July 1992 Washington Heights unrest

On July 3, 1992, José “Kiko” García, a 23-year-old Dominican immigrant, was shot and killed by Officer Michael O’Keefe in a building on W 162nd St. The officer said he acted in self-defense and that García was armed; García’s family and neighbors said he was not, and the accounts of eyewitnesses and police differ. People took to the streets for at least three days, and the Clemente Center’s essay says police counted 121 vehicle fires, 14 building fires, 139 arrests, 90 injuries and one death by the evening of July 9. NY1 reports that Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau investigated and a grand jury declined to indict the officer. The essay places the unrest against the neighborhood’s drug-trade violence of the early 1990s, with 119 homicides recorded in 1991.