Algiers Motel killings
The task force was searching the area after reports were received that a gunman or group of gunmen, possibly snipers, had been seen at or near the motel.
The Detroit Police Department at the time was 93% white,[2][3] of whom 45% working in black neighborhoods were considered to be "extremely anti-Negro" and an additional 34% were "prejudiced".
[4] The riot began after police raided a black-owned business that hosted a "blind pig" (illegal bar), during a party to celebrate the safe return of two black Vietnam War veterans.
One of the sons of the blind pig's owner jumped on the roof of a car and threw a bottle at the police, and the mob followed suit.
The Algiers Motel at 8301 Woodward Avenue[7] near the Virginia Park district was a black-owned business, owned by Sam Gant and McUrant Pye.
[citation needed] After the riot started, the Dramatics singing group left a concert on Saturday, July 22 and they all checked in at the Algiers.
[16] According to testimony, three of the black youths—Cooper, Clark, and Forsythe—and the two white women, Hysell and Malloy, were listening to music in a third-floor room of the annex.
In turn, each of the black youths in line were taken into rooms and intimidated with threats or gunshots and told to stay still and quiet or be killed.
First, per conflicting reports, an officer took one of the youths into a room and fired a shot into the wall, to make the prisoners believe he was dead in a simulated execution.
The investigator's activities, including the flashes from the camera and the presence of police on the roof of the building, were noticed by Guardsmen stationed nearby and they shouted a challenge to identify themselves.
[29] Five days after the incident, The Detroit News reported the story of one of the survivors, Robert Lee Greene, stating that one of the National Guard warrant officers murdered the men.
One of the motel survivors, Michael Clark, gave conflicting evidence that August and Paille had taken him into a room and threatened him when Hersey falsely wrote Senak and Thomas had actually done so.
[40] The Citywide Citizens' Action Committee, organized by Dan Aldridge, was formed by a coalition of Detroit black leaders.
[41] They held a tribunal of their own, convicting August, Paille, Dismukes and Thomas for their roles in the murders and sentencing them to death.
Judge George Ryan of Detroit Recorder's Court would dismiss the murder charge in August 1972, stating that Paille's confession was inadmissible because he had not been advised of his Constitutional rights as per the 1966 Miranda Warning law.
[48] He cited the testimony of Detroit detective Charles Schlacter, who stated that he "viewed both August and Paille" as suspects when he took the statements.
All testified to the lineup and beatings going on and officers taking individuals from the line into motel rooms and shooting their guns in a "game" to frighten the prisoners.
[55] According to the Free Press, legal sources described Beer's instructions to the jury as a direction to find an acquittal on the other possible options.
[57][55] The earlier Schemanske decision incensed Kenneth McIntyre, the assistant U.S. District Attorney, and he pushed to reopen a federal investigation of the killings.
J. Edgar Hoover personally reviewed the policemen's statements, and described them as "for the most part untrue and were undoubtedly furnished in an attempt to cover their activities and the true series of events.
"[58] On May 3, 1968, a federal grand jury indicted Melvin Dismukes, Ronald August, Robert Paille and David Senak on a charge of conspiring to deny civil rights to the motel occupants.
[19] The federal conspiracy trial was delayed, both by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, but also the publication of a book by John Hersey, The Algiers Motel Incident.
Roth closed the hearings to the press and waited a full year until September 1969 before ruling on the change of venue, ordering the trial to be moved to his hometown of Flint, Michigan.
Police Lieutenant Robert Boroni testified about the contents of the July 29 first report the three policemen filed stating that they entered the motel, saw the lineup, saw that the prisoners were already wounded and left.
Detroit homicide detective Robert Everett testified that August filed a separate statement two hours later that he had shot Pollard in self-defense and that Paille admitted shooting Temple.
The proceeds from royalties from the book (over 550,000 copies were printed) were turned over to a college scholarship fund for African American students by Knopf.
[68] The Detroit Police Department rehired Ronald August and David Senak in 1971, after firing them in the aftermath of the Algiers Motel killings.
The DPD refused to rehire Robert Paille, citing the false statements he made in his initial incident report.
The play is centered on the stories of Anthony, a black man, and Lucy, a white woman who were friends in childhood and reunited during the 1967 riot, at the Algiers Motel hiding out from the violence.
[82] In 2017, Annapurna Pictures released Detroit, a feature film dramatization of the 12th Street Riot and the Algiers Motel incident, directed by Kathryn Bigelow.
