Word: guardsmen
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Though Johnson did act quickly to see that more Negroes will be recruited into the National Guard-as urged by his new Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, which reported that Negroes number only 1.15% of the total Army Guardsmen-and directed that the organization be better trained in riot control, his general reaction was one of unhurried stoicism. Accepting a bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln from an Illinois group, he observed mildly: "We have been experiencing some of the same problems Abraham Lincoln did 100 years ago. We hope and pray that we can handle them with the compassion...
...just five hours, the first of 4,100 Guardsmen were mobilizing. Soon after, Maier proclaimed the curfew. There were a number of serious firefights with snipers; four people died as a result of the riot and 101 were injured. Maier relaxed the curfew each day by degrees, and the violence subsided after four nights. Urban Coalition. Widespread reliance on martial law is hardly an appealing prospect for the long run. Health, Education and Welfare Secretary John Gardner, a member of an informal Cabinet task force that began meeting during the Detroit riot, is convinced that only programs giving slum residents...
...Guardsmen, of course, were not wholly to blame. Most are young, inexperienced "weekend warriors," incapable of handling what some officials are now calling "urban guerrilla warfare." Riot-control training barely exists; even military policemen in the Guard receive only one day of it. In New Jersey, where the Guardsmen's rough behavior brought a barrage of protests from Negroes, National Guard Major General James F. Cantwell conceded that the time had come for special training. "It is apparent," he wrote in a letter to the Secretary of the Army, "that there is a need for an immediate re-examination...
Without Violence. Such training is essential, not only for Guardsmen but police officers too, who in most cases, are ill-prepared to handle the riots that threaten practically every U.S. city. Some departments simply decline the responsibility. "There's a big difference between an angry crowd," says Houston's Police Chief Herman Short, "and anarchy, fire bombing, sacking of buildings, looting and sniping. No police department is equipped to conduct military operations in the street...
...anti-sniper teams-into any trouble area in minutes. Within half an hour, 2,000 men can be dispatched, many with bulletproof vests and shotguns. Because of coordinated planning, 500 state patrolmen are on call to move into the city on two hours' notice, and 4,000 National Guardsmen within five hours. According to one police official, Commissioner Frank Rizzo feels that "what happened in Detroit happened because the police didn't move in quickly enough. He's not going to let that happen here...