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THE ALGIERS MOTEL INCIDENT by John Hersey

THE ALGIERS MOTEL INCIDENT

By

Pub Date: June 28th, 1968
ISBN: 0801857775
Publisher: Knopf

Here is Hersey's cauterizing exemplification of the ""most intransigent and fear ridden issue in American life"" via the Algiers Motel incident, the wanton murders of three alleged ""snipers"" and attendant sexual abuses by the police during the Detroit riot. Beyond the specter of interracial sex there's the primary question of unequal justice which the black populace faces, from the cop on the beat to the judge in the courtroom. Hersey interviews the families and associates of the three dead boys, finds the incident was literally triggered by some byplay with a starter pistol. It was all ineluctably evident -- from police officer Senak's ""I was overzealous"" to the mother of one of the victims regretting the police's failure to notify her of her son's death ""It's a hurting feeling."" All the sociodynamics of the racial thunderhead -- an intense, intensive documentary.