July 27, 1964 - New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller called out more than 1,000 National Guardsmen last night to help in ending racial rioting in Rochester.
At 3 a.m. today, the situation was uneasy but under control. Policemen were keeping crowds off the main streets in two Negro areas that had been torn by violence and looting since late Friday night.
About 300 uniformed guardsmen from Rochester cruised rapidly through the areas in open trucks shortly after 9 o’clock last night. They carried rifles and bayonets.
Minutes after the column passed on Joseph Avenue, the center of one Negro section, a Molotov cocktail was tossed at a fire engine from a housing project. Rifle fire from the buildings followed.
The troops then returned to their bivouacs, where they were kept on alert.
A guard unit from Auburn, 60 miles away, arrived early today. Another unit, making the 115-mile trip from Binghamton, was expected before dawn. The two units have a total of 840 men.
Before the appearance of the guardsmen, more than 120 rioters were arrested in a hot, humid day of violence. The 600 state and county policemen, augmented by 400 state police, had to use tear gas and fire hoses to disperse mobs.
The temper of the city of 325,000 was further inflamed by the crash of a Civil Defense helicopter into one of the riot areas. Three persons were killed in the crash and the fire that followed.
The area of the crash was the scene Saturday night of mob violence in which a white man was killed and a Negro man was wounded by shots fired by a white civilian.
Marked signs of weariness could be traced today on the faces of Rochester law-enforcement officers, most of whom have enjoyed only brief relief since the rioting began. More than half of the patrol cars available to the Rochester police had been damaged in the first two nights of rioting.
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