The riots expanded AFTER the Black mob of 150 shot and killed two police officers. Did the Police families get reparations?
****POLICE OFFICERS DOWN
In the humid dawn hours of July 2, 1917, East St. Louis awoke to a bloodied, trashed Model T police car sitting in the middle of Main Street. As the sun climbed, onlookers and journalists swarmed around the vehicle, fashioning guesses about what had occurred. Black East St. Louisans knew though, because the scene had transpired in their front yards.
The day before had been a tense one in southern East St. Louis. A black man had been attacked by whites near the Municipal Bridge that afternoon. Shortly afterward, rumors of a white uprising planned for the upcoming July 4 holiday spread throughout the African American community. (In the white community, rumors of a black uprising were also spreading.)
at the intersection of 10th and Bond to find 150 armed black men gathered in the street, wielding “everything except a cannon on wheels.” The detectives exchanged words with the nervous crowd, who assumed them to be the same “trigger-happy joy riders” returned in disguise. The police chauffeur pushed the gas, the car jumped forward with a loud pop, and the crowd erupted with gunfire. The police car and its passengers drove off through a hail of bullets, stopping a few blocks away to check the damage. There it was discovered that Detective Coppedge was dead and Detective Wodley was dying. Moments later, East St. Louis mayor Fred Mollman was on the phone with Springfield to summon the Illinois National Guard.
By 10am on July 2, the crowd encircling the police car had become an aggressive mob. St. Louis Times reporter G. E. Popkess overheard a prominent attorney offering free defense for “any man that avenged the murders of the two police men.”
Within 15 minutes, the first black East St. Louisan had been killed.
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