TODAY IN CRIME: April 6, Part one

photo credit: Britannica

1199: English King Richard I died of gangrene two days after a bolt from a crossbow hit him at the siege of the castle of Châlus-Chabrol in France. On his deathbed Richard forgave his assassin, a boy seeking revenge for the deaths of his father and brothers, but the king’s cohorts flayed him alive and hanged him anyway as soon as Richard died.

1250: Ayyubids, Muslim rulers of Egypt, captured King Louis IX of France and his nobles at the Battle of Fariskur, the last conflict of the failed Seventh Crusade. Louis himself negotiated their release for 800,000 gold coins.

1362: Tard-Venus bandits, mercenaries left unemployed due to a lull in the Hundred Years War who had turned to pillaging the French countryside, destroyed French forces attacking their base at Brignais.

1712: Twenty-three enslaved Africans armed with guns, hatchets, and swords attacked white colonists in New York City, killing nine and wounding six others before they ran off. A militia quickly rounded up and jailed dozens of blacks; six committed suicide, and of the 40 brought to trial, 18 were acquitted and several pardoned. Those found guilty were brutally executed---burned alive, crushed on the wheel, starved, hanged, etc. The revolt resulted only in more laws favoring slaveowners and stricter codes against slaves.

1772: Russia ended the tax on beards instituted by Tsar Peter the Great.

1815: After the War of 1812, British soldiers guarding American prisoners at Dartmoor prison fired upon a large group of unarmed inmates in a barracks yard, killing seven and injuring 31. The guards feared an escape attempt; the prisoners had heard of the Treaty of Ghent signed more three months earlier and were complaining their horrid conditions should have improved until they were repatriated. After the incident, prisoners who could afford passage were freed and the rest sailed home at joint American-British expense.

1895: At the Cadogan Hotel, London, plain clothes policemen arrested popular playwright Oscar Wilde for “committing acts of gross indecency with certain male persons,” a crime in England. The arrest came about after Wilde lost an ill-advised libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry, who accused him of being a homosexual; enough evidence emerged not only to get the libel charge dismissed but to arrest Wilde. He was given two years of hard labor.

1903: Anti-Semitic riots in Kishinev, Russia, led to the deaths of as many as 120 Jews, with 500 injured. More than 600 Jewish women were raped and 1500 homes and shops destroyed. A Gentile boy had been murdered in a nearby town and anti-Semitic newspapers accused Jews of killing him and mixing his blood into their Passover matzos. Police finally intervened on the third day of rioting. Only two men served more than five years for the massacre.

1903: Evidence emerged that French Army Nationalists forged documents to guarantee a conviction for Alfred Dreyfus, the military officer tried and convicted of treason against France in 1894.

1919: In protest of the Rowlatt Acts that gave almost unlimited power to police and denied civil rights, Mahatma Gandhi called for a nationwide general strike, asking Indians to engage in nonviolent struggle---to observe a daylong fast and hold meetings to demand the repeal of the legislation.

1929: The Louisiana House of Representatives impeached Governor of Louisiana Huey P. Long on charges ranging from misuse of state funds to bribery and blasphemy. Lawmakers suspended the process when it became clear the state senate would not vote for it, and Long served out his term and even became a U.S. Senator.

1930: Mahatma Gandhi and his followers ended their 24-day Salt March protesting the steep salt tax levied by the ruling British Empire. On the shore of Dandi, Gandhi produced salt from sea water, breaking the British law establishing a monopoly on salt manufacture (“With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.”). Gandhi's non-violent protest galvanized civil disobedience in India and drew international attention to the independence movement.

1931: The first trial of the “Scottsboro Boys,” nine black youths charged with raping two white women, began just three weeks after their arrests. All had barely escaped lynching before their indictments. It was the first day any of the accused were allowed to consult an attorney. Although doctors found no evidence of sexual assault, after three rushed trials, the all-white, all-male juries found eight boys guilty and they were sentenced to death. The ninth and youngest boy, after a mistrial, languished in jail for six years before his release.

1934: Gestapo agents arrested 418 German Lutheran ministers on charges of misusing the pulpit for political reasons.

1968: Two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6,700 National Guardsmen and 5,000 regular Army soldiers were deployed to help 10,500 police quell riots in Chicago. National Guard troops, Maryland state police, 5,000 Army corpsmen, and an infantry brigade were sent into Baltimore. In Washington, D.C, President Johnson had called in more than 13,000 federal troops and National Guardsmen when crowds overwhelmed the local police force on April 5. Violence erupted in more than 110 cities nationwide from April 4-11 before calm was restored. More than 40 people were killed and 2,500 injured. Some neighborhoods never fully recovered from the arson and looting.