Eleanor Bumpers
The surrounding neighborhoods are similar in race relation to High Bridge. Central Harlem in Manhattan is mostly an all black neighborhood. Mott Haven in the Bronx is more Hispanic than High Bridge but mostly just black and Hispanic. The Claremont and Melrose district is a lot like High Bridge but more black than Hispanic. The Morris Heights and Fordham district is very similar to High Bridge with a little bit more Hispanic population. Washington Heights in Manhattan is mostly Hispanic and white with some blacks. This neighborhood is very different from most of the others surrounding High Bridge.
In the mid-1980s, the majority of the population in High Bridge is black and Hispanics who form 9/10 of the population. The remaining 10th is made up of whites and Asians. By the mid 1990s the population was changing, as more latin americans moved in and asians, blacks, and whites moved out. In 1984, a typical apartment rent in this borough would cost around $90.00 a month. Today, the same apartment might cost $100 a month and from $1100-1200 a year. High Bridge is a borough with a lot of residential area and not a lot of commercial residence.
Eleanor Bumpurs was an African American 300-pound woman in her late sixties. She was 5’8 and she was suffering from arthritis and diabetes. She also had children and grandchildren.
Eleanor lived in the Sedgwick houses in the Highbridge section the Bronx at 1551 University Avenue West 174th street. Her monthly rent was $89.44. She had failed to pay her rent for 5 months and now owed $387.40. The incident took place on Monday October 29, 1984 at 9:00 a.m.
Eleanor was assumed to be mentally ill by the housing commission and the police. On the day of the incident, she was found naked and hysterical in a room the size of a closet. On the morning of October 29th, an article in the New York Times on October 30th, 1984, stated that first Emergency service officers were alerted to the scene by the housing police. They approached her and saw that she had a 10-inch butchers knife. She lunged at one of the police officers (John Elter) but his partner, Stephen Sullivan, shot her in the chest with a shotgun. A second article in the New York Times on November 1st, 1984, states that after Miss Bumpurs being told by her daughter not to open her door for anyone, she was frightened and grabbed a knife in defense when her door was broken down. After an incident in 1979 where a man had been shot 21 times, the police’s new procedure was to send in men with restraining orders and plastic shield to deal with mentally ill people. After they cornered her and she swiftly dodged their shields and restraining prods, she hit one of the shields and attempted to stab an officer. She was then shot with a shotgun rather than a revolver because it was found to be more certain to stop the attacker. In yet another report in the New York Times on December 29th, 1984, a strong racial activist wrote in a semi-editorial that a SWAT team of 6 officers wearing bulletproof vests and carrying shields, clubs, and shotguns arrived at Eleanor Bumpurs apartment. When they broke through her door they found her naked and hysterical, in a small room the size of a closet. The report says they shot her hand, nearly amputating it. The loss of her right hand could be considered as payment for her debts. The officer could have let it go after that while she continuously apologized but instead he shot her in the chest.
OUR INTERPRETATION: We interpret all of this information to lead to an old obese woman who was always slow to pay her rent, was confronted by police officers with an unreasonable amount of equipment for just one old woman. She was terrified after her daughter warned her not to open the door so she grabbed a butcher’s knife when the men entered her apartment. After being restrained with metal prods, she used self-defense and tried to slash the men with her knife but missed, and was shot in the chest. She died soon after in the hospital.
Many people were astonished and outraged that 6 police officers were needed to restrain a woman in her late sixties and that there was a need for her to be killed over rent payments. Many journalists wrote biased articles toward the police questioning procedures and need for deadly weapons. So many people felt strongly in outrage about the incident that it lead the mayor to organize a committee to question police procedures.
Stephen Sullivan, the 19-year veteran officer who killed Eleanor, was dismissed from manslaughter charges during his grand jury trial. Sullivan’s defense was that he shot in order to protect a fallen comrade who was in the path of Eleanor’s kitchen knife. Even though Eleanor was unnecessarily shot, instances such as this have been repeated many times since her death, even in neighborhoods very close to hers. In 1985, after her death, the mayor ordered a commission to redefine police procedures. But this attempt was lost because two years later, it was concluded that the police officer’s decisions were not based on race and very little in the procedure was changed in the future. Eleanor is still thought of as a symbol of police brutality. In our opinion, the police officers should have been convicted, and still to this day, police are able to get away with murder.
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