We expect your immediate action now.

It is of utmost importance that immediate remedial action be taken-first, in the form of long term low interest loans; secondly, in protection against threats and constraints against resuming business activity.

As your constituent-we are looking to you for redress in this untenable situation.

Our store at 1918 Seventh Street NW., Washington, D.C., was burned to the ground on April 5, 1968, and all of our assets with it.

Respectfully yours,

BERNIE M. HORWITZ.

[Editorial broadcast by WMAL/AM/FM/TV, Washington, D.C., during the week of July 21, 1968]

POLICE-COMMUNITY RELATIONS

D.C. City Council Chairman John Hechinger has recently been pounding the drum for better police-community relations. We are in accord with the goal and the philosophy behind it. But we fear that police-community relations is a term often used, but seldom defined. Even the comprehensive D.C. Crime Commission report is vague on this aspect of police work.

The Metropolitan Police have had a Police-Community Relations Unit since 1964. Related activities, such as the Police Boys Club, are much older.

But the field of police-community relations should reach far beyond the precinct walls-into the classroom, the pulpit and the media. To some extent, it has. But the field remains broad and vague and should be explored by the City Council. This is an area the soon-to-be established Joint Congressional Committee on Crime might also adopt as a first order of national business.

[From the Evening Star, Aug. 8, 1968]/

OWNER QUITS WITH GUN BLAZING-HOLDUP NO. 10 CLOSES 20-YEAR-OLD NW PHARMACY

(By Gerald Somerville, Star staff writer)

Henry R. Peters says he is closing the drugstore he has run for 20 years-crime is the reason.

Yesterday the 52-year-old Negro pharmacist, who has been held up or been the victim of burglars four times in the last year and 10 times since opening his store, prepared to lock the doors.

Peters called it quits after the latest holdup occurred in his store at 2917 Georgia Ave., NW, Tuesday when three gunmen walked in, made him lie on the floor and, after pointing a pistol at his head, demanded cash and narcotics.

The druggist managed to escape from a room he had been locked in, climbed quickly to a second-story balcony and fired five shots at the three as they fled from his store on foot. The bandits dropped the $135 and some drugs when Peters opened fire.

"The police have also arrested one suspect, but that doesn't stop me from closing up. I've had it," he said.

Peters story is nothing new to many District small businessmen. "Many more would pull out too," he declared, “but they can't find buyers or people willing to take over for them."

"My wife and I have averaged 14 to 16 hours a day building this business up,” Peters said. "We started with a $500 loan and have grown to a point where we fill more than 200 prescriptions daily and employ 12 other people. But I'd rather give it up now than be dead."

The Massachusetts native admits he's afraid. "It's no use," he continued, I'm scared now. I'm afraid to go home, afraid to go out back of the store and I'm forced to carry a pistol with me at all times.

"I've spent thousands of dollars securing my home and store," he said, "but in the past 20 years I've been robbed of more than $15,000. I can't stand any more losses and my delivery drivers can't be bonded anymore."

The medium built, gray-haired businessman said he may return to the Boston area where he grew up and graduated from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. But his plans are still uncertain. "My whole life is in this game," he said. "I don't know anything else."

To add to his frustrations, Peters said in each instance it was Negroes who have held him up. “My own people, whom I've been charged to help, are making me quit," he said.

"They talk about starting businesses for ourselves," Peters continued. "but these robbers don't let us succeed. It's a damn shame. Maybe they don't realize it, but they're only giving white racists like Wallace and his group ammunition." Peters said he has been active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups for many years and was also a member of the District Board of Pharmacy for six years. "They used to keep Negroes off the board," he said. "But I fought hard to get us admitted, so we could do things for our people."

In a final gesture Peters, who also taught at the Howard School of Pharmacy, pointed to one of his young employes, 25-year-old Douglas Norris. "See that young fellow," he said, "he told me he was quitting even before I decided to get out. It's a shame."

Explained Norris: "You don't know what to expect anymore. Anything can happen at anytime."