Home / Full timeline / About two hundred Blacks ran through the streets throwing rocks and setting fires in Tampa, Florida, after a twenty-three-year old Black man died when police tried to subdue him by using a “choke hold,” which entails applying pressure to the carotid artery.
About two hundred Blacks ran through the streets throwing rocks and setting fires in Tampa, Florida, after a twenty-three-year old Black man died when police tried to subdue him by using a “choke hold,” which entails applying pressure to the carotid artery.
1987 (Feb 19-20)
On February 19, about two hundred Blacks ran through the streets throwing rocks and setting fires in Tampa, Florida. The disturbances began one night after a twenty-three-year old Black man died after police had tried to subdue him by using a “choke hold," which entails applying pressure to the carotid artery. On February 20, isolated incidents involving rock and bottle throwing by Black youths continued, but there were no injuries. Two people were arrested. Meanwhile, Black leaders and other volunteers walked the streets urging residents to remain calm. Before the most recent incidents, another Black man had been killed by police, and other incidents involving Blacks and law enforcement officers had occurred in December 1986, including the arrest of the New York Mets' star pitcher Dwight Gooden. Gooden had been charged with “battering police officers.” A report released on February 19, 1987, by City Attorney Michael Fogarty, however, placed some of the blame for the Gooden incident on the police. The report also called on the city of Tampa to recruit more Black police officers. At the time of these latest altercations, only 65 members of Tampa's 790 member police force were Black, and the paucity of Black police officers had been a constant complaint of local Black leaders.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.