As tensions boiled over into violence in the hot summer of 1968, York Mayor John Snyder still refused all calls to disband the K-9 Corps or appoint a police review board.
"There's no policeman that would administer brutality to anyone unless they had to in order to do their duty," he said.
But James R. Colston, vice chairman of the York County Advisory Council to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, then saw the recent violence as just another protest of a "dual system" of law enforcement for whites and blacks.
"In 1963 we paraded around City Hall with signs protesting this kind of thing with police dogs," he said. "And since 1963 there have been five major incidents with dogs being sicked on innocent people.
"The black children who were 12 years old in 1963 are 17 today. They have watched this police dog action for five years. Most of them -- 50 percent -- have kept cool. But some have reacted to this racism. Sometimes they have been wrong in their reaction -- but they have really reacted, baby."
A report by the commission on the disorders of 1968 predicted more trouble unless there was change. York, the commission said, was a community "increasingly polarized along racial lines, portrayed in the local and national media as a war zone."
The report said black youths had adopted a "'hate anything white' rejectionist militancy."
And the police were the most visible target. The reckoning of 1969
On May 23, 1969, Mayor Snyder dedicated a stone monument bearing 18 names Snyder considered to be among the finest in the police department, names like Bismark and Fury: The dogs.
Snyder hoped the monument at the police training grounds south of town would be a testament to the K-9 Corps as a "necessary" part of the department.
"The dogs have made the community as safe as we can get," he said.
He also hinted the K-9 Corps would be expanded "if things would take a turn for the worse."
Less than two months later, they did.
On the night of July 17, two black youths in Penn Common put lighter fluid in their mouths, then spit it out while trying to light the streams. One was burned severely, and told police white gang members had done it.
The boy later recanted and told the truth, but by then it didn't matter. His story sparked a week of riots.
Blacks fought cops and whites fought blacks.
Sixty people were wounded, 28 by gunfire. There were about 100 arrests. Fires burned out of control, with firefighters afraid to respond for fear of being shot.
On the third night of rioting, Patrolman Henry C. Schaad was shot while riding in an armored car at the intersection of West College Avenueand South Penn Street. A mob of armed blacks fired at the vehicle, a bullet penetrated a weak spot and shrapnel pierced both his lungs. He died two weeks later. On the fifth night, Lillie Belle Allen, a visitor from South Carolina, was ambushed on North Newberry Street by white gang members.
Both cases remained unsolved for decades. Witnesses, black and white, refused to talk to police. Some felt the score was even -- one black and one white dead -- and the community moved on.
Schaad never harassed any blacks. Allen never threw bottles at police.
Two people caught up in something neither had started.
Postscript: The Charrette
"Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater."
-- George Washington Carver
Snyder was at his home on Oct. 8, 1969, around 7 p.m., when he collapsed. One of the main arteries from his heart had ruptured, and he was taken into emergency surgery at York Hospital. He died two hours later.
It was later suggested Snyder was suffering from senility in his final years of office, that those around him knew his decisions were creating a dangerous rift in York, yet none had the courage to try to have him removed.
To the end, Snyder continued to insist York's troubles had to be coming from outside.
"The roots of evil have germinated from outside," he told Newsweek magazine after the summer's rioting. "The infiltrators, not conversant with the quality of sincere fellowship, have indoctrinated some of the residents with the philosophy of the cities ... where they get away with things."
By then, though, Snyder was already a broken force in the city. He had decided not to seek re-election. The rioting had shown the danger of continuing the old policies, and the city's ills were being exposed for all the world to see in federal court in Harrisburg, the result a lawsuit against the city stemming from the summer's riots.
The old way of doing things in York did not die completely with Snyder. In fact, the day he died, K-9 Corps head Lt. Steven Gibbs was in court testifying more police dogs would be an effective deterrent to crime.
But Snyder's successor, Dr. Eli Eichelberger, pledged to aggressively target the problems of a "sick" city.
The new mayor pledged "all of the resources of my administration" to help ease tensions. The K-9 Corps was phased out and completely abolished in 1973. A police review board was established in 1969, though it would be dormant by 1971 due to a lack of business.
In April 1970, hundreds of city residents, including many young people, attended the York Charrette, an unprecedented 10-day community meeting designed to discuss the racial inequities that had led to the racial strife.
It was obvious there was a lot of work to do, that old attitudes died hard. At one point, the crowd roared with laughter and outrage when city police claimed the dogs, over an 18 month period, had only been used on one black person.
But Snyder's successors were much more willing to accept a little loss of control in exchange for federal redevelopment money, and the worst slums began to disappear. Freys Avenue disappeared, paved under to make way for the Broad Park Manor senior housing complex on Broad Street.
Both blacks and whites expressed optimism. For the first time, the people in power were listening -- really listening -- to the young blacks and whites, because they had seen the grim consequences of not doing so.
York's problems would not be solved overnight.
But at least people were talking. And that was better than shooting.
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