Saturday, August 6th, 1988 was a hot summer night at Tompkins Square Park on the Lower East Side. Unwitting pedestrians made their way home from restaurants or on their way to local bars to beat the debilitating humidity that kept the temperature above 90F even at night. When hundreds of NYPD officers falsely called to the park by a confused and scared former police captain who was left without supervision by top cops who had left the scene to use the bathroom. The resulting "police riot" as it was called in the media led to more than 120 injuries among mostly residents if neighborhood. No officers were punished despite a scathing report. It was one of the first cases of citizen journalist video coverage to document police brutality years before the famous Rodney King incident. This tape was created by Paul DeRienzo