of Arizona

The question of police brutality was always been of central

concern, and although the issue seems to have subsided
somewhat in recent years, the fact remains that we have very
little systematic empirical data on the actualities of police-
civilian encounters in the black community. This seems
particularly true about police violence during the major race
riots of the 1960s. Official violence has been isolated as an
important underlying and precipitating cause for the riots,
but the specific actions of law enforcement officials toward
black civilians during an ongoing riot are less well-known,
although there were suspicions by both critics of the police and
official commission reports that police behavior was far from
what it should have been. As the National Advisory Commis-

AUTHOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this article was presented at the

Research Symposium on Social Indicators of Institutional Racism-Sexism,
University of California, Los Angeles, April 29-30, 1977. I would like to
thank <9~
~M~ Otis Dt~/~ Duncan o~
Dudley Dt~co~ and ~v~/~
Beverly DM~co~/br
Duncan for o~~o~cc, advice, 0~!~
assistance, o~v/cc, and
encouragement throughout this research.

261

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262

sion on Civil Disorders commented, &dquo;in their anxiety to

control disorders, some law enforcement agencies may resort
to indiscriminate, repressive use of force against wholly
innocent elements of the Negro community&dquo; (National Ad-
visory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1968: 335). Much of the
issue of police violence has remained at the level of charges and
countercharges, and what would be most helpful are some
systematic data on just what the police did and did not do. In
this regard, it is the specific purpose of this article to shed some
light upon the issue of police violence during race riots by
systematically examining the specific circumstances of death
for each person killed during the Detriot and Newark race riots
of 1967.

DATA AND METHOD

The of data is two books by journalists (Sauter and

source
Hine’s 1968 Nightmare in Detroit and Hayden’s 1967 Rebellion
in Newark) which compile police reports, eyewitness accounts,
and information from news sources to reconstruct the circum-
stances of each death.
The rapidity of unfolding events and the emotional charac-
ter of racial violence provides obvious room for error, mis-
interpretation, and bias in the reconstruction of these incidents.
One means of checking reliability is to compare these accounts
with those provided by the National Advisory Commission on
Civil Disorders (Kerner Report). That report specifically
discussed eight deaths in Newark and 23 in Detroit. In all of
these cases, the Kerner Report accounts match those of Sauter
and Hines and of Hayden. Bias may also be reduced by
excluding the motives and intentions of both white and black
participants and considering only the more &dquo;public&dquo; aspects of
each death. Thus, only information specifying the day of death
and the general circumstance of death are dealt with here to
avoid making unnecessary judgments and evaluations. The

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 263

most obvious distinction is who initiated the violence-

civilians (white or black), officials (police or National Guard),
or accidents (like collapsing buildings or auto accidents). In
deaths initiated by officials, it was found that victims were (1)
looting, (2) standing in crowds, (3) riding in cars, (4) in their
homes, and by what could only be described as (5) person-
ally attacked by law enforcement officials.
These two riots were neither selected as a &dquo;sample&dquo; of the
racial violence of the 1960s nor chosen as the best examples or
most representative riots of the period. These are the only
major riots of the 1960s where systematic data are available on
the exact circumstance of each death. Very little is known
about the internal dynamics of riots. It is hoped that an
analysis of available information will improve our understand-
ing of these events.

CIRCUMSTANCE OF DEATH

From reading the accounts, the most fundamental distinc-

tion that appeared was whether the fatal violence was com-
mitted by civilians, officials, or by some type of accident.

CIVILIANS KILL CIVILIANS OR OFFICIALS

These incidents occurred during the early stages of both riots

and involve situations where black or white civilians initiate
fatal violence toward other civilians or authorities. In Newark
there were only two such cases, a policeman and fireman who
authorities claimed were shot by snipers.In Detroit there were
six cases: (1) a white store owner was beaten by a black youth;
(2) a white woman was shot in her car as it passed through a
milling crowd of black civilians; (3) a white looter was shot by a
white store owner; (4) a black youth was shot by a black private
guard; (5) a black looter was shot by a white store owner; and
(6) a black man was shot by an unprovoked white civilian.

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264

Of the eight deaths by civilians in both riots, almost half

(three of eight) were killed by whites. Four of the deaths were
civilians killed by other civilians, two were looters shot by store
owners, and two were officials possibly killed by snipers.
Finally, out of a total 63 deaths in both riots, only 13% were
initiated by civilians in general and only 8% by black civilians.

ACCIDENTS

There were two accidental incidents in Newark: (1) a fire

engine struck a parked car killing the occupant and (2) a black
civilian, aiming at a white civilian, hit a woman sitting on her
porch. In Detroit there were seven such accidental deaths: ( 1, 2)
two looters died in the collapse of a burning building; (3, 4) a
fireman and a black civilian, on different occasions, bumped
into high-voltage wires; (5, 6) a fireman and guardsman were
shot in National Guard cross-fire; and (7) a policeman
accidentally shot another policeman while he was struggling
with a looter.
Next, the circumstances under which law enforcement
officials killed civilians are more closely examined. Four
general situations exist: civilians shot in the act of looting, in
crowds and cars, in their homes, and in direct personal attacks
by officials.

OFFICIALS SHOOT AT LOOTERS

In all cases the situation was similar. As police or National

Guard units drove up to a store being looted, the looters
dropped their armfuls of goods while police or guard shot at
them as they fled. Looters were after consumer goods from
supermarkets, liquor stores, drugstores, and even a junkyard.
They did not loot public institutions such as schools and
government buildings, banks, or the more prestigious depart-
ment stores.
There were 4 people in Newark and 18 in Detroit who were
shot for looting. Of these 22 killed looting, 14 were shot while

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 265

fleeing the scene of the looting, 6 were shot in the store where
they were looting, and 2 were shot while standing in front of the
looted stores.

OFFICIALS SHOOT AT CARS AND CROWDS

Cars. The two cases in Detroit and one in Newark transpired

in about the same way. As an auto, full of passengers, slowly
approached a National Guard roadblock (or checkpoint) the
Guard opened fire on the car. In Detroit one passenger was
killed when his car was fired at as it proceeded slowly through
the intersection after stopping at a stoplight. In the other two
cases, one of the cars approached a parked National Guard
jeep, the other approached a National Guard barricade, and in
both instances the guard opened fire, riddling the cars with
bullets. One person was killed in each incident, one being a 10-
year-old boy.
Crowds. The six deaths resulting from authorities firing
indiscriminately into crowds occurred in Newark. (1) Police
fired down a street, hitting a man looking at the wreckage of a
bar. (2) Police fired down a street, hitting a woman who had
come out of her home to look for her children. (3) Police fired
down a street hitting a 74-year-old man walking toward his car.
(4) Police fired from rooftops hitting a man standing with his
relatives. (5) Police and guard fired down an alley hitting a man
getting into his car. And finally, (6) police fire down a street
hitting a man standing on a corner. In none of these cases was
the individual either provoking the officials or engaging in
riotous behavior such as sniping, throwing objects, or setting
fires. They were all bystanders, not participants.

AUTHORITIES SHOOT AT APARTMENT HOUSES

In five instances police and National Guard supposedly

responding tosniper fire strafed apartment houses and one
motel with gunfire.2 In none of these instances was a sniper hit
or captured when the buildings were later searched. Detroit

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266

had two cases. (1) A four-year-old girl was hit in her living
room when a 50-caliber machine gun fired from a tank strafed
her apartment building. Someone standing in a window had lit
a match and the guard thought it was sniper fire. (2) A woman

visiting the city looked out her motel window and was killed as
a guard unit fired a volley of shots at the motel.

There were three cases in Newark. (1) A woman was shot in

her second-floor apartment when troopers fired on the build-
ing. (2) A woman looking out the window of her tenth-floor
apartment was killed when police strafed her building with
bullets. And (3) a woman was killed in her home when guards-
men fired at her apartment building.

PERSONAL ATTACKS

Such attacks were of the indiscriminate firing

not the result
at cars, crowds, buildings, and looters, There were three of
these incidents in Newark: (1) A man stepped out of a
restaurant and was shot by plainclothesmen driving by the
restaurant. (2) A youth was shot at point-blank range by
policemen when they confronted him in a tavern (photos
showed 39 bullet holes in his chest alone). (3) A 12-year-old
boy, taking out the garbage, was killed by a guardsman after
the boy’s companion said derogatory things to one of the
guardsmen.
There were seven deaths in Detroit: (1) A man walking to-
ward his 4:30 a.m. bus was confronted by a guardsman and
shot for no apparent reason. (2, 3, 4) Police and guardsmen
stormed the Algiers Motel and killed three men at a range of 15
feet or less. (Two white girls found inside the motel were also
severely beaten by authorities.) (5) One eyewitness said he saw
a Guardsman raise his gun, aim, and fire, killing a man who
had been walking toward him. The man was unarmed, not
looting, and not breaking any laws. (6) Guardsmen, searching
a building for snipers, confronted a man in the hallway of his

apartment. He was bayoneted and then shot. (7) Police stop-

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 267

ped a man on the street, marched him into an alley, and shot
him. The medical examiner’s report said he was shotgunned
from about 10 feet.
This six-category classification scheme includes all of the
deaths except one in Detroit that was quite different from the
others. There, police broke into a man’s apartment and, after
wounding the first officer through the door, the man was shot
by the other officers. As all 63 incidents clearly fell into the six
categories, rather than create a new category for only one
incident, it was treated as a deviant case and left out of the
analysis. In Newark there were reports on four deaths that were
not codable. One man was shot but there were no eyewitnesses,
and another was shot looting but the date could not be
determined. A women was reported to have died from a heart
attack but that did not seem directly attributable to the riot.
And finally, there were conflicting reports on the death of one
man. This left 42 of the 43 incidents in Detroit and 21 of the 25
incidents in Newark that could be analyzed in terms of their
distribution across these six general circumstances and the day
of riot on which they occurred.

ANALYSIS

Table 1 presents the frequency of these different circum-

stances of death. In both riots about 75% of the total violence
emanated from officials (Detroit 69%, Newark 81 %) with the
remainder being evenly split between accidental and civilian-
initiated violence. The largest single category in both riots was
officials shooting at looters, cars, and crowds. There were
differences, though, in the distribution within this general
category. In Detroit the shooting of looters accounted for 43%
of the total violence, but only 10% in Newark, while shooting at
cars and crowds accounted for 33% of Newark’s total but only

5% in Detroit. In general, official violence was more evenly

distributed over the different circumstances in Newark, while it

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268

TABLE 1
Percentage Distribution of the Total Number of
Persons Killed During the Detroit and Newark Riots
of 1967 by Circumstances of Death

Source: Figures 1 and 2.

was more concentrated in the two categories, shooting of

looters and personal attacks, in Detroit.
The general category &dquo;officials&dquo; refers to police, National
Guard units, and federal troops. The different types to violence
initiated by each are presented in Table 2. In Detroit, the police
and National Guard were present throughout the riot, while
the federal troops did not arrive until the third of six total days.
Of the total official violence, over half was committed by the
police (19 of 29), and most of that involved shooting at
looters. The activity of the guard was evenly distributed across
the different circumstances, and only one person was shot by
federal troopers. In Newark, the police were present during the
duration of the riot, the guard arrived on the second of the five
days, and the federal troops were not called up. The police
accounted for the overwhelming majority of official deaths (14
of 17) and, like Detroit, the guard violence was evenly
distributed over different circumstances.

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 269

TABLE 2
The Number of Civilians Killed by Police,
National Guard, and Federal Troops in Detroit and
Newark by Circumstances of Death

Note: Federal troops were not called up m Newark.

--

equals zero.

FROM CIVILIAN TO OFFICIAL VIOLENCE

In the account of each incident was its date, and we classified

each incident by day of riot and circumstance of death. Figures
I and 2 present that classification for Detroit and Newark. In
examining these data, there are two general trends within both
riots, although they are more pronounced in Detroit than in
Newark. (1) The civilian and accidental violence seems to
largely precede official violence and (2) the official violence
becomes more indiscriminate, random, and personal as the riot
unfolds. Further, this escalation of official violence occurs in
the virtual absence of any corresponding civilian violence. For
both riots, the second day had the largest volume of violence,
but the civilian and accidental violence then virtually dis-
appears, while the data show official killings continuing.

FITTING A LOG-LINEAR MODEL

We have examined the statistical significance of the relation-

ships in Figures I and 2 using a method Simon (1974) has
proposed based on the likelihood-ratio chi-square statistic, X2,
for singly ordered contingency tables, that tests for indepen-

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270

Figure 1: Forty-two fatalities of the Detroit Race Riot of 1967 classified by cir-
cumstance of death and date of riot.

dence and the goodness of fit of a linear model. We rejected the

null hypothesis of independence, X 2(20) = 36.8, p < .02, in
Detroit and found a good fit of the linear model, x~(16) = 15.2,
p > .05, so that the linear effect is highly significant, X2(4) =
36.8 - 15.2 = 21.6, p < .01. In Newark we failed to reject the
null hypothesis of independence, X2( 16) = 25.7, p < .05, while
there was a more marginal fit to the linear model, X2( 12) = 20.1,
.05< p < .1, and the linear effect is not significant,X~(4)= 25.7
-

20.1 = 5.6, p > .1. (These goodness-of-fit statistics should be

interpreted cautiously since several of the expected frequencies
are very small.)

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 271

Figure 2: Twenty-one fatalities of the Newark Race Riot of 1967 classified by

circumstance of death and date of not.

Odds on official violence. The escalation of official violence

itself can be examined in more detail by looking at the odds on
each kind of official violence versus the residual violence
(civilian and accidental) for each day of the riot. We computed
expected frequencies of official and residual violence under
Simon’s model. The expected odds on each type of official
violence are plotted on a semilogarithmic chart (see Figure 3).
Figure 3 shows that except for shooting at crowds and cars,
the odds on official violence in general increase as the riot

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 272

Figure 3: Odds on Official Violence

Note: Odds computed from the expected frequencies of a log-linear model fitted
to the data in Figures 1 and 2 on each type of official violence agamst the com-
bmed civilian and accidental violence, and plotted on a semilogarithmic chart.

progessed in Newark. For Detroit the relationships are similar.

For all categories of official violence, the odds on their
occurrence increase as the riot continues.

THE ESCALATION OF OFFICIAL VIOLENCE:

A POLICE RIOT?

The substantive character of the changing circumstances of

death as the official violence progressed is also of great interest.

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 273

First, there was the shooting of looters, that officials could

argue were within the legitimate domain of law enforcement

procedures (although even here 71% of those shot for looting
were fleeing the premises when they were killed). This activity,

though, virtually ceases and is replaced by shooting at cars and

crowds, which is a much more random and indiscriminate
activity than shooting any one particular looter. The indi-
viduals being shot are also no longer engaging in illegal
activity. The next category involves the strafing of apartment
houses, which only resulted in killing women and children
within their homes. Finally, there were what could only be
described as the personal attacks upon black civilians.
The idea that official violence escalated simultaneously or in
response to civilian violence is not supported by these data. In
Detroit there was an equal amount of civilian-accidental and
official violence for the first two days, but for the remainder of
the riot there were 19 more officially instigated deaths and only
2 more accidental ones. Similarly, in Newark there was
approximately the same amount of official violence before and
after the second day (nine and eight), but there was only 1
civilian-initiated death after that second day. While it must be
remembered that we are only dealing with killings and not
other forms of violence that occurred during these riots, the
data, nevertheless, are quite clear on this issue of deaths: The
official violence escalated in that it became more random,
indiscriminate, and personal, in the clear absence of cor-
responding civilian violence. There seems to have been an
increasing lack of organizational or normative control over the
actions of officials, which suggests the presence of a &dquo;police
riot&dquo; in both of these cities.

NOTES

1. Eyewitnesses did not see the actual fire of snipers, and Hayden (1967: 84-88)
suggests that they may have been hit by stray bullets from other law enforcement
officers shooting in that area. In this analysis they were coded as having been shot by
civilians.

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274

2. The shooting at building was purportedly in response to snipers, but the

presence of smpers according to the Kerner Report seems to have been largely
exaggerated. In Newark, for example, the director of police told the Kerner
Commission, "As a matter of fact down in the Springfield Avenue area it was so bad
that, in my opinion, Guardsmen were firing upon police and police were firing back at
them.... I really don’t believe there was a much sniping as we thought" (National
Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1968: 66). In Detroit, of the 27 individuals
charged with sniping, 24 had charges dropped, 1 was given a suspended sentence, and
at the time of the Kerner Report the trials of 2 were pending. Perhaps the most
significant evidence against the presence of snipers was the few officers who were
actually killed by snipers. There was none in Detroit, and only 2 were reportedly shot
by snipers in Newark. This makes 2 out of a total of 63 deaths for both riots.

REFERENCES

HAYDEN, T. (1967) Rebellion in Newark. New York: Vintage Books.

National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (1968) Report New York
Bantam.
SAUTER, V. G and B. HINES(1968) Nightmare in Detroit. Chicago Henry Regnery
Company.
SIMON, G. (1974) "Alternative analyses for the singly-ordered contingency table " J.
of the Amer Statistical Assn 69: 971-976.

Albert Bergesen IS Assistant Professor of Socwlogy at the Umversity of

Anzona. His present mterests focus upon racial violence initiated by white
ethmcs durmg the 1960s. This has mvolved studies of the major race nots of the
period and events like the rtotmg of the Irish of South Boston over busmg.
Recent publications include American Sociological Review, American Jour-
nal of Sociology, and Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

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