Races: Support for the Badge

Both the setting and the action are cruelly familiar: the Glenville area of Cleveland, a black neighborhood with a history of racial militance, frequent crime, hostility between residents and police. Late at night, two white cops stop two young blacks in a car for running a stop sign; the driver cannot produce a license, but suddenly there is a gun in his hand and he is firing. One policeman, Joseph Tracz, 27, is killed. The other, Frederick Fulton, 28, is seriously wounded.

What set last week's violence apart from similar assaults on police was the community's response. Law-abiding residents of...