Freddy's Fashion Mart attack

Freddy's Fashion Mart attack
Location	272 West 125th Street Harlem, Manhattan, New York, United States
Coordinates	40°48′35″N 73°57′03″W / 40.80969°N 73.9508°W / 40.80969; -73.9508
Date	December 8, 1995 10:12 a.m. – 12:07 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time)
Target	Freddy's Fashion Mart
Attack type	Mass shooting, hostage taking, arson, murder–suicide
Weapons	.38-caliber revolver Ignitable liquid[1]
Deaths	8 (including the perpetrator)
Injured	4
Perpetrator	Roland James Smith Jr.

On December 8, 1995, eight people, including the assailant, were killed when a gunman seized hostages at Freddy's^[a] Fashion Mart in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, and set the building on fire.^[2][3] The attack followed protests relating to the planned eviction of a black-owned business by a Jewish proprietor.

In 1995 a black Pentecostal Church, the United House of Prayer, which owned a retail property on 125th Street across from the Apollo Theatre, asked Fred Harari,^{[citation needed]} a Jewish tenant who operated Freddie's Fashion Mart, to evict his longtime subtenant, a record store called The Record Shack owned by black South African Sikhulu Shange. African-American activist Al Sharpton led protests outside the Harlem store over several weeks against both the planned eviction of The Record Shack, and because Freddie's did not employ any Black workers.^[1][4][5][6] Sharpton told the crowd of protesters: "We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business."^[7]

Roland J. Smith Jr. Was born in 1944. His mother died when he was three. He was arrested in 1962 on charges of stealing a car. Four years later, he was charged with weapons possession. In 1967, he renounced his citizenship and refused to fight in the Vietnam War, despite being drafted. For this, he was sentenced to four years in federal prison. In 1989 he was convicted of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer in Tampa, Florida. A year later, he returned to Harlem, which was against his probation. In 1994 he was charged with aggravated harrassment and resisting arrest for alledgedly participating in a street vendor related brawl on 125 street. On November 28, 1995, the six story bronx apartment building that he lived in burned to the ground.^[8]

On December 8, 1995, Roland James Smith Jr., who may have attended previous protests outside the store, entered Harari's at around 10:12 a.m. EST with a .38-caliber revolver and a container of flammable liquid.^[9] He ordered black customers to leave, then set the store on fire by sprinkling around the accelerant, positioning himself near the only exit. Smith shot at two police officers arriving at the scene, and shot four customers as they were escaping the fire. At 12:07 p.m., firefighters had contained the blaze, and entered the burned-out building to discover seven store employees had died of smoke inhalation, and the gunman had fatally shot himself.^[10][11][12] Fire Department officials discovered that the store's sprinkler had been shut down, in violation of the local fire code.^[13] The only fire escape had been bricked up (this was not a violation at the time, as long as a working sprinkler system was provided), so the only exit for those trapped meant passing the gunman. Three of the victims were found in a back room at street level, and four in the sealed basement.^[1]

The seven fatal victims consisted of one Black, five Hispanics, and one Guyanese, and the wounded victims consisted of one Jew, one Guyanese, and two Whites.^[14]

Sharpton subsequently said the perpetrator was an open critic of Sharpton and his nonviolent tactics. In 2002, Sharpton expressed regret for making the racial remark "white interloper" but denied responsibility for inflaming or provoking the violence.^[15][16]