Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs & the Police Killing That Galvanized New York City

This immersive account from historian Harris (Sex Workers, Psychics, and Number Runners) revisits the 1984 police slaying of a disabled 66-year-old grandmother that led to massive public outcry. Born into a poor family in North Carolina in 1918, Eleanor Bumpurs later migrated to New York, where she raised seven kids as a single mother. In her 60s, her mental health and financial circumstances deteriorated. On Oct. 29, 1984, police officer Stephen Sullivan, who was present for an eviction proceeding, shot Bumpurs twice, killing her. Sullivan claimed he acted in self-defense, as Bumpurs had been holding a knife. His account was viewed skeptically by many, given that his first shot detached several fingers of the hand holding the knife, disarming Bumpurs and making the second fatal shot to her chest unnecessary even by Sullivan’s own account. With a kaleidoscopic view of the shooting’s aftermath that draws on interviews, court proceedings, and national and international reactions, Harris paints the killing as a major turning point in American political consciousness, when Black activists and the public began to question police treatment of the disabled and mentally ill. (Pro-police newspapers covering the slaying “kept referring to the fact that [Bumpurs] weighed 300 pounds as if it were a crime to be 300 pounds,” according to one activist.) The result is an elegantly written and riveting view of a pivotal but little-remembered political sea change. (Aug.)