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Next day a bomb hoax at the all-Negro New Stanton High School brought 1,500 jeering, rock-tossing students face to face with a handful of Jacksonville cops. A Negro policeman collared one punk, only to have the mob free him from the patrol car. More arrests brought more rocks and bottles whistling through the air. Seeing that they were only angering the crowd, not controlling it, the lawmen pulled out, leaving reporters to fend for themselves. All escaped unscathed except for a LIFE reporter, who was beaten.
By week's end Jacksonville cops had arrested 492 Negroes, of whom 218 were under 17. And the rioting subsided. The reason: Mayor Burns, who for weeks had insisted that he would handle the situation all by himself, suddenly called for formation of a biracial committee "to allay all unrest and to resolve all differences."