The sunlight was slowly fading and with it the heat of the day began to dissipate. Some of the residents were preparing to trade their daylight masks of civility for ones that mirrored their darker side. A side that would turn them into roving marauders, preying on their neighbors.
They were basically a moral people but as the darkness drew them out into the streets they lost their individual identities and became one with the mob. Four thousand strong they were and as dusk approached they readied themselves for a night of violence. Nobody planned it but the looting was inevitable.
First came the yelling, then the screaming out at social injustices, and just as the mob was gathering a feeling of invincibility a low almost imperceptible sound was heard. Not a random street sound but one with a purpose. A word repeated over and over like some barbaric chant. As the mob strained to hear, the sound grew louder; it was getting closer. But as realization spread that the sound was being chanted by only forty cops there was a collective sigh of relief. After all, what could so few do against the awesome might of four thousand angry, oppressed citizens? The relief was short-lived, however, as the cops lined up into an inverted "V" flying-wedge formation brandishing axe handles and chanting their mantra. With every step the flying wedge took it uttered the word as each cop reassuringly slapped an axe handle into the palm of his hand. The mob stood its ground, waiting to see what the cops hoped to do against such a formidable foe.
They didn't have long to wait.
The word grew louder and clearer, and as the first of the mob lost consciousness from the blow of an axe handle the word was finally understood. It seemed to echo off the tenement walls and all at once the four thousand heard it. At first the crowd froze in disbelief; after all, this was not Russia, this was good old Brooklyn, U.S.A., and it was 1964. "KILL . . . KILL . . . KILL . . . KILL."
The chant's effect was twofold, emboldening the cops and injecting fear into the mob. Now the forty felt like four hundred as axe handles separated teeth from jaws, broke noses, shut eyes, and bashed heads. The mob had just been introduced to the NYPD's shock troops - the elite Tactical Patrol Force.
This was NYPD riot suppression 1964-style and my first taste of an escalating disregard for the law that ushered in some of the department's most violent years.
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