By the mid-1960s, York had become deeply racially divided, and in 1968 a series of white-on-black crimes incited retaliation in the form of fire-bombings and street brawls.
On July 17, 1969, with racial tensions at the boiling point, a black youth who burned himself playing with lighter fluid blamed a local white gang known as the Girarders.
Schaad, a twenty-two-year-old rookie with eleven months on the force, was riding in one of the police department's two armored trucks when he was struck by a bullet believed to have been fired by a black rioter.
On July 21, Lillie Belle Allen, a black woman from Aiken, South Carolina who was visiting York with her parents, was riding in a car driven by her sister, Hattie Dickson.
Dickson turned the car onto North Newberry Street and was looking for a grocery store when she saw a man with a gun leaning out of a second-story window.
Her older sister, Lillie Belle Allen, jumped out of the car to get to the driver's seat and take the wheel.
Four prosecutors and four detectives spent two years trying to solve the Allen and Schaad murder cases, but people who knew about the fatal shootings kept silent, either because they were afraid or they didn't want to be seen as traitors.
"It was tougher than pulling teeth," said Thomas V. Chatman Jr., who was lead detective on the murder investigations for the York City police.
Because there was distrust among blacks, prosecutors said they first tried to solve the Allen case, hoping that witnesses would then come forward to identify Officer Schaad's killer.
Prosecutors learned that three of the gang members had committed suicide over the years, but that another, who was suffering from terminal cancer, wanted to talk.
Rick Lynn Knouse and Gregory Harry Neff, identified as former members of the Girarders gang, were accused after witnesses testified they'd been seen firing at the car carrying Lillie Belle Allen.
Before a judge issued a gag order in the case, the mayor confirmed that he did shout "white power" as encouragement to an angry crowd while he was on duty during the riots, but denied supplying the ammunition.
Seven reached plea agreements in August 2001, and pleaded guilty to lesser charges of criminal conspiracy in exchange for their testimony against the remaining defendants.
Three stood trial, and on October 18, 2002, after thirteen days and more than one hundred witnesses, an all-white jury found Gregory H. Neff and Robert N. Messersmith guilty of second-degree murder, but acquitted York City mayor, and former police officer, Charles Robertson.
An affidavit filed at the arraignment of the two men cited numerous witnesses who said they saw Mr. Freeland firing at the police officer's car.