Six Race Riot Defendants Apologize
YORK, Pa. — Six white men, in court for sentencing in the shooting death of a young black woman during a 1969 race riot, publicly apologized Wednesday. But the victim’s daughter said none had shown remorse to her family in private.
Debra Taylor and other relatives of Lillie Belle Allen urged the judge to impose the maximum sentence on the six, all of whom pleaded guilty in August.
Judge John C. Uhler was expected to sentence them Wednesday afternoon.
In all, 10 white men were arrested during the past two years and charged in Allen’s slaying. Two were convicted, a former York mayor was acquitted, and another man has yet to face trial.
Taylor, Allen’s daughter, addressed each of the six men being sentenced Wednesday and said none had expressed any sorrow for Allen’s killing until they were in court, where an apology might lessen their sentences.
“It would have meant so much if you had just said, ‘It was a terrible thing, a horrific thing. I’m so sorry.’ That would have meant more to me than you doing life in prison,” Taylor said to Arthur Messersmith, who pleaded guilty in Allen’s slaying and whose brother, Robert, was convicted at trial last month.
Taylor, 44, of Aiken, S.C., also expressed anger at defense attorneys’ arguments and suggestions by witnesses during the trial that the men shouldn’t have been prosecuted for a crime committed 33 years ago.
“If you guys had told the truth way back when, we wouldn’t even be here today,” she said.
Allen, 27, of Aiken, S.C., was shot to death at twilight on July 21, 1969, after she got out of her family’s white Cadillac to try to help her panicking sister steer the stalled vehicle away from a mob of armed white gang members. The attack was one of scores during the 10-day violence between blacks and whites.
During Wednesday’s hearing, the defendants and their attorneys sought leniency, saying some of them had been following older men or policemen who encouraged them to participate in the violence. Some claimed to have been under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time.
“I would say, your honor, that this is a case where the sins of the father are visited upon the son,” said Frank Arcuri, an attorney for Arthur Messersmith, referring to testimony that the Messersmiths’ father helped coordinate the attack.
Arthur Messersmith pleaded guilty in August to attempted murder and conspiracy. He admitted that he sat atop a cement wall and shot at the vehicle in which Allen and four family members were riding.
He faced up to nine years in prison.
Five others — Chauncey Gladfelter, Rick Knouse, Clarence Lutzinger, William Ritter and Tom Smith — faced up to two years in prison each after pleading guilty in August to conspiracy to commit murder. Each originally was charged with murder.
Of those five, Smith and Gladfelter admitted being lookouts for the white gang members who had gathered on Newberry Street. Knouse, Lutzinger and Ritter admitted shooting at the Cadillac.
Last month, a jury convicted Robert Messersmith, the former white gang leader accused of firing the shot that killed Allen, and Gregory Neff, who admitted that he fired several times at the vehicle, on charges of second-degree murder.
The same jury acquitted former Mayor Charlie Robertson, who had been a young police officer at the time of the riots. He had been accused of handing out ammunition and encouraging white gang members to shoot blacks.
Robert Messersmith and Neff face up to 20 years in prison at their sentencing next month.
Violence between white and black youths sparked the riots, during which more than 60 people were injured and 100 were arrested before the National Guard rolled into town with tanks.
Charges against a 10th defendant, Ezra Slick, weren’t filed until this year. Slick has admitted shooting four times at the Cadillac, police said.