To Protect and Serve:
Analyzing New York’s Violent Riots and Determining how to Stop Them
Analyzing New York’s Violent Riots and Determining how to Stop Them
Riots: we hear about them on the news, see the damage they cause, and may even experience the chaos ourselves. But who is really responsible for these violent disruptions? Is our law enforcement at the root of the violence, or do the protest groups bear some responsibility? Whatever the case, something needs to be done to prevent further destruction; however, in these politically divided times, a compromise is proving difficult. In this essay, I will examine recent riots in New York and compare them to ones in the city’s past in an effort to see how both the police and the protesters have changed over the years. I will also analyze how the relationship between major protests groups (specifically Black Lives Matter) and police forces can spark these violent conflicts, leading to destruction for both civilians and law enforcement. By analyzing these riots and relationships, maybe we could find a way to minimize violence and damage caused during these demonstrations, and find more peaceful methods of protesting. For my research question, I asked: How can we look at the relationship between the NYPD and Black Lives Matter to better understand each side’s position on these events? By analyzing these demonstrations, could we better prevent them from escalating into violence in the future? I believe that with proper work and care from both sides of the conflict, we will see a reduction of violent protests in the future. As George Santayana, author of The Life of Reason, once said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
New York, while a prosperous city, has seen its fair share of violence in the form of riots. An example of this is the Draft Riots of 1863, in which the “Big Apple” was thrown into complete pandemonium. The tension began after the Emancipation Proclamation was passed as a bill. Many New York citizens, mostly white, middle-class ones, felt that this bill threatened their way of life, and needed to be overturned. While the proclamation itself did not start the riot, it added fuel to the fire and paved the way for future decisions that would spark conflict. Finally, in March of 1863, a law was passed that required all men of a certain age to participate in a lottery that would determine whether or not they were to enter the military. However, this law excluded black people, as they were still technically not citizens. Because of this, many white citizens felt as though they were being targeted, triggering a violent response that came in the form of the Draft Riots (Harris).
The riots lasted a total of five days, and managed to wreak havoc across the city of New York. Initially, rioters targeted military and government buildings, obvious targets for their anger over the draft. But after a while, the rioters turned their anger towards black people, and anything that might represent African-American culture and community. Eventually, the rioters ignored the purpose of what they were trying to destroy, and began to lay waste to the city as a whole. The protesters even went so far as to destroy a children’s orphanage. “Late that afternoon, the crowd reached the Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street, home to more than 230 children. The orphanage’s staff was able to evacuate all of the children to safety, but just minutes later the mob turned on the building with a savage ferocity, uprooting trees, destroying clothing, toys and supplies before setting fire to the building” (Maranzani). Unfortunately, officials were badly outnumbered, which allowed the riots to spread and put the police and National Guard on defense. Rather than pushing back on the rioters, law enforcement attempted to keep the protesters from continuing to spread by setting up barricades in key areas of the city. While they were doing this, officials were passing amendments to the draft that they hoped would calm the riots. However, rioters found ways around the police barricades, and union military forces had to be called in to forcefully quell the violence. It is estimated that 115 people lost their lives in the riots, including several African-Americans, some of whom were lynched in the chaos. By the end of the riots, around 50 buildings in the city had been completely burned to the ground (Maranazi). But what went wrong? Why were police and city officials so ineffective when dealing with the violence? For one, as mentioned above, law enforcement was drastically outnumbered. This allowed the rioters to easily overwhelm the policemen once they began to fight back. It seems as though officials in New York greatly underestimated the potential for riots. Clearly, more officers should have been deployed to quickly eliminate the violence. Additionally, a greater concentration of law enforcement should have been deployed to protect the innocent African American community, who had no responsibility at all for the draft law that officials had enacted. And, perhaps city officials should have put more thought into the draft law itself, due the fact that military drafts of any kind do not usually yield good results.
But the Draft Riots were obviously not the last chaos the city of New York has seen throughout the years. Others include the Tompkins Square Riot of 1874, the Harlem Riot of 1943, and the infamous Blackout Riots. New York in 1977 was facing tough times economically speaking. Dealing with a major money shortage and no assistance from the government, New York was left to fend for itself while drowning in debt. Additionally, large portions of the white middle-class were moving to the suburbs, drastically cutting down on the amount of manufacturing the city could carry out (Phillips-Fein). The economic failures of the city during this period heavily affected the overall mood of its citizens, with discontent growing as the debt kept rising. Much like the Draft Riots, the anger that fueled this riot had been building for a while. However, unlike the Draft Riots, the event that sparked the violence of the Blackout Riot triggered it instantaneously-and determined when it would end (creative punctuation). On the night of July 13th, 1977, a massive power outage swept across NYC, plunging much of it into complete darkness. Swaths of people fueled by their anger at the city began rioting, destroying buildings, lighting fires, looting, and more (Right-Branching). “By the time the power came back, 25 hours later, arsonists had set more than 1,000 fires and looters had ransacked 1,600 stores, per the New York Times” (Latson). Police response was much more aggressive in this incident than in the Draft Riots. Because of the time constraints (officers had only until the power was restored to make arrests, as this would likely send criminals running), police were frantically and violently searching the city to stop the sudden crime wave. While this strategy proved to shut down protests quickly, it also caused widespread reports of injuries and violence both towards rioters and police. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really anything the police or city officials could do to prevent this type of riot. Besides improving the city’s generators to better withstand failures, the start of this riot was unpredictable and sudden. However, while it was slightly on the aggressive side, the police did what they could with the limited time they had to minimize the damage caused to the city. While the riots were still massively detrimental to the city, they likely would have been much worse without the assistance of law enforcement. On a side note, during the blackout riots, looters managed to steal DJ equipment from stores, which caused a sudden boom in the genre of hip-hop for the next few years (creative juxtaposition).
While modern protests groups have made significant progress in cutting down violence in demonstrations, there is still a long road to achieve true non-violence. Black Lives Matter, a recently-formed movement dedicated to fighting police brutality, is an example of a group that is largely peaceful, but has experienced extreme violence during protests. An example is the 2015
Baltimore Riots, sparked by the killing of Freddie Gray on April 19th of the same year. While this riot was not entirely populated by BLM, many of its supporters appeared there to protest Gray’s killing, and the initial protests were supported by the movement. However, what began as a peaceful demonstration quickly turned into a civil nightmare. The riots grew so bad that the city of Baltimore was declared to be in a state of emergency until May 6th, 2015, and the National Guard of Maryland was called in to assist local police with arrests and stopping riots. Throughout the course of the riots, at least 20 police officers were injured, 250 people were arrested, 285-350 stores were damaged, 150 vehicle fires were lit, 60 structure fires were ignited, and 27 drugstores were looted. The initial price tag for repairing the city was nine million dollars. But once the cost of firefighters, the National Guard, and the city police all working overtime for weeks on end, this cost increased to a staggering 20 million dollars (Wenger). Of course, not all of this chaos was sparked by Black Lives Matter. Some of its followers were inciting (active verb) violence, although the formal movement supported earlier, more peaceful stages of the protest. While BLM obviously cannot control the actions of all of its supporters, it is important to try and prevent the radicalization of protesters as to not become associated with the acts of violence committed by radicals in its name. The movement’s more extreme members have created significant controversy surrounding the group, which serves only to make its objective of equality even harder to attain. The same applies to the more racist fringe of our law enforcement.
So what causes these riots to start? How does a peaceful protest suddenly turn into violent chaos? Firstly, it is important to realize that neither the police nor Black Lives Matter are completely responsible for these riots. Rather, it is a combination of faults on both sides of the conflict that leads to disasters such as these. With riots, especially recent ones involving BLM,
there appears to be a recurring path to violence that many demonstrations fall victim to. Usually, these protests are initially set off by an act of police brutality on an African-American individual. Some instances, such as the death of Eric Garner, did not spark much violence, showing that the Black Lives Matter movement still stands for non-violent protests. Second, during these protests, one or two radical supporters will commit an act of violence, such as lighting a fire or attacking a police officer. These actions will typically cause the police monitoring the event to become more defensive and aggressive, often creating more conflict with protesters then necessary. This will cause the demonstrators to push back, and more violent members of the crowd to continue pushing chaos until the two factions finally engage in violent conflict through rioting. Typically, these riots will go on for days or weeks, until law enforcement finally shuts it down or the rioters lose momentum and give up. Initially, I believed that the police took most of the heat from the media, as they are often the ones to initiate the conflict. However, as I looked deeper into the issue, it became much more polarized than I had expected, with some claiming the bias was on the police and others that it was on the protestors (Richardson).
So how can we learn from our mistakes? How can each side change to help curb future violence? Both sides of this dispute have made their fair share of mistakes, and it’s time to look back on these incidents as a way to help prevent them from happening again. There are several glaring issues that need to be fixed or significantly lessened in order to prevent these recurring riots. To begin with, United States police departments need to crack down on police brutality. While they have already taken measures to prevent racism in law enforcement, such as mounting cameras on police cars and the chests of officers, this is still a serious and continuing issue that we as a country are trying to tackle. Firstly, in addition to current rules, more severe sentences should be placed on officers who commit this crime. While officers accused of committing this crime can sometimes receive a fairly harsh punishment, many face sentences much shorter than they should be. Often, police brutality involves the unjustified taking of someone’s life, an action that should be (and is) strictly condemned by our law system. If harsher punishments were instituted, they may be enough to scare a potential attacker from using excessive force, as the loss of their job or even prison time could be too high of a price to pay for them. As for Black Lives Matter, while their core values and messages are strong, many of their supporters have become too radical and dangerous during protests. To me, it is important for BLM to loudly promote their message of peace as to separate themselves from these extreme supporters and the chaos they can cause. Of course, as mentioned earlier, it is impossible for a movement of that size and influence to control how all of its supporters will behave. But regardless, it is important that Black Lives Matter to take steps to separate themselves from these radical “supporters.”
In conclusion, demonstrations and civil conflicts are constantly evolving with the ever-changing political conflicts of our country. As these protests change, so do their participants and the people monitoring for them, which in turn creates even more conflict in the form of a riot. To prevent future conflict, both the protest groups and police must change their methods of handling the violence, and only then will we see a reduction in destructive and aggressive behavior and an increase in civil rallies. While both sides have made significant progress in their attempts to cut down this violence, such as closely monitoring the actions of police officers using cameras, there is still much that can be done to decrease rates of police brutality and subsequent violence at protests (Left-Branching). With enough perseverance and hard work, given time, I do think that we will see a drastic lessening of violent protests if we continue to fight against it.
Works Cited
Harris, Leslie M. "The New York City Draft Riots of 1863." The New York City Draft Riots of
1863. University of Chicago Press, n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
Maranzani, Barbara. "Four Days of Fire: The New York City Draft Riots." History.com. A&E
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Phillips-Fein, Kim. "The Legacy of the 1970s Fiscal Crisis." The Nation. TheNation.com, 29
June 2015. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.
Watson, Jennifer. "New York City Blackout 1977: A Dark Hour in More Ways Than One."
Time. Time, 13 July 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
Wenger, Yvonne. "Unrest Will Cost City $20 Million, Officials Estimate." Baltimoresun.com.
N.p., 26 May 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
Richardson, Valerie. "Ferguson-like Attack in Utah Escapes Media Notice; Race Bias Seen."
The Washington Times. The Washington Times, 25 Aug. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2017.