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Crown Heights riot
Main article:
Crown Heights riot
The
Crown Heights riot began on August 19, 1991, after a car driven by a Jewish man, and part of a procession led by an unmarked police car, went through an intersection and was struck by another vehicle causing it to veer onto the sidewalk where it accidentally struck and killed a seven-year-old
Guyanese boy named
Gavin Cato and severely injured his cousin Angela. Witnesses could not agree upon the speed and could not agree whether the light was yellow or red. One of the factors that sparked the riot was the arrival of a private ambulance, which was later discovered to be on the orders of a police officer who was worried for the Jewish driver's safety, removed him from the scene while Cato lay pinned under his car.
[33] After being removed from under the car, Cato and his cousin were treated soon after by a city ambulance.
Caribbean-American and African-American residents of the neighborhood rioted for four consecutive days fueled by rumors that the private ambulance had refused to treat Cato.
[33][34] During the riot black youths looted stores,
[33] beat Jews in the street,
[33] and clashed with groups of Jews, hurling rocks and bottles at one another
[35] after Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting student from Australia, was stabbed and killed by a member of a mob while some chanted "Kill the Jew", and "get the Jews out".
[36]
Sharpton marched through Crown Heights and in front of the
headquarters of the
Chabad-Lubavitch
Hasidic movement, shortly after the riot, with about 400 protesters (who chanted "Whose streets? Our streets!" and "
No justice, no peace!"), in spite of Mayor
David Dinkins' attempts to keep the march from happening.
[37][33] Some commentators felt Sharpton inflamed tensions by making remarks that included "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their
yarmulkes back and come over to my house."
[38] In his eulogy for Cato, Sharpton said, "The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident...It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights...Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid...All we want to say is what Jesus said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no kaffe klatsch, no skinnin’ and grinnin’. Pay for your deeds."
[39]
In the decades since, Sharpton has conceded that his language and tone "sometimes exacerbated tensions" though he insisted that his marches were peaceful.
[40][41] In a 2019 speech to a
Reform Jewish gathering, Sharpton said that he could have "done more to heal rather than harm". He recalled receiving a call from
Coretta Scott King at the time, during which she told him "sometimes you are tempted to speak to the applause of the crowd rather than the heights of the cause, and you will say cheap things to get cheap applause rather than do high things to raise the nation higher".
[42][43]
