Akron riot
As Akron riot ( English : Akron riot ) are riots that took place on 23/24. August 1900 in Akron , Ohio, during which two children were accidentally shot and killed by the city police in defense of a mob .
occasion
On August 22, 1900, the 40-year-old African-American Louis (also spelled Lewis) Peck was arrested by the Akrons city police for the rape of the white six-year-old Christina Maas on August 21 and sent to the city prison . Peck and his wife had only moved to Akron a few weeks ago and worked as waiters . As it turned out, Peck was being wanted by the authorities of his last residence in Patterson, New Jersey , for various offenses .
course
The next morning, August 23, 1900, Peck pleaded guilty to a hearing but was unable to provide a $ 5,000 bail and was therefore imprisoned.
Rumors of the crime and Peck's confession spread throughout Akron throughout the day. The city administration had also learned that a mob might gather to lynch Peck . She therefore commissioned Sheriff Frank G. Kelly to transport Peck and another imprisoned African American to a prison in Cleveland as a precaution , as she assumed that in the event of a riot she would not be able to guarantee the safety of the prisoners.
At around 6 p.m. a rapidly growing crowd gathered on the main street, moving to the city building and demanding that the police stationed there surrender Peck. In the meantime, all members of the city police, which had around 25 members, had been alerted. As the crowd tried to break into the barricaded building, a police officer fired warning shots from his revolver , fatally affecting both four-year-old Rhoda Davidson and ten-year-old Glen Wade.
After the mob had apparently calmed down and split up around 9 p.m., they gathered again in front of the town house at 11 p.m. In the meantime, rebels had stolen dynamite from factories and broken into a department store and obtained around a hundred firearms and stabbing weapons, including ammunition . The hard core of the rebels, including sympathizers, was estimated at 200 to 300 people, the crowd at around 5,000. The police had meanwhile left the town hall and dispersed. Police Chief Harrison, a veteran of the American Civil War , had disappeared, Sheriff Kelly was unavailable, his deputy had no instructions.
The mob set both the town house and Columbia Hall on fire, some of which were dynamite. Both buildings burned to the ground during the night as the rioters, sometimes using firearms, prevented the fire brigade from putting out the fires, injuring six firefighters. The rioters also seized the urban patrol car , the world's first motor-powered police vehicle, and dumped it after a "drive" in the Ohio-Erie Canal .
The deployment of the National Guard
In the early hours of August 24, Mayor Young tried to mobilize two local companies, F and B of the Ohio National Guard's 4th Regiment , but their chiefs refused to intervene without an order from the governor . Young finally managed to reach Governor Nash by telephone, who then deployed C Company of the 4th Regiment from Canton and at the same time alerted the entire 8th Regiment. At 6:25 a.m., the C Company under Captain Fisher arrived, and at around 9 a.m. the entire 8th Regiment with nine companies under the command of Colonel Adams arrived in a special train . The guards cordoned off parts of the city center and set up a patrol service that prevented further gatherings in the near future.
Peck was immediately transferred from Cleveland and sentenced to life imprisonment - the background was the presence of the National Guard, which made a trial possible in the first place without fear of renewed rioting. An attack on the condemned man when he was again transported to Cleveland could only be prevented by the threat of a bayonet deployment by the escort team. While the troops were leaving Akron a few days later, city police, with the help of detectives from Pittsburgh and Cleveland, arrested 42 men suspected of being involved in the riot. 30 were convicted of various offenses.
Peck was pardoned by Governor James M. Cox in 1913 because he had not been given a fair trial. No charges were brought against the police officer who accidentally shot the two children. A total of $ 250,000 in damage was incurred and a good two dozen citizens, firefighters and police officers were injured. Irreplaceable documents of the city administration and the history of Akron were lost in the fire in the town house.
literature
- Kevin F. Kern / Gregory S. Wilson: Ohio: A History of the Buckeye State , New York 2013, ISBN 978-1-118-54854-7 .
- The Situation is well in Hand , in: Akron Daily Democrat, August 23, 1900.
- Canton Militia goes to Akron To Suppress Riot , in: Stark County Democrat, August 24, 1900.
- William B. Doyle: The Riot Of 1900 - The Darkest Night in Akron's History , 1908.
