No. 724.
Mr. Bayard to Baron de
Fava.
Washington, April 16, 1888.
Sir: I have bad the honor to receive your note of the 11th instant in regard to the search of a number of Italians at Buffalo, in the State of New York, suspected of carrying concealed weapons in violation of law.
As appears by the papers accompanying your note this measure was taken in consequence of the commission lately of two murders and the occurrence of numerous stabbing affrays among the Italian inhabitants and in the Italian quarter of the city.
The Department can hardly consider the newspaper clipping which you inclose as competent proof of the facts therein stated, but as they have been adverted to and brought to the Department’s attention, it is permissible to allude to the mode of living which they disclose, and which, in connection with the violations of law that have recently occurred, may not unnaturally give rise to uneasiness in the community and require vigilant precautions in the execution of the law.
It does not appear that the search was attended with any exhibition of violence, nor is any ground whatever discovered for the supposition that it was actuated by malevolence. It was completed in an hour and two men were arrested who were found with knives. What might have been the result of the search if notice of it had not been given in advance in the newspapers can only be conjectured. But it is not impossible that the prior publication by the superintendent of police of his intention to make the search may account in a measure for the absence of weapons which it disclosed. These observations are made not with a view to enter into a discussion of the merits of the case at this stages but only for the purpose of stating the impression the Department has derived from the papers which seemed to you to warrant severe criticism on the action and motives of the Buffalo authorities.
In regard to your inference that the police acted upon a false interpretation of the penal code of New York, it is not competent for the Department to express an opinion. There can be no doubt that if the officers of the police exceeded their powers and violated the law in respect to the exemption of persons from unwarrantable arrests, an action lies against them for their misconduct, and in that way the law can be duly interpreted by the competent judicial authorities.
Accept, etc.,