Five People Shot On Boardwalk In Brighton Beach

...On the evening of July 4, 1857, while the rest of New York was celebrating Independence Day, members of the Dead Rabbits led a coalition of street gangs from the Five Points, with exception of the Roach Guards with whom they had been fighting,<1> into The Bowery to raid a clubhouse occupied by the Bowery Boys and the Atlantic Guards. They were confronted outside the building by their rivals and were driven back after vicious street fighting, the Five Pointers retreating to Paradise Square. Some fighting continued as far away as Pearl and Chatham Streets, in the northern half of Park Row, but no police were dispatched. With the exception of a few nearby Metropolitan patrolmen, who were seriously injured, each police faction claimed the responsibility lay with the other. Police inactivity caused the situation to escalate in the next few hours.<2><3>

The following morning, the Five Pointers returned to the Bowery with the Roach Guards and attacked the Green Dragon, a popular Broome Street resort and meeting place for the Bowery Boys and other local criminals. They managed to surprise the Bowery gangsters inside the building and, armed with iron bars and large paving blocks, they proceeded to wreck the bar room, rip up the floor of the dance hall and drink all the alcohol in the place. News of the incident quickly reached the Bowery Boys, who then called upon other gangs of the Bowery to join them and confronted the Five Pointers at Bayard Street where one of the largest street gang battles in the city's history occurred.<2>

At around 10:00 a.m., in the midst of savage fighting, a lone patrolman used his club to move through the gangsters in an attempt to take the ring leaders into custody. He was knocked down and attacked by the crowd however, stripped of his uniform and beaten with his own nightstick. He managed to crawl back to the sidewalk and, wearing only his cotton drawers, he ran towards the Metropolitan headquarters on White Street, where he informed the precinct of the fighting before he collapsed. A small police squad was sent out to break up the fighting but, upon reaching Centre Street, the gangs turned against the police, who were forced to retreat after several officers were injured. They made a second attempt, this time fighting their way into the mob, and arrested two men believed to be the leaders. The gangsters responded by storming into the low houses lining Bowery and Bayard Streets, forcing out the residents, and climbed to the rooftops where they proceeded to shower the Metropolitan officers with stones and brick bats until they fled from the area.<1><2>

When the police left without their prisoners, the fighting stopped for a few moments. This temporary truce lasted only an hour or two as fighting resumed near The Tombs,<1> supposedly brought about by a group of women from the Five Points who had provoked the Dead Rabbits into attacking the Bowery gangs. Bringing reinforcements with them, the participants were estimated at between 800–1,000 and armed with bludgeons, paving stones, brick bats, axes, pitchforks and other weapons. Several hundred other criminals also arrived in the area, mostly burglars and thieves, who were not affiliated with either side and simply took the opportunity for looting....