MAYHEM & MISHAP: How They Died

THOUGH the loss of lives was astonishingly low, 43 Americans (39 of them men) died as a result of the riots that followed Martin Luther King's murder. Of these, 36 were Negroes; 14, all but one of them Negroes, were under 21 years old. Bullets slew 25 of the victims. Unknown assailants took the lives of eight; nine were slain by private citizens; police killed 13. Ten died in fires or from inhaling smoke and three from other causes. In contrast with last summer's bloodbath, not one killing was blamed on the National Guard or the federal troops who were called into the cities.

There was a typically tragic progression to some deaths. Mrs. Hattie Johnson of Cincinnati was chatting with James Smith, a caretaker, at the doorway to a store when his shotgun discharged and killed her. Charged with manslaughter, he said youths approached to loot the store, and his gun went off in the scuffle. All involved were Negroes; yet rumors that Mrs. Johnson was killed by a "white honky cop" sparked a riot. Noel Wright, 30, a white University of Cincinnati graduate student, was yanked from his car, beaten and fatally stabbed while his wife was savaged by Negro girls.

Some deaths were unwilled accidents of anarchy. Eleven-month-old Everett Austin of Chicago burned to death in his crib when a fire was set in his family's third-floor apartment. His mother was next door.

Some Negroes were victims of roaming predators. Rudolph Hargett, 18, a Negro Air Force recruit home on leave in Jacksonville, Fla., was astride his bicycle when he was shot in the head by a .22-rifle bullet that apparently came from a car full of night-riding whites. The Rev. George E. McKinney, 50, and his 16-year-old son were crossing the street not far from their home in Kansas City when both were shot down either by an unknown sniper or by police gunfire.

At least two whites were deliberately killed by Negroes overwrought by the assassination of King. In Minneapolis, John F. Murray, 25, was shot three times in the head, reportedly by a man who lives in Murray's housing project. Police charged unemployed Factory Hand Clarence C. Underwood with the killing and said he dropped a gun when accosted and cried: "Shoot me--Martin Luther King is dead!" In the Virgin Islands, Contractor Roger D. McKibbin Jr. was knifed to death at a drive-in ice-cream store while his three young children watched. Police arrested Michael Raymond Crowe, 29, a former mental patient from New York who was said to have vowed to kill the first white man he saw.

Some of the deaths were caused by the natural hazards of insurrection. Negro Construction Worker Harold Bentley, 34, was walking close to a smoldering Washington building when a wall collapsed on him. Lois T. Majette, 20, was killed when the car in which she was riding collided with a police cruiser on the way to Baltimore's riot scene. In all, despite disorders in 168 communities, only six lives were taken by rioters' anger.

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