Violence in the Model City: The Cavanagh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Riot of 1967

CHAPTER 6: "The Riot That Didn't Happen"

CHAPTER 6 "The Riot That Didn't Happen" I "I feel," Ray Girardin declared in March 1967, "that police departments are as obliged to prevent civil unrest as they are to prevent crimes." This meant having not only an effective program of police-community relations but also a plan to prevent civil disorders from getting out of control . When Girardin, however, upon becoming police commissioner asked Superintendent Eugene Reuter for a copy of the department's riot plan, his response, as Girardin recalled it, was "What riot plans?" The Police Department, as a matter of fact, had a manual of procedures for dealing with crowd-control problems that had developed out of World War II civil defense plans, but the problems anticipated in this "extremely limited document" and the procedures outlined were not relevant to the kinds of riots that occurred in the 1960s. Although the department had a force dating from the 1943 riot to deal with crowd controlthe commandos of the Motor Traffic Bureau-the dozen or so members of the unit were veteran officers well along in years. Girardin not only discovered that the department did not have an up-to-date riot plan but that the weaponry to deal with a disturbance consisted of a few shotguns and some obsolescent tear gas stored in the municipal garage and improperly secured. "I stayed awake all night getting that stuff fixed," Girardin remembered. l In June 1965, after serious racial disorders had occurred in Cleveland , Harlem, Rochester, and Philadelphia, Girardin formed a special staff to appraise and to modernize the department's "plans, procedures and equipment" for dealing with a riot. The Police Department at that time began sending representatives to observe police operations in "involved cities" and to seek the advice of police departments that had experienced riots. A Committee on Means of Handling Civil Disturbances , headed by District Inspector John Nichols, later deputy superintendent , made a series of riot control recommendations to Girardin in August 1965 largely based on the committee's study of the Watts riot of 127 128 Violence in the Model City that month. These recommendations became the principal element in the formulation of Detroit's riot plan.2 The Detroit plan] called for a central headquarters command post as an "imperative" but also for a field command post at the perimeter of the rioting. This arrangement derived from the conclusion of the Nichols committee th'at Watts had demonstrated that the usual police command structure "could not function during a riot." A basic principle of the Detroit plan was the essentiality of "a maximum initial response" to what appeared to be a major civil disorder by the immediate mobilization of the "full departmental resources of manpower and equipment." A strong show of force at the outset of a disturbance and readiness to use that force were recognized by planners of riot control strategy as the indispensable key to preventing a disorder from escalating.4 The "initial striking forces" in the Detroit riot plan, "the front line of defense" in a riot, were the Tactical Mobile Unit (TMU) and the commandos of the Motor Traffic Bureau. Like the TMU, the commandos received training in both crowd and riot control and were equipped with shotguns, bayonets, and helmets. The Mounted Bureau of the department , by 1966, had also been trained in crowd and riot control and was to be utilized with the other two units if needed. In addition, each precinct had a special support force of thirty men and three command officers to augment the three strike units. The TMU, the commandos, and the Mounted Bureau, if committed, were to be withdrawn from the immediate riot area and held in reserve as soon as adequate reinforcements could be made available from the precinct forces. Because of Detroit's geographical size and the possibility that disturbances would occur simultaneously in widely separated parts of the city, the Police Department thought it essential to have a mobile reserve force available in a riot, the role reserved for the strike units. The Detroit riot plan called for containment of the affected area, dispersal of the rioters, and prevention of their regrouping. Tear gas was described in the plan as "an effective and humane method of riot control when a mass must be rendered physically ineffective for a limited period." The police were to provide a "rifle-shotgun guard" for firemen entering the riot area. They were to avoid "personality clashes" with rioters, maintain "a completely neutral...