Overview

"An extraordinary look at race and policing in late nineteenth-century BaltimoreIn 1875 an Irish-born Baltimore policeman, Patrick McDonald, entered the home of Daniel Brown, an African American laborer, and clubbed and shot Brown, who died within an hour of the attack. In similar cases at the time, authorities routinely exonerated Maryland law enforcement officers who killed African Americans, usually without serious inquiries into the underlying facts. But in this case, Baltimore's white community chose a different path. A coroner's jury declined to attribute the killing to accident or self-defense; the state's attorney indicted McDonald and brought him to trial; and a criminal court jury convicted McDonald of manslaughter. What makes this work so powerful is that many of the issues that the antipolice brutality movement faces today were the very issues faced by black people in nineteenth-century Baltimore. Both Brown and McDonald represented factions in conflict during a period of social upheaval, and both men left home to escape dire conditions. Yet trouble followed both to Baltimore. While the conviction of McDonald was unique, it was not a racially enlightened moment in policing. The killing of Brown was viewed not as racial injustice, but police violence spreading to their neighborhood. White elites saw the police as an uncontrolled force threatening their well-being. The clubbing and shooting of an unarmed black man only a block away from the wealthy residences of Park Avenue represented a breakdown in the social order-but Jim Crow in Baltimore was not in danger. Prior to 1867 a Maryland statute barred African Americans from testifying against whites in proceedings before police magistrates or in any of the state's courts. During the trial of McDonald, the press described the Baltimore police as ""blue coated ruffians,"" and there was a general distrust of the police force by both blacks and whites. Brown's wife, Keziah, gave damning testimony of Officer McDonald's actions. The jury could not agree on verdicts of first- or second-degree murder, and after an attempt to reach a compromise verdict of second-degree murder failed, the majority acquiesced to the manslaughter verdict. The Uncommon Case of Daniel Brown adds to the historiography of policing and criminal justice by demonstrating the pivotal role of the coroner's inquest in such cases and by illustrating the importance of social ties and political divisions when a community addresses an episode of police violence."

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9781606354124

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Reviews

Historian Gordon H. Shufelt's true crime book recounts the 1875 murder of a Black man by a white policeman. While racial police brutality is still not uncommon, the grim distinction surrounding Daniel Brown's death is that, in late nineteenth-century Baltimore, this particular officer was convicted. With factual suspense, the book reconstructs the fateful meeting between Brown and McDonald. A noise complaint regarding a small, non-alcoholic party somehow escalated into Brown being clubbed and shot in his own home. Witnesses recalled McDonald being angry and antagonistic. McDonald, however, insisted that he acted in self-defense. McDonald was found guilty by a white jury--a verdict, Shufelt says, that was intended to quell police overreach, rather than support racial equality. Engrossing.... -- Foreword A close and engrossing look at an obscure 19th-century homicide through a granular and judicious review of archival records. One summer night in 1875, white policeman Patrick McDonald confronted African American Daniel Brown in Brown's Baltimore home after receiving a noise complaint. The encounter ended with McDonald fatally shooting Brown. Surprisingly, given the city's endemic racism at the time, an all-white jury convicted McDonald of manslaughter after hearing testimony that Brown had done nothing violent to provoke the shooting. Shufelt puts that outcome in context, which included distrust of the police force following misconduct during elections that year, and the status of the Black witnesses to the killing; their employment as servants in affluent white homes made them viewed as trustworthy, which Shufelt considers 'the persistence of some elements of a slavery-era culture.' The verdict was not a breakthrough, however, or evidence that white Baltimoreans objected to the oppression of African Americans . . . Illuminat[es] race relations and the criminal justice system in post-Civil War Baltimore. -- Publishers Weekly

A close and engrossing look at an obscure 19th-century homicide through a granular and judicious review of archival records. One summer night in 1875, white policeman Patrick McDonald confronted African American Daniel Brown in Brown's Baltimore home after receiving a noise complaint. The encounter ended with McDonald fatally shooting Brown. Surprisingly, given the city's endemic racism at the time, an all-white jury convicted McDonald of manslaughter after hearing testimony that Brown had done nothing violent to provoke the shooting. Shufelt puts that outcome in context, which included distrust of the police force following misconduct during elections that year, and the status of the Black witnesses to the killing; their employment as servants in affluent white homes made them viewed as trustworthy, which Shufelt considers 'the persistence of some elements of a slavery-era culture.' The verdict was not a breakthrough, however, or evidence that white Baltimoreans objected to the oppression of African Americans . . . Illuminat[es] race relations and the criminal justice system in post-Civil War Baltimore. -- Publishers Weekly

Author Information

Gordon H. Shufelt is a retired attorney and administrative law judge with an M.A. from the University of Colorado, a J.D. from Rutgers, and a Ph.D. from American University. He served in the federal government for 30 years, including 14 years as a Veterans Law Judge with the Board of Veterans Appeals in Washington, DC. He has published historical articles about Baltimore in the Journal of American Ethnic History and the Journal of Southern History with a focus on immigration and African American history.

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