The Timeshas a story about Samuel Battle, one of New York’s first black police officers.
But what is reallyinteresting is his oral history. In his own words. “They had riots. Many riots.” Worth a read:
I went on down, and we got there, with my squad. The whites and Negroes were battling. I saw the white cops beating up the colored people, and I thought, “Here’s my chance to get even with them.” I saw them whipping black heads, and I was whipping white heads. I’ll never forget that.
We quelled it, we didn’t make many arrests, because in those days you didn’t have to. Today you’d be forced to arrest a lot of people to prevent them from taking civil action.
What was the cause? Just interracial conflicts. They’d sometimes start a fight over a crap game, or anything. Just some little thing like that. One will start a fight and then they’ll all get together, and you have a riot as a result