Word: plainfield
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Elizabeth, N.J., after one of the longest and costliest trials in the state's history (16 weeks, $750,000), a jury convicted two Negroes and freed eight others in the murder of Patrolman John V. Gleason Jr. In the midst of the five-day race riot in Plainfield in 1967, Gleason, 39, the father of three, shot and wounded a youth who had attacked him with a hammer. He was surrounded by an angry mob of Negroes and stomped, hacked and shot to death. Sentenced to life in prison were Gail Madden, 22, a 250-pounder, whom witnesses identified...
...Plainfield...
...Plainfield...
Similarly, in Plainfield, N.J., officials contended that TV coverage egged on the rioters. "They gave the impression that the whole town was going up in flames," says Mayor George F. Hetfield. "Soon we had busloads of people coming in from Philadelphia and Newark who were professional manipulators." In turn, TV interviewed the newcomers as if they were experts on Plainfield. A Negro identified by NBC as the pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church claimed that the police were prolonging the riots in order to beat more Negroes. Plainfield clergymen complained to NBC that the man was a recent arrival...
...coverage of Plainfield helped make Stanton's point. TV newsmen were not content to accept the word of Negroes who told them that a white policeman had been stomped to death because he had shot and killed a seven-year-old Negro boy. The TV crews lugged their equipment to the city hospital where they got assurances from the staff that it was not a child but a 22-year-old man who had been shot-and he was only wounded...