Violence in a Factory Town

It had been a long, hot, quiet summer-ominously quiet. Then came the most banal of incidents: a dispute over a shattered windshield. "One thing led to another," said Police Captain Samuel Aliano. Soon a section of the fraying factory town of Lawrence, Mass. (pop. 62,770), was a battleground of ethnic animosities. On consecutive nights last week, Hispanics and whites pelted one another with rocks, bottles and fire bombs. Some 40 local policemen, backed up by state troopers and SWAT teams, used tear gas and nightsticks against the mob. The authorities declared a state of emergency, imposed a ten-hour curfew, halted liquor sales and posted extra police in the area. By then a local bar had been ransacked, homes damaged by fire bombs and a liquor store gutted. Seventeen people had been hospitalized, half a dozen with gunshot wounds.

"We always figured it would break out," said Aliano. "We didn't know the magnitude." After a tour of the site, Massachusetts Congressman James Shannon said, "What we have here is the frustration of people in need who are going after each other.''