Freys Avenue in York wasn't a nice neighborhood and Mary Brown was drunk. Brown loudly made no bones about her disdain for police when officers showed up the night of June 13, 1965, responding to a report of a fight.
The neighbors were no help either, jeering at Patrolman Gerald Sweeney and telling him they didn't know who called police, but since he was the officer, it was his job to find out.
Sweeney took the struggling woman into custody and witnesses told the Gazette and Daily newspaper he said, "You nigger bitches are just like the ones down South. We ought to shoot all of you."
Vernon Banks, also black, protested Sweeney's "manhandling" of his neighbor. Banks was a family man, a community activist and an auxiliary police officer. When Sweeney threatened him, Banks' brother Ronnie tried to pull his brother away.
Then Sweeney attacked Vernon Banks, witnesses told the Gazette and Daily. A police dog bit him several times.
Ronnie Banks was seized by Patrolman Pete Chantiles and ordered to the ground. Chantiles beat Banks' head against the pavement, then against the door of the cruiser, witnesses said. Both brothers were thrown in the back of a police car, their legs dangling outside, and Chantiles slammed the door on them, according to the Gazette and Daily, with an "audible crunch."
They were dragged into police court and fined $50 for disorderly conduct.
Calls for review board
It had been two years since police dogs were sicked on three blacks on South Newberry Street, and the NAACP again called for a police review board.
Association members presented the City Council with an 800-signature petition, asking the two officers be dismissed and the K-9 Corps be disbanded.
The all-white City Council voted against holding a hearing, ignoring daily protest marches.
"They want us to live like dogs," Mary Brown said. "Dogs? No, not really. They treat their dogs better; they feed them on human beings."
Some were frustrated with the NAACP and black ministers. They saw the marches and protests had little effect.
Maurice Peters, who two years prior had been chairman of the Peaceful Committee for Immediate Action in York, now called the old guard of black activism handmaidens to the white hierarchy.
"There are those of us who don't wait until trouble rears its ugly head to let our voices be heard, but we can work quietly, reverently and dedicated at this work," responded the Rev. John A. Blackwell, of Bethlehem Baptist Church. Whites respond
Police were a symbol, too -- to the whites who saw the protests as an assault on their basic institutions.
Another petition began to circulate through the city, asking Mayor John Snyder to commend the officers in the Freys Avenue incident and expand the K-9 Corps.
"Such harassment of police officers is designed with the aim of forcing the good officers out of the force," city resident Dean Graham wrote to Snyder in mid-June. "When this is done hoodlums and Communists will try to have their own stooges made police officers."
Rallies and marches continued in July. A sit-in at Snyder's office by students lasted more than a week.
One central figure in that protest, Larry "Zip" Davis, said he had stopped in York on his way from Alabama to New York and decided to stay and help the protest.
When he was found guilty of loitering for refusing to leave City Hall at closing, a magistrate told him "your conduct here has been entirely out of line in leading and conducting these sit-ins."
"A person coming in here from as far as Alabama is far removed from settlement of the Freys Avenue incident," City Councilman Dale Gemmill said. "Because integration has been accepted and promoted here in the past, these recent acts and demonstrations tend to hurt the Negroes' cause rather than help it." Board disbanded
The NAACP took Snyder to court to force the appointment of a police review board. Created by the previous administration, it was designed to hear complaints from residents about police. Though Snyder had disbanded the board upon taking office, it remained on the city's books.
Four months later, in November 1965, Snyder was re-elected, and he went on the offensive. He began to circulate his own petition to eliminate the board.
It was a popular idea.
"The citizens of this community should extend a vote of confidence to our law enforcement officers," said the Chamber of Commerce in a statement. "In the event we should stifle the initiative and efforts of our police officers, who will protect the lives and property of the citizenry?"
On Nov. 11, a black man named Carl Williams was found dead near Small Athletic Field, two days after he was picked up by police. A police blackjack was found nearby and family members said his face was bloodied and swollen.
Two police officers lied about picking up Williams and falsified their logs. Even Snyder, in a rare show of criticism of police, said "their action was not the best."
The two officers were later found guilty by the City Council of misconduct and neglect of duty. They kept their jobs.
The activists in the Congress on Racial Equality sought a full report on his death, but a coroner's inquest found he died of a heart attack and had a blood-alcohol level of .29. Family members long suspected he was a victim of foul play, but an autopsy conducted last year, after his body was exhumed, was inconclusive.
The year drew to a close on a hopeful note for many blacks. In December, City Council voted 3-2 to keep the police review board on the books.
'Many a long, hot summer'
But the City Council met just three months later and, with two new members, voted to kill the review board.
On March 1, 1966, after months of lobbying by Snyder and the police, City Council voted to wipe the board from the books.
While CORE held daily rallies urging the mayor to appoint board members, at least 40 people had circulated a petition against a board. They eventually collected 3,539 signatures.
During a local Fraternal Order of Police conference in January, John H. Harrington, national union president, praised Snyder's "gumption."
"If citizens want housewives and others to be responsible for police discipline, then they also should be put in official positions and made responsible for the rising crime rate," he told York officers.
Black activists held a conference in May.
"If the situation does not improve, there will be many a long, hot summer," warned activist Peters. "Negroes will find ways to make their plight known to the public."
Few black leaders expressed surprise a month later when police efforts to shut down a dance attended by black teenagers led to trouble.
Between 100 and 200 people spilled into the intersection of McKenzie and Maple streets, and bottles were thrown at police. Nine were arrested.
Those arrested were mostly younger blacks who increasingly identified with people like Ocania Chalk.
Editor of the local CORE publication Freedom to Press, Chalk had once brought a discrimination complaint against a Chestnut Street cafe because they would sell him beer to take out but not to drink in the bar.
After the dance-hall incident, he warned that young blacks were not going to take harassment lying down.
"Police going into a middle-class, white neighborhood would not carry nightsticks or bring a dog. He does not send four or five squad cars with sirens blaring. He sends one car quietly and asks white people to 'kindly go home if it's not too much trouble ...'" he said. "In the Negro community, he comes swinging his club and asks questions later.
"The long, hot summer has begun."
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