the "profiteering" of merchants and asked the city council to pass an anti-gouging ordinance. Events The crimes reported to police included looting, arson, and sniping, and took place in many different areas of Detroit: on the west side of Woodward Avenue, extending from the 12th Street neighborhood to Grand River Avenue and as far south as Michigan Avenue and Trumbull, near Tiger Stadium. East of Woodward, the area around East Grand Boulevard, which goes east/west then north–south to Belle Isle, was involved. However, the entire city was affected between Sunday, July 23, and Thursday, July 27. July 23 Arrest of party guests In the early hours of Sunday (3:45 a.m.), July 23, 1967, Detroit Police Department (DPD) officers raided an unlicensed weekend drinking club (known locally as a blind pig) in the office of the United Community League for Civic Action, above the Economy Printing Company, at 9125 12th Street. They expected a few revelers inside, but instead found a party of 82 people celebrating the return of two local GIs from the Vietnam War. The police decided to arrest everyone present. While they were arranging for transportation, a sizable crowd of onlookers gathered on the street, having witnessed the raid. Later, in a memoir, William Walter Scott III, a doorman whose father was running the raided blind pig, took responsibility for starting the riot by inciting the crowd and throwing a bottle at a police officer. Beginning of looting After the DPD left, the crowd began looting an adjacent clothing store. Shortly thereafter, full-scale looting began throughout the neighborhood. The Michigan State Police, Wayne County Sheriff's Department, and the Michigan Army National Guard were alerted, but because it was Sunday, it took hours for Police Commissioner Ray Girardin to assemble sufficient manpower. Meanwhile, witnesses described seeing a "carnival atmosphere" on 12th Street. The DPD, inadequate in number and wrongly believing that the rioting would soon expire, just stood there and watched. Police did not make their first arrest until 7 a.m., three hours after the raid on the blind pig. To the east, on Chene Street, reports said the crowd was of mixed composition. The pastor of Grace Episcopal Church along 12th Street reported that he saw a "gleefulness in throwing stuff and getting stuff out of buildings". The police conducted several sweeps along 12th Street, which proved ineffective because of the unexpectedly large numbers of people outside. The