The Case Files
Photos from a Violent Decade
A photographic record of the riots, the patrols, the protests and the people of Dayton between 1965 and 1975 — assembled from the case files, newspaper morgues and personal collections behind Blood in the Streets.
FILE 64 · DOWNTOWN
“No More Tokenism”
Civil rights pickets march outside Rike’s department store downtown — “Direct Action Gets Results.”
FILE 60 · THE BEAT
The beat cop
A Dayton patrolman in summer blues — an era of low-tech, street-level policing.
FILE 68 · RECRUITMENT
“Dayton Needs You”
Ptl. Gerald Brame, Dayton Police recruiter, circa 1968 — working to integrate the force.
FILE 66 · UNREST
Taken from the strip
Helmeted officers escort handcuffed young men past West Side storefronts during a summer disturbance.
FILE 66 · NIGHT
Into the wagon
Handcuffed and led to the Dayton police wagon after dark.
FILE 67 · PATROL
The street belongs to no one
Helmeted guardsmen and a Dayton officer move through a damaged commercial block.
FILE 67 · CURFEW
Fixed bayonets
The Ohio National Guard posted along a West Side block under curfew.
EXHIBIT · MAP
A city divided
The West Side and East Side, split by the Great Miami River — the geography at the heart of the story.
FILE 71 · THE FORCE
Dayton’s Black officers
Holley, Hill, Sampson, Spells, Frazier, Saunders, Capers and their fellow officers — named in the roster below the photograph.
FILE 69 · EVIDENCE
An arsenal off the street, 1969
Rifles, pistols and belted ammunition seized and catalogued by Dayton detectives.
FILE 70–74 · NARCOTICS
Confiscated arsenals (and drugs)
Detectives Dan Baker and Dick Walley; Sgt. Dan Baker and Det. Tony Spells — co-author Daniel Baker’s years in the field.
FILE 74 · OFF DUTY
After midnight
A candid frame from the mid-1970s — the people behind the badge between shifts.