restore order. Thirty-one men and boys were later convicted of charges related to the riot. Louis Peck was convicted in less than 20 minutes; there was no lawyer who would take his case. In 1913 he was freed by Governor Cox for wrongful imprisonment. Extortion racket Akron was one of the first Mafia cities in the 20th century Midwest. The Black Hand, led by Don Rosario Borgio, who arrived in Akron in the early 1900s, was headquartered on the city's north side. Using a general goods store as a front, Borgio set up two back rooms for illegal operations. All of the gambling and brothels in the city were subjected to extortion, along with wealthy citizens of the Italian North Hill neighborhood. In 1918 the Akron Police Department started aggressively raiding Borgio's gambling and prostitution houses, locking up the operators and patrons. Due to the interference, Borgio held a meeting in his store with Black Hand leaders, giving the order to slay all the police in the city, offering a $250 reward for each one killed. The order led to the murders of Officers Guy Norris, Edward Costigan, Joe Hunt, and Gethin Richards. Following the case filed against him by New York Detective Fiaschetti over the slayings, Borgio was executed in the electric chair. After the execution Mafia activity in Akron greatly decreased. Wooster Avenue riots of 1968 In July 1968, several riots occurred over the span of several days centered in the city's mostly black populated Wooster Avenue/Edgewood Avenue area. Relations between citizens and the Akron Police Department (APD) were already poor when on July 16, APD officers were called to quell fights in the area between black gangs from the city's north and west sides. Although initially quelled, the gang members continued a running fight with one another and the APD well into the morning. The police department reinforced their patrols in the area and imposed a curfew. The next day many residents of the area gathered on Wooster Avenue, having heard rumors of excessive violence on the part of the APD. The black citizens began berating and challenging the APD officers. With the first arrests of some of the citizens, the level of confrontation and hostilities rose until a full-scale riot was in progress. Most local citizens retreated to their homes or left the area altogether. The riot spread to downtown Akron, and later that evening the