Crown Heights Riot

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The Crown Heights Riot was a three-day riot in the Crown Heights neighborhood of New York City in August, 1991. The causes of the riots, motivation of the rioters, and overall meaning of the incident are debated to this day. Many in the Jewish community view the riot as a purely anti-Semitic outburst, even terming it the Crown Heights pogrom, especially among Caribbean-Americans who felt excluded and discriminated against by their Hasidic neighbors. Many African-Americans and others who sympathized with the rioters ignored the fact that while the riot was certainly a product of many causes, there were also a number of characteristics of the riot that could be interpreted as purely anti-Jewish violence. The differing accounts of what happened in Crown Heights during the summer of 1991 may never be reconciled.

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[edit] Causes of the riot

The events that ignited the Crown Heights riots, and its record in the history books, are mired in political and racially-charged assertions and accusations. Returning from a cemetery visit to the grave of a leader of the Jewish community, Yosef Lifsh [Israeli], driving east on President Street in a car owned by Yehuda Zirkland that was part of a police led procession, either ran a red light or passed through the intersection lawfully. This led to a traffic accident with a car headed north on Utica Avenue. As part of the crash, Lifsh's vehicle veered into the sidewalk, striking and killing a seven-year-old Guyanese boy named Gavin Cato and seriously injuring his cousin Angela, also seven years of age. Eyewitnesses have given various reports of the car's speed, from 25 miles per hour to 65. Some witnesses claimed that the vehicle sped through the red light and that the driver smelled of alcohol. Lifsh, who fled to Israel before charges could be filed, was later found not to have been issued an American driver's license. What is not denied is the fact that as the car crossed the intersection, it was hit by another car, causing it to veer out of control and run over Gavin. A private Hasidic ambulance from the Hatzolah Ambulance Corps came to the scene and removed the Hasidic driver on the orders of a police officer, who also ordered this ambulance to leave the area without considering the injured boy, since a city ambulance had been called for. The city ambulance arrived soon after to treat Gavin, who died of his injuries at a nearby hospital. Lifsh was allowed to leave the USA for Israel without ever facing charges of vehicular homicide or traffic violations for driving illegally. The incident sparked a riot that was ultimately fueled by long-standing underlying tensions between black and Jewish residents of the neighborhood.

[edit] Scope of the riot

Black residents of the neighborhood then rioted for four consecutive days fueled by a belief that the treatment of the car accident victims was unequal. Fires were set and shops were looted as the riot grew out of control. Two-way unrest erupted, culminating in video-taped rock-throwing between large crowds of Hasidic Jews and African American residents. In the incident, hundreds of white missiles were seen hurled in high arcs in a constant rain from one crowd to another. A visiting rabbinical student from Australia by the name of Yankel Rosenbaum, 29 years old, was killed during the rioting. Before dying, Rosenbaum was able to identify 16-year-old Lemrick Nelson, Jr. as his assailant. Nelson was charged with the killing, but acquitted. Claims that he admitted to having stabbed Rosenbaum were dismissed by the jury. Even though Nelson was acquitted of murder by a state court, after protests by the Lubavitch community and others, Nelson was charged in federal court with violating Rosenbaum's civil rights and received a prison sentence of 19.5 years. In 2002, he was granted a new trial, at which he admitted he stabbed Rosenbaum, but his attorneys argued that the stabbing wasn't a hate crime triggered by Rosenbaum's religion, but merely the consequence of Nelson being drunk. One other man, Charles Price, 44, was charged with inciting a mob, including Nelson, to "get Jews". Price was charged in federal court one day before the expiration of the statute of limitations for that crime. Nelson was released to a halfway house on June 5, 2004.

[edit] Fallout for Mayor Dinkins

Then mayor David Dinkins was criticized for his poor handling of the events, and the turmoil proved to be a key issue in the next New York City mayoral election, contested in 1993 as a rematch between incumbent David Dinkins and Rudolph Giuliani, whom Dinkins had narrowly defeated four years earlier. On June 16, 1993, a huge rally was held outside City Hall in downtown Manhattan, the primary focus of which was out-of-control criminal violence in general (which the Dinkins administration was viewed by the rally's attendees as being indifferent towards) and continued bitterness over the events in Crown Heights from two years earlier in particular; and several speakers at the rally, including mayoral candidate Giuliani and a Brooklyn-based Caribbean-American community activist, Roy Innis, even went so far as to label the Crown Heights episode a pogrom. Giuliani won the election, and subsequent polls showed that a significant shift in the Jewish vote from 1989 was a contributing factor in his victory.


[edit] Film

A 2004 Television Movie was made about the aftermath of the riot, starring Howie Mandel. Two episodes of Law & Order one during season 2 another during season 4 were based on the riots.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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