Attack on Negro Crime

The most ticklish law-enforcement fact in many a big Northern city is that the crime rate among Negroes is far higher than that of any other segment of the population*--and few elected officials want to antagonize vote-conscious Negroes by saying so. None knew this better than the unhappy city fathers of Kansas City, Mo., who, during the first three weeks of 1957, saw the number of armed robberies, burglaries and thefts run 40% beyond the 1956 rate, while four out of five robbery victims reported that the holdup men were Negroes. One day last fortnight, seven Negro businessmen called on Kansas City's Police Chief Bernard Brannon to complain that robberies and burglaries in the Negro district were threatening to put them out of business. Suddenly, Chief Brannon thought he saw his chance.

How would Negro leaders react if the police staged a mass raid on Negro nightspots to round up suspects? asked Brannon tentatively. To his surprise, the businessmen assured him that they would speak up to defend the police if the Negro community raised an outcry. A few nights later, in Kansas City's biggest police raid since 1941, nine teams of detectives--with at least one Negro cop on each team --stormed into Negro-district bars, restaurants, pool halls, nightclubs. Three paddy wagons shuttled back and forth for three hours, hauling 276 men and three women to headquarters for questioning. The police released most of the suspects that night or the next day, but held 50 on assorted charges from shoplifting to narcotics peddling. Acting on tips from men arrested in the raid, the cops jailed another score of suspects, including holdup men who had pulled off 49 known robberies within the previous two months.

Last week, in the wake of the big raid, top police officials met for two hours with 16 Negro civic leaders. Far from sizzling with outrage, the Negroes saw some justification for the raid; several agreed to help set up a permanent committee to advise the police on combating Negro crime. "The feeling," said one of the 16, "is more relief than criticism."

*In 1,477 U.S. cities, Negroes, making up an average 11% of the population, accounted in 1955 for an average 35% of the arrests for what the FBI calls "major crimes" (homicide, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, theft), and 57% of the arrests for crimes involving violence or threat of bodily harm.

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