The Bullet That Changed Tampa

By JANIS D. FROELICH The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jun 11, 2007

TAMPA - Not many turning points in a city's life can be pinpointed to the day, hour and minute.

A suppertime drama 40 years ago qualifies.

At 6:25 p.m. on June 11, 1967, a black teenager was shot in the back by a white police officer, triggering a fitful calamity.

Hours after Martin Chambers' death, rioters burned, looted and trashed buildings, marking the beginning of the end for a bustling, black business district.

Central Avenue was a hub of more than 100 stores and restaurants within shouting distance of mainly white downtown. Its nightclubs and beer gardens drew some of the all-time-great blues, jazz and soul entertainers, including a young Ray Charles.

The bullet that killed Chambers drove the fun-loving crowds away, and they never fully returned. In the 1970s, the remains of Central Avenue were wiped away by interstate construction.

Four decades on, Chambers' death and the shuddering aftermath are helping shape the rebirth of Central.

Since December, an advisory committee of 14 influential black men and women, along with two Hispanics, has been pondering the revitalization of Perry Harvey Sr. Park, 1200 N. Orange Ave.

The 11-acre park, which incorporates much of Central, including near where Chambers was killed, was originally a peace offering. Four days after Chambers' death, Mayor Nick Nuccio promised a 5-acre tract in the Central Park Village area, telling teens to decide which facilities they wanted.

But it would be more than a decade before the austere park, with a few acres added, opened.

Now, with a battered basketball court and leaky skateboard park, it's time for a $3.5 million overhaul, with history sure to permeate the renovations.

"This is the most dangerous committee I've ever served on," Tampa poet laureate James Tokley boomed at the committee's meeting in May.

"We have the money. All that's needed from us is ideas," Tokley said. "And if we come up short, we've betrayed the park and the people we represent."

A Chase, Then A Shot

Chambers was a lanky 19-year-old, a 10th-grade dropout whose brushes with the law included petty crimes such as trespassing.

On the scorching evening of June 11, 1967, with temperatures hitting 94 degrees, the shirtless Chambers was running with his buddies Calvin Monroe and Edward Thomas after a burglary at the Tampa Photo Supply Warehouse on Ella Mae Street. More than $100 worth of Polaroid cameras and film had been stolen, according to police records.

Among those chasing the three suspects on foot was Patrolman James Calvert.

Calvert told investigators he was aiming for Chambers' right shoulder when he fired from more than 25 feet away. The same testimony revealed Calvert, an officer from 1965 to 1978, had failed his last pistol marksmanship test.

Calvert also recounted Chambers' last words: "Get me to a hospital, please, mister."

Chambers was not armed.

A watchful, angry neighborhood soon grew violent. Before the three days of rioting ended, 500 Florida National Guardsmen, 235 Florida Highway Patrol troopers and 250 local law enforcement officers had been called to duty.

Howard Harris was a chauffeur in St. Petersburg in June 1967. When the trouble started, he hurried to help his father, who ran the popular Rogers Dining Room across from where Chambers was shot.

Harris, 72, said he and his father accompanied Robert Gilder, president of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, into the neighborhood to talk peace.

"Young bucks were lined up on the ground taking shots at the helicopters overhead," he recalled. "They had looted a gun store right down the street."

Russell Person lived across from seashell-paved Harrison Street, where Chambers was shot.

"It was rough for us blacks," said Person, 80. "They [law enforcement] were in power. I saw police on the street, I got out of the way."

Before frustrated blacks burned down seven neighborhood businesses, he said, the cry on the street was "Let's get the white man."

Arsonists headed for Central Avenue Market, owned by a white family. In the act, black-owned buildings also were destroyed.

Final Resting Place

Jim McKeehan was on duty at the Sulphur Springs fire station 40 years ago. He helped extinguish the Central Avenue flames, fearful of snipers' bullets but determined to save what he could.

"Some buildings were concrete, but the roofs and contents were gone in a flash," he said.

McKeehan, 72, retired after 21 years with the fire department. Today, he is president of his family's 30-acre Rest Haven Memorial Park, 4615 E. Hanna Ave.

Chambers is buried a few feet from the front door of Rest Haven's modest white office.

In plain cement lettering, the coffin-shaped vault lid reads:

Martin Van Chambers

Oct. 31, 1947

June 11, 1967

Rest In Peace

On a recent morning, McKeehan looked down briefly at Chambers' grave then pointed to the next one. The inscription reads:

Jerome King Chambers, 1954 to 1971. At Rest.

The younger brother died of a tainted drug, records show.

McKeehan couldn't immediately recall the grave site of the boys' mother, who died in April 1996. Finally, he spied the listing on his office computer.

The burial place of Janie Bell Chambers isn't far from her sons' graves. McKeehan pointed to the patch of dry grass. No marker.

'Justice Must Prevail'

The day after her son was shot, Janie Bell Chambers confronted Gov. Claude Kirk when he visited the riot scene.

"Right must prevail, and justice must prevail," she told him.

A few days later, Chambers collapsed when Hillsborough County State Attorney Paul Antinori said an inquiry had found Calvert was justified in shooting her son.

Antinori's seven-page report said "this was the only means to prevent the complete escape of Chambers."

Antinori, now a lawyer in private practice, didn't return calls for comment.

In the report, Calvin Monroe acknowledged "full participation in the burglary and larceny and fully implicated Martin Chambers the decedent."

When Monroe answered the subpoena to testify, he appeared with his mother, Ruby, and was given complete immunity.

In May 1983, Monroe stabbed his mother 16 times after she accused him of stealing her tape recorder and bicycle. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder, records show.

In the 1990s, Monroe was housed in the same state prison as Thomas, his buddy from 1967, who was serving time for armed robbery.

Monroe now lives a few streets from Rest Haven.

"The riots of 1967!" he said when reached by telephone recently. "I don't want to talk about that."

Essie Mae Reed, a longtime activist for Central Park Village residents, recalls the Chambers family as tragic.

The families' back doors faced each other, and Reed and Janie Bell Chambers belonged to a women's club in the public housing complex. In addition to social activities, group members helped their neighbors.

"If I had chicken and steak to eat," said Reed, 76, who now lives in Brandon, "I couldn't be comfortable knowing my neighbor had neck bones."

Reed, whose daughter Sheila Reed Palmore serves on the Harvey Park advisory committee, said Janie Bell Chambers was a gifted singer and devoted to family.

"Opportunities began to materialize for us poor, black people," Reed said of the shooting's aftermath. "The NAACP, Urban League and city leaders took an interest. Suddenly, we got the little things like decent stoves and refrigerators. But more importantly, we were listened to and our youth was given jobs."

Reed paused and added in a defiant tone, "As long as I live, I'll remember what Martin Chambers had in his pocket that day: two dimes, one nickel and two pennies."

A Need For Urgency

In the 1960s, about one-sixth of the city's more than 350,000 residents were black.

On the day Chambers was shot, 14 of the city's 505 police officers were black. Robert C. Oates was one of them.

Oates reported spotting Chambers hiding under a house north of Harrison and telling him, "Come on, get your butt out of there."

He said Chambers outran him, heading to a fence bordering homes on Cass and Harrison streets. Oates circled around to the front of a house. Calvert chased Chambers to the back, where he ordered the teen to halt.

Oates, a retired Hillsborough County sheriff's major living in Thonotosassa, recently declined to talk about the shooting.

During the riots, black residents known as the White Hats took to the streets to calm nerves. The group, wearing police-issued helmets, numbered 130. Its leaders were later hired at $1.59 an hour by the city to survey and report on problems in poor neighborhoods.

J.O. Brookins, a black doctor, coined the group's name.

"He had the idea from his time in the Coast Guard," said his son Ronald Brookins, who along with his brother, James Brookins II, operates the nonprofit Community Health Advocacy Partnership.

Ronald Brookins, 51, said his father thought recruiting youngsters was the best way to defuse the riots.

"It worked," he said. "We wanted to reinforce in them to be responsible, to think of themselves as leaders."

Delano Stewart was three years out of law school and a leader in the Young Democrats in 1967.

"The shooting of Martin Chambers made people more cognizant of the urgency of some of the problems, especially affecting the poor," said Stewart, a Tampa lawyer.

He represented Janie Bell Chambers in her unsuccessful lawsuit against the city and Calvert, which sought $500,000 for the killing of her son "in violation of his civil rights."

Stewart, who was the county's first black assistant public defender, said his client was embittered.

Chambers, who held a news conference at her son's grave in 1992 to mark the 25th anniversary of the shooting, also failed to get a formal apology for his death.

"In essence," Stewart said, "the law was saying her son committed an error that required the electric chair. He was executed."

But, Stewart added quickly, "Tampa is not a bad town. There's been progress."

"You don't quit the church because you see sin."

Researcher Diane K. Grey contributed to this report. Reporter Janis D. Froelich can be reached at (813) 835-2104 or jfroelich@tampatrib.com.