Tompkins Square Park Police Riot
Encyclopedia
The Tompkins Square Park Riot occurred on August 6–August 7, 1988 in New York City
's Tompkins Square Park
. Groups of "drug pushers, homeless people and young people known as 'skinheads'" had largely taken over the East Village
park, but the neighborhood was divided about what, if anything, should be done about it. The local governing body, Manhattan Community Board 3
, adopted a 1 a.m. curfew for the previously 24-hour park, in an attempt to bring it under control. On July 31, a protest rally against the curfew saw several clashes between protesters and police.
Another rally was held on August 6. The police charged a crowd of protesters, and a riot ensued. Bystanders, activists, police officers, neighborhood residents and journalists were caught up in the violence. Despite a brief lull in the fighting, the mêlée
continued until 6 a.m. the next day. Mayor Ed Koch
temporarily rescinded the curfew. The neighborhood, previously divided over how to deal with the park, was unanimous in its condemnation of the heavy-handed actions of the police.
Over 100 complaints of police brutality were lodged following the riot. Much blame was laid on poor police handling, and the commander of the precinct in charge was deprived of office for a year. In an editorial entitled "Yes, a Police Riot
", The New York Times
commended Commissioner Benjamin Ward
and the New York Police Department for their candor in a report that confirmed what ubiquitous media images made clear: the NYPD were responsible for inciting a riot.
One of the concerns of the local community had been that the park was a gathering place for drunken rock fans and their boisterous street parties. On November 7, 2004, about 1,000 people gathered in Tompkins Square Park to attend a concert by the punk band Leftöver Crack
. The concert has since become a yearly ritual to mark the 1988 riots.
After the Tompkins Square Riot of 1874
, the park held a symbolic place in the New York labor movement. By the summer of 1988 the East Village — and Tompkins Square Park in particular — had become a gathering place and home for the wayward and contingents of the homeless and rowdy youth.
Neighborhood residents, voicing their preferences through at least four community organizations, had differing perspectives on the evolving nature of the park, and what actions should or should not be taken. The Avenue A Block Association (made up of local businesses) demanded a curfew. Other groups such as Friends of Tompkins Square Park and political organizers on the poorer east side of the park preferred that no curfew be imposed, and Manhattan Community Board 3
took the middle ground.
On June 28, 1988 the Community Board 3 approved a report that included a recommendation for a 1 a.m. curfew. While there was some controversy about how well-informed the voting board members were, board manager Martha Danziger affirmed the validity of the decision. Park workers painted a warning on the ground days after the Association made its decision. On July 11 the police, under the direction of Captain Gerald McNamara of the 9th Precinct, confined homeless people to the park's southeast quadrant, and evicted all others. They closed the park down periodically over the next two weeks.
The police were there to meet the protesters. "It's time to bring a little law and order back to the park and restore it to the legitimate members of the community," said Captain McNamara. "We don't want to get into a situation where we under-police something like this and it turns into a fiasco."
The city was on edge and in the midst of this, the park was turned into what Times reporter McFadden described as a bloody "war zone."
Around 11:30 p.m., 150 or 200 (police estimates were 700) protesters came through the St. Mark's Place entrance to the park, holding banners proclaiming Gentrification
is Class War. By the time dawn broke, 38 people, including reporters and police officers, suffered injuries. In total, nine people were arrested on riot, assault and other charges, and six complaints of police brutality were logged with the Civilian Complaint Review Board
.
Although bottles reportedly flew, it was the police who charged the crowd. Despite NYPD protestations that their actions were measured, "The police panicked and were beating up bystanders who had done nothing wrong and were just observing," said poet Allen Ginsberg
, a local resident and witness. Captain McNamara countered, "We did everything in our power not to provoke an incident. They didn't charge the crowd until the bricks and bottles started flying." New York Times photographer Angel Franco saw the police beat a couple who emerged from a grocery store; when he tried to take photographs, an officer clubbed him. A New York Daily News
reporter, Natalie Byfield, was also clubbed on the head. Both were wearing press identity cards. Jeff Dean Kuipers, a reporter for Downtown Magazine, was clubbed after an officer told his African-American companion, Tisha Pryor, to "move along, you black nigger
bitch." Kuipers told Newsday
"[The police] ran into the crowds with horses. I saw residents pulled off their stoops . . . They cracked my friend's head open. It didn't matter if you were a journalist or a resident or a storekeeper."
Pryor is seen crying, with blood flowing down the back of her neck, in a videotape made by artist
Clayton Patterson
. Another video made by freelance cameraman Paul Garrin
shows officers swinging clubs at him and slamming him against a wall. Photographer John McBride
, taking still photos of the riot that were to be published in The Village Voice, was also struck by a policeman's nightclub in the same attack taped by Garrin. Mr. Fish, a travel promoter out for an evening on the town, attempted to hail a taxi on Avenue A near Sixth Street when he was suddenly struck on the head. "I was just standing there watching," he said. "The next thing that I remember is seeing the stick, and then a young woman who was helping me." Patterson's videotape showed that no officers helped Fish until an ambulance arrived. A police helicopter hovered over the scene, contributing to a sense of chaos.
During a lull in the riot, a young officer on Patterson's video appealed for understanding from the protesters. He tried to calmly tell them how unhappy the police were with the assignment and its aftermath. "We've got cops back there in ambulances who've been hit." But the lull ended. Thirty to seventy protesters re-entered the park. A witness said the mob rammed a police barricade through the glass door of the Christodora House, a high-rise luxury building on Avenue B. They overturned planters and tore a lamp out of the wall, threatened residents and staff with bodily harm, and screamed and chanted "Die Yuppie
Scum". At 6 a.m., the last protesters dispersed, vowing to demonstrate again.
When questioned about the brutality, Captain McNamara said, "It was a hot night. There was a lot of debris being thrown through the air. Obviously tempers flared. But all these allegations will be investigated." Mayor Ed Koch
was forced to temporarily revoke the curfew.
Benjamin Ward
issued a scathing report laying the blame for the riot squarely on the precinct. The police actions were "not well planned, staffed, supervised or executed... which culminated in a riot." Ward announced the retirement of Deputy Chief Thomas J. Darcy, who was absent from the scene and derelict in his duties. Deputy Inspector Joseph Wodarski, the senior officer at the scene in Darcy's absence, was not demoted but transferred from his prestigious post as commander of the Midtown South precinct to a "less sensitive" command. Captain McNamara, the lowest-ranking commander at the scene, was temporarily relieved of his post, but was allowed to resume command of the precinct the next year. Ward said that McNamara's actions were "not well planned, staffed, supervised or executed, [but he] acted in good faith and made judgments that were within the level of his experience," after Darcy and Wodarski failed to act.
A city review of the riot turned up numerous problems with the police department's actions that night, including a failure to contact either Commissioner Ward or Mayor Koch. In the middle of the riot the commander left the scene to go to the bathroom at the station house, several blocks away from the fighting. The police helicopter used to illuminate the area only attracted bigger crowds. Several nearby rooftops were not secured by police and were used to throw bottles and debris at people on the street. Ward said the mounted police were brought to the scene too soon and acted too rashly to confront protesters. A temporary headquarters was set up right in the middle of the park, causing officers unfamiliar with the East Village—who rushed to the scene from throughout the city—to push their way through demonstrators to reach it. Once at the headquarters, they found no high-ranking officer on duty.
Mayor Koch called the park a "cesspool" where "sandboxes are soiled with feces and urine." Koch admitted he had not seen the feces and urine himself. "There are people, hundreds of them, I'm told, who park there all 24 hours a day, and obviously there are bodily needs."
Hundreds of officers were called out on a steamy Saturday for the worst violence the city had seen in years, yet Koch did not know about it until the next day and said he did not speak to Ward about it until Monday.
Ward himself had been the subject of controversy in the past, and the riot became a cause to reflect on the negative aspects of his record as Commissioner. After 10 people were shot in Brooklyn in 1984, nobody could find him for days. He appeared drunk at a Patrolmen's Benevolent Association
convention in 1984; under his watch in 1985, officers in Queens
used stun guns on suspects and in 1986 officers in Brooklyn stole and sold drugs. He was lambasted in 1987 for telling African-American journalists that most crime in New York was committed by young black men and later told black ministers in reference to that remark, "our little secret is out." He told a woman who was scared about a series of rape
s that she was the type of woman a rapist would go after.
It was noted that Mayor Koch held steadfast in his support of Ward. Although Koch said he was "shocked" by the videotape of the police response, as he had done in the past he refused to utter a negative word about Ward. "The day I think that a commissioner, including a police commissioner, isn't as good as he should be to run whatever he's running, that's the day I will ask him to submit his resignation," said Koch. "I think Ben Ward will go down as one of the greatest police commissioners this city has ever had. Bob McGuire is the other, and I appointed both of them." However, Koch's support eroded as evidence mounted that municipal disorganization and a lack of police leadership that night likely sparked the riots. "The film that I saw causes me to believe that there may have been an overreaction. I was not happy with what I saw on film. Those films were disturbing to me, and I think they disturbed Ben Ward as well."
Two officers were charged with use of excessive force. Officer Karen Connelly was accused of using her nightstick "wrongfully and without just cause" to strike a civilian, and Philip O'Reilly, who was accused of interfering with Times photographer Franco, and of using his nightstick to injure Franco's hand. The Civilian Complaint Review Board
recommended the officers be charged, and Commissioner Ward endorsed the recommendations.
, and they're standing in the street screaming 'Kill the pigs!'" said Phil Van Aver, a member of Manhattan Community Board 3
. Board 3 and the nonprofit social service organizations supported the goal of clearing Tompkins Square Park of the drug dealers, drunks, addicts and anti-social elements that considered it home. Instead, the police riot
ripped open old wounds about brutality and the neighborhood's housing problem many longtime residents faced. "The police, by acting in the brutal fashion that they did, managed to link a small group of crazies to the legitimate sentiments of opposition to gentrification," said Valerio Orselli, director of the Cooper Square Committee, a nonprofit housing group. "Now the issue has become police brutality, not housing. It's set everyone back."
Many people relished the neighborhood as a home for society's outcasts. Getrude Briggs, owner of East 7th Street store Books 'n' Things, and a resident of forty-one years: "Of course [the East Village] still attracts a lot of freaks, because it's still a place you can be free. For a lot of kids, coming here is a way to get away from the choking atmosphere of suburbia
." Thirty-year resident Barbara Shawm protested the East Village's dangerous reputation: "A 90-pound woman can easily fend off a down-and-outer or an addict
. They're not dangerous. It's more dangerous uptown
— what people do to each other in elevator
s."
, the clash had its roots in music. The park was a gathering place for scores of drunken rock fans and their boisterous street parties. The raucous affairs would rage through the night and they divided the community. News articles about the riots described some of the music groups who were involved in the melée . The New York Times quoted a handbill for The Backyards, a band looking for a drummer: "Must be dedicated, hard-hitting, in it for life. Willing to die naked in an alley for your anti-art. Outcasts and social rejects preferred but not essential." The anarchist rock band Missing Foundation were active in the riots and their logo—an overturned martini glass and "1988 - 1933"—was found everywhere on the walls of the East Village. The band's singer, Pete Missing
, sang through a bullhorn and claimed industrial society was on the verge of collapse and that a police state was imminent. The overturned glass signified the band's slogan "the party's over," and the dates an allusion to the year the Nazis
took over the Weimar Republic
.
The riots were commemorated in the song "Hold On" by Lou Reed
. The song appeared on his 1989 CD New York
. The song documents the civil and racial unrest going on in many areas of New York City at the time. The chorus of the song ends with the line "I'll meet you in Tompkins Square" for the first two refrains. The line changes to "there's a riot in Tompkins Square" on the third refrain.
The Blues Traveler
song "Closing Down the Park," released on the band's 1996 Live from the Fall
live album, also addresses the riots. It has never been included on any studio album.
The Tomkins Square riots also parallel the riot scene in the Broadway play, Rent, by Jonathan Larson. The main character, Mark Cohen, films the riots which ...[made] the nightly news. Paul Garrin is the real-life person who witnessed the riots, videotaped them as he was being beaten by the police. Rent also takes place in an abandoned lot, located In Alphabet City, where the homeless people have set up a tent city.
to attend a concert by the punk band Leftöver Crack
. The concert has become a yearly ritual to mark the 1988 riots. According to the NYPD, when officers attempted an arrest for an open container of alcohol, concertgoers "surrounded and assaulted" the officers. Six arrests were made on charges including assault inciting to riot
. "It was a confrontation obviously. I don’t know if 'riot' is the right word", said Detective Gifford, a Police Department spokesperson. Reportedly, some of the punks
spit upon and jumped on officers. Beer
bottles were thrown, causing some in the crowd to pour beer over fellow concertgoers. On August 9, 2006, a fight broke out in a mosh pit when Leftöver Crack again played the riot anniversary concert.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the...
. Groups of "drug pushers, homeless people and young people known as 'skinheads'" had largely taken over the East Village
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
park, but the neighborhood was divided about what, if anything, should be done about it. The local governing body, Manhattan Community Board 3
Manhattan Community Board 3
The Manhattan Community Board 3 is a local government unit in the New York City borough of Manhattan, encompassing the neighborhoods of Alphabet City, East Village, Lower East Side, Chinatown and Two Bridges...
, adopted a 1 a.m. curfew for the previously 24-hour park, in an attempt to bring it under control. On July 31, a protest rally against the curfew saw several clashes between protesters and police.
Another rally was held on August 6. The police charged a crowd of protesters, and a riot ensued. Bystanders, activists, police officers, neighborhood residents and journalists were caught up in the violence. Despite a brief lull in the fighting, the mêlée
Mêlée
Melee , generally refers to disorganized close combat involving a group of fighters. A melee ensues when groups become locked together in combat with no regard to group tactics or fighting as an organized unit; each participant fights as an individual....
continued until 6 a.m. the next day. Mayor Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
temporarily rescinded the curfew. The neighborhood, previously divided over how to deal with the park, was unanimous in its condemnation of the heavy-handed actions of the police.
Over 100 complaints of police brutality were lodged following the riot. Much blame was laid on poor police handling, and the commander of the precinct in charge was deprived of office for a year. In an editorial entitled "Yes, a Police Riot
Police riot
A police riot is a confrontation between police and civilians. The term can also describe a riot by civilians caused or instigated by police...
", The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
commended Commissioner Benjamin Ward
Benjamin Ward
Benjamin Ward was the first African American New York City Police Commissioner. Ward was one of 11 children and was born in the Weeksville section of Brooklyn, New York.-Military and Police experience:...
and the New York Police Department for their candor in a report that confirmed what ubiquitous media images made clear: the NYPD were responsible for inciting a riot.
One of the concerns of the local community had been that the park was a gathering place for drunken rock fans and their boisterous street parties. On November 7, 2004, about 1,000 people gathered in Tompkins Square Park to attend a concert by the punk band Leftöver Crack
Leftöver Crack
Leftöver Crack is an American punk rock band formed in 1998, following the breakup of the ska punk band Choking Victim. Primarily playing an amalgam of ska and hardcore punk, they classify themselves as "crack-rocksteady". The band is currently signed to Fat Wreck Chords for CD releases, and...
. The concert has since become a yearly ritual to mark the 1988 riots.
Background
Tompkins Square Riot (1874)
The Tompkins Square Park Riot occurred on January 13, 1874 when the New York Police Department crushed a demonstration involving thousands of unemployed in New York City's Tompkins Square Park, located in what is now called the East Village.-Background:...
, the park held a symbolic place in the New York labor movement. By the summer of 1988 the East Village — and Tompkins Square Park in particular — had become a gathering place and home for the wayward and contingents of the homeless and rowdy youth.
Neighborhood residents, voicing their preferences through at least four community organizations, had differing perspectives on the evolving nature of the park, and what actions should or should not be taken. The Avenue A Block Association (made up of local businesses) demanded a curfew. Other groups such as Friends of Tompkins Square Park and political organizers on the poorer east side of the park preferred that no curfew be imposed, and Manhattan Community Board 3
Manhattan Community Board 3
The Manhattan Community Board 3 is a local government unit in the New York City borough of Manhattan, encompassing the neighborhoods of Alphabet City, East Village, Lower East Side, Chinatown and Two Bridges...
took the middle ground.
On June 28, 1988 the Community Board 3 approved a report that included a recommendation for a 1 a.m. curfew. While there was some controversy about how well-informed the voting board members were, board manager Martha Danziger affirmed the validity of the decision. Park workers painted a warning on the ground days after the Association made its decision. On July 11 the police, under the direction of Captain Gerald McNamara of the 9th Precinct, confined homeless people to the park's southeast quadrant, and evicted all others. They closed the park down periodically over the next two weeks.
First signs of trouble
Though the park was a de facto homeless shelter, some residents considered the police department's actions an attempt to take the park away from the public. Protests were organized and a rally called for July 31. That night, police entered the park in response to alleged noise complaints, and by the end of the call several civilians and six officers were treated for injuries, and four men were arrested on charges of reckless endangerment and inciting to riot. Sarah Lewison, an eyewitness, said the protest was over rumors of a midnight curfew at the park and another witness, John McDermott, said the police provoked the melee. Angry organizers planned another rally for August 6.A rematch: August 6
The city was on edge and in the midst of this, the park was turned into what Times reporter McFadden described as a bloody "war zone."
Around 11:30 p.m., 150 or 200 (police estimates were 700) protesters came through the St. Mark's Place entrance to the park, holding banners proclaiming Gentrification
Gentrification
Gentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...
is Class War. By the time dawn broke, 38 people, including reporters and police officers, suffered injuries. In total, nine people were arrested on riot, assault and other charges, and six complaints of police brutality were logged with the Civilian Complaint Review Board
Civilian Complaint Review Board
The Civilian Complaint Review Board is an all-civilian board tasked with investigating civil complaints about alleged misconduct on the part of the New York Police Department.- History :...
.
Police actions
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, a local resident and witness. Captain McNamara countered, "We did everything in our power not to provoke an incident. They didn't charge the crowd until the bricks and bottles started flying." New York Times photographer Angel Franco saw the police beat a couple who emerged from a grocery store; when he tried to take photographs, an officer clubbed him. A New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
reporter, Natalie Byfield, was also clubbed on the head. Both were wearing press identity cards. Jeff Dean Kuipers, a reporter for Downtown Magazine, was clubbed after an officer told his African-American companion, Tisha Pryor, to "move along, you black nigger
Nigger
Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people , and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur...
bitch." Kuipers told Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
"[The police] ran into the crowds with horses. I saw residents pulled off their stoops . . . They cracked my friend's head open. It didn't matter if you were a journalist or a resident or a storekeeper."
Pryor is seen crying, with blood flowing down the back of her neck, in a videotape made by artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
Clayton Patterson
Clayton Patterson
Clayton Patterson is a Canadian-born artist, photographer, videographer, and folk historian. Since moving to New York City in 1979, his work has focused almost exclusively on documenting the art, life and times of the Lower East Side in Manhattan.-Early life:Before moving to New York City in...
. Another video made by freelance cameraman Paul Garrin
Paul Garrin
Paul Garrin, , is best known as a politically active video artist from the 1990s. His most famous work is Man with a Video Camera , 1989, in which he videotapes a riot in Tompkins Square Park in New York City's Lower East Side...
shows officers swinging clubs at him and slamming him against a wall. Photographer John McBride
John McBride (photographer)
John McBride is an American photographer probably best known for his photographs taken in New York City of the riots surrounding Tompkins Square Park in 1988 and the eviction of Lower East Side squatters in 1989, although much of his work is not in the style of photojournalism.John McBride...
, taking still photos of the riot that were to be published in The Village Voice, was also struck by a policeman's nightclub in the same attack taped by Garrin. Mr. Fish, a travel promoter out for an evening on the town, attempted to hail a taxi on Avenue A near Sixth Street when he was suddenly struck on the head. "I was just standing there watching," he said. "The next thing that I remember is seeing the stick, and then a young woman who was helping me." Patterson's videotape showed that no officers helped Fish until an ambulance arrived. A police helicopter hovered over the scene, contributing to a sense of chaos.
During a lull in the riot, a young officer on Patterson's video appealed for understanding from the protesters. He tried to calmly tell them how unhappy the police were with the assignment and its aftermath. "We've got cops back there in ambulances who've been hit." But the lull ended. Thirty to seventy protesters re-entered the park. A witness said the mob rammed a police barricade through the glass door of the Christodora House, a high-rise luxury building on Avenue B. They overturned planters and tore a lamp out of the wall, threatened residents and staff with bodily harm, and screamed and chanted "Die Yuppie
Yuppie
Yuppie is a term that refers to a member of the upper middle class or upper class in their 20s or 30s. It first came into use in the early-1980s and largely faded from American popular culture in the late-1980s, due to the 1987 stock market crash and the early 1990s recession...
Scum". At 6 a.m., the last protesters dispersed, vowing to demonstrate again.
When questioned about the brutality, Captain McNamara said, "It was a hot night. There was a lot of debris being thrown through the air. Obviously tempers flared. But all these allegations will be investigated." Mayor Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
was forced to temporarily revoke the curfew.
Aftermath
Eventually the brutality complaints ballooned to over 100. Video and images of "police officers striking demonstrators with nightsticks and kicking other apparently defenseless people while they were lying on the ground" were flashed continuously across the media. New York Police CommissionerNew York City Police Commissioner
The New York City Police Commissioner is the head of the New York City Police Department, appointed by the Mayor of New York City. Governor Theodore Roosevelt, in one of his final acts before becoming Vice President of the United States in March 1901, signed legislation replacing the Police Board...
Benjamin Ward
Benjamin Ward
Benjamin Ward was the first African American New York City Police Commissioner. Ward was one of 11 children and was born in the Weeksville section of Brooklyn, New York.-Military and Police experience:...
issued a scathing report laying the blame for the riot squarely on the precinct. The police actions were "not well planned, staffed, supervised or executed... which culminated in a riot." Ward announced the retirement of Deputy Chief Thomas J. Darcy, who was absent from the scene and derelict in his duties. Deputy Inspector Joseph Wodarski, the senior officer at the scene in Darcy's absence, was not demoted but transferred from his prestigious post as commander of the Midtown South precinct to a "less sensitive" command. Captain McNamara, the lowest-ranking commander at the scene, was temporarily relieved of his post, but was allowed to resume command of the precinct the next year. Ward said that McNamara's actions were "not well planned, staffed, supervised or executed, [but he] acted in good faith and made judgments that were within the level of his experience," after Darcy and Wodarski failed to act.
A city review of the riot turned up numerous problems with the police department's actions that night, including a failure to contact either Commissioner Ward or Mayor Koch. In the middle of the riot the commander left the scene to go to the bathroom at the station house, several blocks away from the fighting. The police helicopter used to illuminate the area only attracted bigger crowds. Several nearby rooftops were not secured by police and were used to throw bottles and debris at people on the street. Ward said the mounted police were brought to the scene too soon and acted too rashly to confront protesters. A temporary headquarters was set up right in the middle of the park, causing officers unfamiliar with the East Village—who rushed to the scene from throughout the city—to push their way through demonstrators to reach it. Once at the headquarters, they found no high-ranking officer on duty.
The city's reaction
Hundreds of officers were called out on a steamy Saturday for the worst violence the city had seen in years, yet Koch did not know about it until the next day and said he did not speak to Ward about it until Monday.
Ward himself had been the subject of controversy in the past, and the riot became a cause to reflect on the negative aspects of his record as Commissioner. After 10 people were shot in Brooklyn in 1984, nobody could find him for days. He appeared drunk at a Patrolmen's Benevolent Association
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association or Policemen's Benevolent Association ' is the name of several labor unions representing police officers. One such union is the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association of the City of New York, which is the largest union representing members of the New York City Police...
convention in 1984; under his watch in 1985, officers in Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
used stun guns on suspects and in 1986 officers in Brooklyn stole and sold drugs. He was lambasted in 1987 for telling African-American journalists that most crime in New York was committed by young black men and later told black ministers in reference to that remark, "our little secret is out." He told a woman who was scared about a series of rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
s that she was the type of woman a rapist would go after.
It was noted that Mayor Koch held steadfast in his support of Ward. Although Koch said he was "shocked" by the videotape of the police response, as he had done in the past he refused to utter a negative word about Ward. "The day I think that a commissioner, including a police commissioner, isn't as good as he should be to run whatever he's running, that's the day I will ask him to submit his resignation," said Koch. "I think Ben Ward will go down as one of the greatest police commissioners this city has ever had. Bob McGuire is the other, and I appointed both of them." However, Koch's support eroded as evidence mounted that municipal disorganization and a lack of police leadership that night likely sparked the riots. "The film that I saw causes me to believe that there may have been an overreaction. I was not happy with what I saw on film. Those films were disturbing to me, and I think they disturbed Ben Ward as well."
Two officers were charged with use of excessive force. Officer Karen Connelly was accused of using her nightstick "wrongfully and without just cause" to strike a civilian, and Philip O'Reilly, who was accused of interfering with Times photographer Franco, and of using his nightstick to injure Franco's hand. The Civilian Complaint Review Board
Civilian Complaint Review Board
The Civilian Complaint Review Board is an all-civilian board tasked with investigating civil complaints about alleged misconduct on the part of the New York Police Department.- History :...
recommended the officers be charged, and Commissioner Ward endorsed the recommendations.
Neighborhood reactions
A neighborhood divided over their feelings about police were united against their aggression. "The streets were full of people who I see coming out of their houses every morning with briefcases...I mean people who work on Wall StreetWall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
, and they're standing in the street screaming 'Kill the pigs!'" said Phil Van Aver, a member of Manhattan Community Board 3
Manhattan Community Board 3
The Manhattan Community Board 3 is a local government unit in the New York City borough of Manhattan, encompassing the neighborhoods of Alphabet City, East Village, Lower East Side, Chinatown and Two Bridges...
. Board 3 and the nonprofit social service organizations supported the goal of clearing Tompkins Square Park of the drug dealers, drunks, addicts and anti-social elements that considered it home. Instead, the police riot
Police riot
A police riot is a confrontation between police and civilians. The term can also describe a riot by civilians caused or instigated by police...
ripped open old wounds about brutality and the neighborhood's housing problem many longtime residents faced. "The police, by acting in the brutal fashion that they did, managed to link a small group of crazies to the legitimate sentiments of opposition to gentrification," said Valerio Orselli, director of the Cooper Square Committee, a nonprofit housing group. "Now the issue has become police brutality, not housing. It's set everyone back."
Many people relished the neighborhood as a home for society's outcasts. Getrude Briggs, owner of East 7th Street store Books 'n' Things, and a resident of forty-one years: "Of course [the East Village] still attracts a lot of freaks, because it's still a place you can be free. For a lot of kids, coming here is a way to get away from the choking atmosphere of suburbia
SubUrbia
subUrbia is a play by Eric Bogosian chronicling the nighttime activities of a group of aimless 20-somethings still living in their suburban Boston hometown and their reunion with a former high school classmate who has become a successful musician...
." Thirty-year resident Barbara Shawm protested the East Village's dangerous reputation: "A 90-pound woman can easily fend off a down-and-outer or an addict
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
. They're not dangerous. It's more dangerous uptown
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...
— what people do to each other in elevator
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
s."
Music and the riots
According to Times reporter Todd PurdumTodd Purdum
Todd Stanley Purdum is a national editor and political correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine.-Early life and education:Purdum is a son of Jerry S. Purdum, a Macomb, Illinois insurance broker, investor, and realtor, and Connie Purdum. He was graduated from St...
, the clash had its roots in music. The park was a gathering place for scores of drunken rock fans and their boisterous street parties. The raucous affairs would rage through the night and they divided the community. News articles about the riots described some of the music groups who were involved in the melée . The New York Times quoted a handbill for The Backyards, a band looking for a drummer: "Must be dedicated, hard-hitting, in it for life. Willing to die naked in an alley for your anti-art. Outcasts and social rejects preferred but not essential." The anarchist rock band Missing Foundation were active in the riots and their logo—an overturned martini glass and "1988 - 1933"—was found everywhere on the walls of the East Village. The band's singer, Pete Missing
Pete Missing
Peter Missing is a New York City artist, poet, musician, and activist who relocated to Berlin in 1993.-History:...
, sang through a bullhorn and claimed industrial society was on the verge of collapse and that a police state was imminent. The overturned glass signified the band's slogan "the party's over," and the dates an allusion to the year the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
took over the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
.
The riots were commemorated in the song "Hold On" by Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
. The song appeared on his 1989 CD New York
New York (album)
New York is the fifteenth solo album by Lou Reed. It was received very warmly as a return to the style of The Velvet Underground - founded by Reed in the 1960s...
. The song documents the civil and racial unrest going on in many areas of New York City at the time. The chorus of the song ends with the line "I'll meet you in Tompkins Square" for the first two refrains. The line changes to "there's a riot in Tompkins Square" on the third refrain.
The Blues Traveler
Blues Traveler
Blues Traveler is a rock band, formed in Princeton, New Jersey in 1987. The band has been influenced by a variety of genres, including blues-rock, psychedelic rock, folk rock, soul, and Southern rock...
song "Closing Down the Park," released on the band's 1996 Live from the Fall
Live from the Fall
Live From the Fall is American jam band Blues Traveler's first full-length live album, released on July 2, 1996 featuring highlights of the band's autumn 1995 tour.-Disc one:#"Love and Greed" – 5:15...
live album, also addresses the riots. It has never been included on any studio album.
The Tomkins Square riots also parallel the riot scene in the Broadway play, Rent, by Jonathan Larson. The main character, Mark Cohen, films the riots which ...[made] the nightly news. Paul Garrin is the real-life person who witnessed the riots, videotaped them as he was being beaten by the police. Rent also takes place in an abandoned lot, located In Alphabet City, where the homeless people have set up a tent city.
Riot anniversary concerts
On November 7, 2004, about 1,000 people gathered in Tompkins Square ParkTompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the...
to attend a concert by the punk band Leftöver Crack
Leftöver Crack
Leftöver Crack is an American punk rock band formed in 1998, following the breakup of the ska punk band Choking Victim. Primarily playing an amalgam of ska and hardcore punk, they classify themselves as "crack-rocksteady". The band is currently signed to Fat Wreck Chords for CD releases, and...
. The concert has become a yearly ritual to mark the 1988 riots. According to the NYPD, when officers attempted an arrest for an open container of alcohol, concertgoers "surrounded and assaulted" the officers. Six arrests were made on charges including assault inciting to riot
Riot
A riot is a form of civil disorder characterized often by what is thought of as disorganized groups lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence against authority, property or people. While individuals may attempt to lead or control a riot, riots are thought to be typically chaotic and...
. "It was a confrontation obviously. I don’t know if 'riot' is the right word", said Detective Gifford, a Police Department spokesperson. Reportedly, some of the punks
Punk subculture
The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...
spit upon and jumped on officers. Beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
bottles were thrown, causing some in the crowd to pour beer over fellow concertgoers. On August 9, 2006, a fight broke out in a mosh pit when Leftöver Crack again played the riot anniversary concert.