Livernois–Fenkell riot

The Livernois–Fenkell riot was a racially motivated riot in the summer of 1975 on Livernois Avenue at Chalfonte Avenue, just south of Fenkell Avenue, in Detroit, Michigan.

The trouble began when Andrew Chinarian, the 39-year-old owner of Bolton's Bar, observed three black youths tampering with his car in the parking lot. He fired a pistol or rifle, fatally wounding 18-year-old Obie Wynn. According to some accounts, Wynn was fleeing; according to others, he was approaching Chinarian with what the latter thought was a weapon, it later emerged that Wynn was holding a screwdriver. He died from a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Crowds gathered and random acts of vandalism, assault, looting and racial fighting along Livernois and Fenkell avenues ensued. Bottles and rocks were thrown at passing cars.

The second man killed was Marian Pyszko, a 54-year-old dishwasher and a Nazi concentration camp survivor who had emigrated from Poland in 1958. As he drove home from the bakery/candy factory where he worked, he was pulled from his car by a group of black youths and beaten to death with a piece of concrete. Ronald Bell Jordan, Raymond Peoples, and Dennis Lindsay were all charged with first-degree murder.

Police were ordered to not use deadly force, so no shots were fired. A crowd of 700 was dispersed by morning. Angry crowds reappeared and violence resumed the following night – a car became a battering ram and a mob ransacked Bolton's Bar.

Detroit mayor Coleman Young defused the disturbance by appearing in person (along with several clergymen) and ordering every black policeman in the city to police the riot.

The damage to property in the Livernois-Fenkell area amounted to tens of thousands of dollars. Fifty-three people were arrested, and ten injuries were recorded (including one firefighter and one police officer).

CBS News reported an unverified claim that the bar served white patrons only, and noted the 25% unemployment rate as an aggravating factor.