Victims of the 1967 Detroit Riot At the conclusion of five days of rioting, 43 people were dead and 1189 injured. As in Newark, the majority of riot fatalities (79%) were black, shot by police and National Guardsmen for alleged looting, sniping, and curfew violations. Several Detroit residents were mortally wounded in their own apartments by gunfire directed at alleged snipers. Tonya Blanding, aged 4, was the youngest victim. She was killed by gunfire from a National Guard tank when her father lit a cigarette near the window of their darkened apartment. Helen Hall, a 51 year-old white woman, was similarly shot through the window of her hotel room where she was staying during a business trip. The oldest victim of the riot was Krikor "George" Messerlian, a 68 year-old male who owned a shoe repair shop. He was killed on the first day of rioting while defending his property with a baseball bat. Finally, as the riot wound down, three unarmed black teenagers were shot by police at the Algiers Hotel, now made famous by John Hersey's book, The Algiers Motel Incident.