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CHAPTER 8: "They Have Lost All Control in Detroit": July 24, 1967
- Michigan State University Press
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CHAPTER 8 "They Have Lost All Control in Detroit": July 24, 1967 In terms of criminal offenses reported to the Detroit Police Department, the hours between midnight and 5:00 A.M. on July 24 were the most violent of the entire Detroit riot. 1 It was during these hours that Governor George Romney first contacted Washington about the possible use of federal troops. For the remainder of the day the Detroit police, the National Guard, and the State Police sought in vain to quell the escalating disturbance while, behind the scenes, Romney engaged in labyrinthine negotiations with the Johnson administration that led, eventually, to the dispatch of army paratroopers to Detroit and their deployment on the streets of the city. The temperature soared to 90° in Detroit on July 24, and it was an uncomfortably humid, breezeless day. The police log for the five hours after midnight carried reports of "rioting, looting, ... burning," and sniping over a wide area of the city both east and west of Woodward. The spread of the riot to the lower east side led the police and the Guard to decide at 1:55 A.M. to set up a second field command post at Southeastern High School, and five minutes later Cavanagh called for a curtailment of business activity downtown that day.2 The Police Department's central district inspector reportedly said at 12:30 A.M. that the police were using firearms only to protect their lives and the lives of fire fighters but not to halt looting and firebombing . When Romney and Cavanagh were asked at a 3:00 A.M. press conference if police would fire at looters, Cavanagh hesitated to reply, but Romney responded, "fleeing felons are subject to being shot at." The orders to the Guard at that point were "to shoot to kill if fired upon, and to shoot any person seen looting," but Guardsmen needed permission from General Moore to fire fully automatic weapons. Later in the morning Cavanagh expressed a reluctance "to lay down [aJ hard and fast rule" regarding use of firearms, saying that police officers had to use their "professional judgment" in this critical matter. Perhaps it was this that led to "the word that went through the Department," 193 194 Violence in the Model City according to a reporter covering the riot, "that it was all right [for the police] to open fire." By evening the police, the Guard, and the State Police were all firing at fleeing looters.3 When Inspector James A. Cole arrived at noon to take charge of the Southeastern High command post, he received orders to stop the riot and enforce the law by whatever means necessary. He was not, however, briefed on any specific tactics to follow. He decided to deploy his men four to a car, four cars to a patrol unit, and to use the Guard to protect strategic points. His task was complicated by the fact that the telephones, riot guns, ammunition, helmets, and scout cars available to him were all in short supply, a problem that increasingly affected the riot control efforts of the department as a whole. Because of the shortage of weapons , the department requested police officers to use their own rifles and shotguns.4 At 9:28 A.M. the Seventh Precinct station came under sniper fire, and at 12:10 P.M. the police reported the situation as being "out of control" in that precinct and in the Fifth Precinct as well. Looting during the morning was described in police reports as "almost citywide." At 4: 17 P.M. air intelligence reported twenty-three fires burning west of Woodward and six east of Woodward. There were rumors that rioters would make well-to-do blacks a target that night, and the Police Department advised the FBI that employers in the predominantly white northwestern part of the city were arming their employees to protect against looting. In the final two or three hours of the day sniping, whose incidence was exaggerated throughout the riot, appeared to be the major riot problem, as the police, Guardsmen, and state troopers were all reportedly pinned down by sniper fire; and two precinct stations, the Southeastern High command post, and at least three fire stations also came under attack. Tanks and armored personm;l carriers rumbled through the streets to rescue law enforcement personnel reportedly immobilized by sniper fire. "It looks like Berlin in 1945," the mayor stated. By midnight, according to Hubert...