police story by alan stang american opinion march 1980
TRANSCRIPT
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8/21/2019 Police Story by Alan Stang American Opinion March 1980
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H. Ar m strong Robert
Alan Stang is author of It s Very Simple; The Actor; and The Highest
Virtue . His radio commentary Th e lan
Stan
g Report is heard on 100
st at ions. Mr . S tang holds
a
Ma ster s Degree from Colum bia University .
• IN OUSTON policeman Leroy Tut-
tle is in the hospital, as your reporter
sets this down. Tuttle was shot six
times, allegedly by Elroy Vasquez
Martinez
, who is charged with
at-
tempted capital murder. The victim
says he knew that
the
accused had a
pistol. He saw it . Tuttle
had
Vasquez
in his own pistol sights,
but
did not
shoot : I thought he was a juvenile,
M R H. 1980
and I knew that, if he was a juvenile, I
could see me in
the
newspapers
and
in
front of internal affairs. Sure, I hes
itated. I won t hesitate again - not so
long as
I m
riding
the
s
treet
s.
Tuttle
explains
that
grand
jury
investiga
tions
and
trials of police officers in
recent years have
had
an effect on
us all.
Multiply Officer Tuttle s state of
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In supporting our local police to keep them
independent it is essential that we insist upon
maintenance of high professional standards in
recruiting, training, administration, and pay.
Efforts are being made by Liberals to reduce
the quality of our police forces through penury
and radica l hiring and training practices.
mind by many thousa nds and you will
have one of
the
biggest reasons t
hat
police morale across the country is as
bad as Leroy Brown. Los Angeles
the crime figures for 1979 are in.
Rape was up eig
ht
pe
rcent
. Aggra
vated assault was up eig
hteen
perce
nt.
Robbery was up twenty-one percent .
Murder was up twenty-four percent.
There
is a manpower shortage to such
an extent t
hat
less se rious crimes
such
as
theft and
burg
lary will
not
be
investigated unless
the perpetrators
accidentally fall into
the
police cars.
This of course amounts to official
encouragement of criminals to make
those crime statistics even worse.
Also in Los Angeles revolutionaries
ar
e pushing the discredited scheme
called a civilian police review
board. Such boards have been in
stalled and then removed in cities
across the country precise ly because
they serve only to te rrorize the police.
But
t he Los Angeles Times and other
such
L iberal institutions have been
gene rating anti-police propaganda be
cause a while back police killed a
woman who refused to pay a gas
bill. The fact t
hat
the woman was
attac
king the officers wit h a kn ife is
J
ignored.
i
short the collectivist scheme to
; para
lyze police agencies
cont
inues.
The
idea is to engineer a breakdown
and thereby
to provoke such anarchy
MARCH 9
t
hat
the peopl e can be tricked into
demanding a
state and
federal
take
over of our local police as the o nly
solution to crime. This of course is
nothing new. Hi tler did just about the
same thing when he sent the brown
shirts into the streets of German
cities to incite chaos and then gave
the te rrorized population
the so
lu
tio
n
by means of a
tota litarian
dic
tato
rship including the national police
force called the
Gestapo
Along
these
l ines Los Angeles
County
District Attorney
John
Van
De
Kamp
says crime is now so bad
that fundi ng for the federal Law
Enforcement Assistance
Admin
istra
tion sho uld be
substantially
in
creased. By
means
of
var
ious
L.
E.A
.A. grants the federal govern
ment has been trying to take control
of our local police.
The
so-called
Libera ls who are doing everything
possible to neutralize local law en
forceme
nt
in general are the very
same people who petulantly d
emand
t hat t he fede ral government t ake over
our police .
All of this ha s long been familiar
to regular read ers of AMERICAN
O
N
IO
N. Becau se of this scheme our
system of loca l police agencies de
serves our intensified s
upport
. So do
the many thousands of fine local of
ficers who
are
now
unjustly under at
tack. Unfortunately t here is another
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aspect of the problem
that
is even
more diabolical than what we have
mentioned.
Attack From it in
Infiltration is standard operating
procedure for C
ommuni
sts and other
subversives.
The
Reds use it every
where, in every country they target. It
is imp ossibl e to conceive of Commu
nism without it.
in a still-free
country, an organization has any size,
power, or influence, then you can be
sure tha t an effort is being made to
subvert it . Experience has shown that
it would be silly to
think
otherwise.
Subversives infiltrate in order to per
vert
an institution to their own uses.
Others even commit the blasphemy
of presenting themselves as clergy
men
in order to manipulate and lead
believers. In any country, the military
is typically one of the strongest reser
voirs of patriotism, but the Reds also
enli
st
and work for promotion of their
people to
the
highest ranks; where
they wait for orders from their Com
munist superiors. While they wait ,
they lab or to seem more conscientious
and patriotic
than
anybody else.
Tha
t
is why infiltration is so diabolical.
Is it necessary to add that , the
world over, Communists always at
tem
pt
to do the same thing to the po
lice?
The
y realize
that
you mu
st
con
tr ol the police to control a country.
Without that control your planned
dictatorship must fail. And
the
sick
ening fact is that America's local po
lice are now being so weakened that
they are becoming targets for infil
tration and manipulation.
As your reporter sets this down, for
instance, word arrives from
San
Francisco
that
Police Chief Cornelius
P . Murphy has joined in a campaign to
at tract more homo sexuals to the
force. The campaign will include
public-serv ice radio
and
television
spots . Thousands of po
ster
s will be
MARCH 198
displayed in those San Francisco
neighborhoods occupied by deviants.
They read: You Don't Have To Be
Straight To Be A Good Cop.
Thi
s
way to the lineup, boys
And you thought t he situation was
already crazy enough
This sort of weakening is occur
ring all along the thin blue line . A
veteran Los Angeles County sher
if
fs
deputy tells your reporter that
t he training at the academy used to
be considered stricter. It used to
be like the Marines. If you failed
three tests, you were out . Now you
can t
be fired from the academy for
performance. The result is official
encouragement of stupidity
and
un
professional behavior .
For in
stance, there's a guy who gets his
jollies thumping people. One victim
lost his testicles. The other deputies
testifying
against
the guy lost their
memories. Why bea t and brag un
less the idea is to make all law
enforcement officers look
bad
?
In Compton, says the depu ty , there
are literal criminals in the depart
ment.
The
standards have been low
ered. He speaks of a bla ck officer
who booked 'a whi te officer for
thumping. In another case, also in
Compton,
the
police terrified the vic
t im of a robbery to such an extent
t hat he withdrew his complai
nt
.
Remember
t hat this report isn't
coming to us from a revolutionary
Communist group. This is coming
from a veteran deputy;
and
what he
describes sounds like a sort of civil
war in law enforcement. The deputy
can t put his finger on it, but he is
strongly convinced
that
subversives
are operating in the
Sheriffs Depart
ment
.' It makes you wonder
jus
t how
many have been slipped in
on
you.
They
don t
make it obvious. 'Liberals'
come in. They think we're against
blacks and Mexi cans. But there is
more to it than that .
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Not
only are there now
bad
dep
uties, he says , there is also a strange
new
attitude
among
the
brass. He
speaks of one
lieutenant
who
wrote
that cops are overpaid and we could
do away with half of
them
.
This
of
course does not have a
buoyant
effect
on morale. On top of which there are
the same
old problems.
The deputy
say
s his partner
has
backed off
hype (narcotics) arrests because
the
public defender is allowed to
haras
s him for this. You
can
t do
the
job today because of cour t rulings.
You even have to reveal your infor
mants.
Ju
st
about
the
same views come
from a high-ranking officer in
the
Los Angeles Sheriff s
Department
for
many
years. The biggest prob
lem, he says, is
the
courts,
the
whole
criminal justice system.
It
s
corrupt
,
naive .
They don t care
about
justice.
They
don t
want
to make waves .
But
when a cop shoots somebody, it s ex
actly
the
opposite .
you shoot a kid
in
the
foot, they ll file felony charges
against you.
Th
eDepartment is being purposely
weakened
from
within
. T he en
trance exam today is
much
easier. We
used to boast that only
ten
percent
were good enough to pass. Now, we
boast that seventy five percent will
pass. Sergeants swear to me that ha lf
the
people
the
y mu
st
hire today are
illiterate.
They can t
write an intelli
gent sentence. Luckily, most of these
don
t last
. Some deputies have been
caught
using marijuana. We weed
them
out.
That s
no
pun
.
There are also
the
federal hiring
practices.
The
high-ranking Sheriff s
Department
official speaks of being
forced to hire tiny, little women
and
men. As patriotic Americans we
would like to see
the
Russians do
something so foolish.
The
women s
shooting is
pathetic
.
They
are timid,
weak .
It s
completely
out
of charac-
12
ter . One deputy told me a woman can
do eighty per
cent
of
the
job, bu t you
never knowwhich eighty percent . An
other told his
partner
to wait in
the
car
during a gunfight.
She
did .
The
men
are carrying
the
women .
Your correspondent repor
ted
all of
this to Captain
Barr
y King
and
Sher
iff
Peter J. Pitchess in the la tter s
office. Captain King explained that
the
Departmen
t now employs six
hun
dred
sworn
women
officers. We
have female wa tch
comm
anders.
They
go
out
on patrol.
They
re ri
ght
there with
the
men.
They
get shot,
too.
The
Captain apparently
believes
it is his job to justify this policy in
stead
of fighting it . After all, what
can
he do
about
the
federal
rules?
What about
the
possibility of in
filtration?
Our
necessarily uniden
tified,
high-ranking
Sheriff s
De
partmen
t official says this: Infil
tration
to a sizable degree would sur
prise me. But it s common knowledge
that
the
Communists
infiltrate.
There
are certainly a lot of Liberals
in
the Department.
They ve done a lot
of damage. For instance, there used to
be an Assistant Sheriff,
third
in com
mand,
who specialized in civil rights
and community relations. He re
signed
under
pressure after
twent
y
years. During
the
last
ten
years, he
had
a lot of power
and
promoted peo
ple like
him
self.
Tho
se people are still.
there.
Years ago, our necessarily uniden
tified officer was in this Assistant
Sheriff s
community relations
class , and I realized
that
this guy was
anti-law enforcement. He told us,
We ve got to forget everything we
were doing five years ago. We ve got
to come
out
of
the Stone
Age.We have
to stop beating people . We have to
treat them
like
human
beings. He
used
the
word
N eanderthal .
He was
talking
about
me
The
Assistant
(Continued on page seventy -one. )
MERICAN OPINION
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rom p ge twelve
POLI STORY
Sheriff
apparently
was trying to de
moralize
the
deputies by charging
them
with something
they did not
do
and
had
been warned against since
their days in
the
academy. Today,
that
Assistant Sheriff is a college
professor of criminology, training
tomorrow s top law-enforcement of
ficers.
The
supremely
important
question
arises:
What
would subversives in a
police department do? As we have
seen, they would
try
to demoralize
the
men. Dissembling all
the
way, they
would
try
to
turn
the
people against
the local police, by encouraging genu-
. ine outrages in
the name
of vigorous
law enforcement, which radicals
outside
the
department could
then
use
to
demand
police review boards
and
federal control. As much as
they
dare,
subversives in a police
department
would
try
to antagonize law-abiding
citizens,
and
show lenience to
brutal
criminals. Along these general lines, it
is
standard Communist
operating pro
cedure, during a guerrilla war in a
country
they
are trying to grab, for
the
Reds to commit atrocities while
wearing stolen police
and
Army uni
forms - in order
that
those institu
tions will lose public support.
The
Reds are doing this in
Central
Amer
ica right now.
The
reason it is so vital to under
stand
all this is
that the situation
is
already degenerating daily in our own
country - and as it continues to do so
we
can
expect some
genuine
police
misconduct.
Remember
again
that
we
are not talking
about
the nonsense
concocted by revolutionaries outside
the departments.
We
are talking
about
real misconduct deliberately
committed
or encouraged by revolu
tionaries inside whose purpose in vic
timizing you will be precisely to trick
M R H
1980
you into withdrawing your
support
for local police.
Your reporter by no
means
argues
that
if you are victimized in such an
incident you should excuse it. On
the
contrary, you should go after
the
per
petrator
in every legal way.
The
im
portant thing to remember is that as
the
subversives
try
to grab your de
partment
the
good guys, in
the
over
whelming majority, will need your
support more than ever.
could be a
fatal mistake to
blame
them
for the
excesses of a few subversives or of
incompetents deliberately infiltrated
into
the department.
We talked
about this
with Sheriff
Pitchess. In conversation he comes
off like a conservative. He deplores
crime, narcotics,
youth
gangs whose
members have become
predatory
animals,
federal interference,
and
the
Permissive Society. He criticizes
Bleeding Hearts. The permissive so
ciety brought us to
the state
we are in.
We need to get tougher. We need to
send people to jail.
The
bleeding
hearts
have
made the
family inef
fective. would be tragic if our citi
zens have to become
their
own police
men. On
the other
hand, you
can t
live
in fear. And people are
living in fear .
They stay
at home,
behind barred
windows. We re suffering from siege
mentalit.y. He believes it would be
better
to
leave tax
money here,
rather than take
it to Washington.
There s
only one problem, only one .
Peter
Pitchess is opposed to
the
pri
vate ownership of (hand)guns. In
deed, the Los Angeles Herald Exam-
iner editorialized as follows on June 7,
1972:
While
we usually agree with
Sheriff Peter Pitchess
and
consider
him
to be one of
the
most effective
law enforcement officers in
the
na
tion, we
cannot support
his call for
legislation to
ban the
sale
and
posses
sion of
hand
guns
and
to outlaw shot
guns and rifles should they become
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maj or in
struments
of future mur
ders. Three weeks later, in Washing
ton,
Pit
chess told a Congressional
Subcomm
itt
ee this: Existing search
and
seizure laws need to be modified
to allow greater lati tude to the police
in the search for weapons. The os
ngeles Times of October 30, 1975,
tells us: Pitchess said he believes
law-abiding citizens would
turn
in
their guns in a voluntary program
and
th
at
would end the preponderance of
gun
death
s . . We are told
tha
t
Pitchess discounted arguments that
the Constit ut ion bans gun control,
say ing
th
e righ t to bear
arms
ex
tends
only to
sta
te militias.
In his office in Los Angeles, th e
sheriff told your reporter that his at
t itude toward guns is now st onger
than ever. Children steal handguns
from their fathers . This contributes
to murder, says the sheriff. Four out
of five st oreowners are killed with
t heir own guns, he says. New York s
Sullivan Law is ineffective because
people can get
hand
guns in New Jer
sey . There must be a federal law.
Pi t chess said he had just returned
from a study trip. In England
and
Japan, he told me, they ridicule
America s private ownership of hand
guns.
f you feel you need a gun , get a
shotgun, said th e sheriff. Keep it
next to the bed .
Don t
load it . I have
one. Don t load it. A gun is a false
protection. It s like the
Teddy
Bearwe
used to carry when we were kids.
Exactly what all this means , your
reporter does not pretend to know.Did
the sheriff dramatically change his
a tt itude toward th e private ownership
of guns - in 1972 - in order to per
suade Washington Liberals to ap
poin t him as J . Edgar Hoover s suc
cessor? Does he now defer to long guns
simply to take away the short? Again,
your correspondent does not know.
But, regardless of this sheriffs
7
motives, we do know that
the
abolition
of the private ownership of firearms,
one step at a time, has always been a
basic goal of
the
Communists.
The
Conspiracy can t enslave us if we
have
the
guns. The Conspiracy can
enslave us if we don t. It s t hat sim
ple. We do
not
have room here for still
another dissection of
the
pseudo
arguments Liberals use against pri
vate guns. For such a dissection,
please see your reporter s recent arti
cle in MERIC N OPINION The sher
iffs response to some of the que s
ti ons therefrom was a combination of
silence
and
evasion, conveyed with an
abundant charm
that
shows why he is
the sheriff. Suffice it to say here , to
the distaste of the Liberal
mind
,
that there is no combination of pub
lic/private-guns/no
guns
that will
bring complete safety.
Such
safety in
the real world is impossible.
There
will
always
be danger.
But
the wisdom of
thousands of years experience shows
that
a government monopoly
ofweap
ons is
the
greatest danger.
Along
these general
lines, Los
Angeles County Sheriff s Deputy
Frank Garcia is going on trial . Garcia
is charged with sawing off
the
end of
a shotgun barrel, to make it short
enough so that its owner could be ac
cu
sed
of possession of an illegal
weapon.
There s
no question
that
there is misconduct, says
the
sher
iff. That was an isolated incident.
We ferreted that out. Weare tougher
on our own people than anyone else.
In light of which, consider
the
fol
lowing mysterious case .
The Russians re oming
It was Wednesday afternoon, N
-
vember 28, 1979.
It
was warm in Los
Angeles.
My
partner was
Bruce
Campbell. My boss is the Lord . My
name s Stang. I don
t
know whether I
was born on
Friday
. Here, Ma am, are
just the facts .
MERI
N OPINION
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On that afternoon, we decided to
go shooting for sport, as we had often
done. Mr. Campbell, among many
other
things, is a firearms expert. We
parked under a tree in
Ventura
Coun
ty ,
near
the
town of
Thousand
Oaks
.
We took our guns and ammunition
from the trunk . As we did so, a small
yellow
Ventura
County fire
truck
pulled up
behind
us .
The
fireman be
hind the
wheel leaned out. Are you
guys going shooting in there? he
asked,
indicating the area
across
the
road.
We
said
we were. The fireman said
there
was a fire
danger
that
day,
and
asked us to be careful. We
said
we
would. He asked us not to shoot at
rocks, which might produce a spark.
We
said
we wouldn t and thanked him
for the advice.
Have a good time, he said.
We waved at this friendly public
servant
, grateful for his cordiality.
He showed no fear, or even discom
fort. He showed no displeasure. He
didn t
order us not to shoot. He didn t
ask
us
not
to shoot. he
had,
we
would have left immediately. So,
under
color of his
authority
and invi
tation, we headed in to do some plink
ing as many millions of Americans
have done in our country for hundreds
of years.
It is
important
to describe
the
topography in the area. It is quite
mountainous, riddled with gullies.
Trails
curve and curve again, so it is
difficult to be exactly sure where you
are. There is dense brush, so
that
in
many
places it is difficult to see a
long way .
There
are no signs.
There
is
no posting. There is no gate. As you
can
see, it is very wild country, and
therefore ideal for shooting;
the
gul
lies make for safety by providing
backstop.
Indeed, it is also important to note
that thousands
of people
apparently
shot there.
The
ground is covered with
R
CH 198
a carpet of spent shells, and riddled
cans. t is difficult to
put
a foot down
without
stepping on one. I m slightly
exaggerating, of course, but to em
phasize
the
truth . The only other ex
planation
is
that
the Third
Army
had
finished
maneuvers
shortly before we
arrived.
So there we were . Nothing in
the
world could be more
traditional,
American, and routine: a couple of
friends peacefully plinking at cans.
We moved slowly, deliberately. Since
guns
can
be so dangerous, one of
the
many things you learn from
them
is
safety.
Maybe
that s part
of
what
Thomas Jefferson
meant
when he
said guns build
character
.
We
had shot
for about
thirty
min
utes
from
the
shade of a dense tree
when Mr.
Campbell drew my
atten-
tion to a sound. I took off my protec
tive earmuffs and listened. The
sound was the stat ic of a radio as in
Police Story
I walked
out
from
under
the tree and looked. Far away - a
couple of
hundred
yards? - on the
crest behind us, I saw a man s head
and shoulders.
For
a reason unknown
to us, we were being observed. It was
already
late
in
the
afternoon, so we
packed up and returned to the car.
When it came into view, we saw
that the car
was surrounded by vehi
cles: a few
Ventura County
Fire De
partment
trucks, a
Ventura
Sheriffs
Department
car, and one from the
California Highway Patrol. Their
drivers and passengers were standing
around. They saw us and
knelt
behind
the
vehicles out of sight, as in
Junior
G-Men. Perhaps you are thinking that
Mr. Campbell and I could have been
killed, and of course you are right;
but
we continued toward
them
slowly,
without
making any sudden moves,
the
handguns safely zipped inside a
small bag, the long guns wrapped up.
We arrived at the car.
The
various
authorities stood up.
Ventura Deputy
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M. Munoz told us there was a prob
lem W e expressed surprise and
asked what the
problem
was.
Munoz asked us to put our guns on his
t runk and we did so.
The
fireman
was
dissatisfied
with your answers, said Munoz. He
pointed to the fireman we first had
encountered, who stood with several
others a few yards away. Completely
mystified, I went to
the
fireman and
asked for an explanation. Before he
could give one, an imposing presence
imposed itself between us:
Captain
Wood, Ventura Fire Department,
Shield
Thirt
y-Three.
The
Imposing
Presence informed me that I was not
permitted
to
talk
to
the
fireman. In
stead, I must
talk
to
the
Imposing
Presence, his boss.
Even after all these years of ex
perience with pompous government
officials I
must confess I was con
fused . Since I could have reached out
and
touched
the
fireman, I asked
the
Imposing Presence why I could not
speak with
him
directly.
The
Impos
ing Presence informed me that that s
the way it was. Again I asked how
the
fireman could be dissastisfied, when
he
had
even told us to have a good
time . The Imposing Presence said
there was a fire danger.
Captain, I sa id, I don t know a
fire danger when I see one. You're
the
expert: you say there s a danger,
there s a danger. you don t
want
us
to shoot, we won t.
you wanted us to
leave, we would have. We're eager to
obey your orders,
Captain
. We're
happ
y to take your advice. All we ask
is that you tell us
what
you want. If
you
didn t want
us to shoot, why did
your
man
tell us to have a good time?
is interesting to recall
that
while
your correspondent was reciting this
forensic masterpiece, the fireman
behind the Imposing Presence vigor
ously nodded many times, presum
ably to indicate that
my version of
M CH 198
what he had told us was true. But
the
Imposing Presence himself
had
no
answer, no explanation, no apology.
The Imposing Presence stared at me
silently, like a bird of prey.
I
returned
to where Mr. Campbell
was talking with Allen, C.H .P . 4083,
and Munoz. Ventura Deputy Munoz
told
us
the
fireman was scared in our
first encounter. I asked how we were
supposed to have known this, since he
manfully hid it so well. Munoz said
the
guns we had were heavy.
This
was
true
- a couple of them were shot
guns - but I said with obvious puzzle
ment
that
they
were legally
bought
in
gun stores . Mr. Campbell asked
whether we were under arrest. There
was no answer. From
time
to
time
,
somebody is arrested for refusing to
obey official orders. Here, on the con
trary, were a couple of men vigorously
trying to obey, but the officials
wouldn t tell us
what the
orders were.
Munoz complained
about my
shooting suit, which is made of a
light, tough fabric, perfect fo
r-
the
hot,
Southern
California
climate.
Presumably, it proved I was involved
in guerrilla warfare. I said it was
bought in a sporting goods store. (In
deed, later on, at home, my wife
opened a couple of volumes whose im
portance is exceeded only by
the
Bible: her official
J.C. Penney
and
Sears Roebuck catalogues. t turns out
that both those venerable companies
are selling guerrilla warfare suits;
through
the
mail, yet ) I told deputy
Munoz
that
I was sorry he was both
ered by my attire. I asked why, if my
perfectly ordinary sporting suit was
so terrifying, I could legally buy it
everywhere. As usual, there was no
answer.
By now you probably figure that
this fiasco is as ridiculous as it could
get . You are wrong, friend. For now
there arrives a dignitary whose name
plate says he is Owens. Mr. Owens
75
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is a Los Angeles
County sheriffs
deputy.
Sheriff Pitchess is his boss.
My and Mr. Campbell' s confusion
was compounded. What was a Los
Angeles
County
deputy doing here?
We were parked
in
Ventura
County; as
far as we knew, we had shot in Ven-
tura County, invited to do so by a Ven-
tura
County
fireman; now we were
talking with Ventura
County
deputy
Munoz. Be that it as may, Los Angeles
County deputy Owens took over.
This dignitary stands out from the
others. Munoz seems perfectly nor-
mal. So does Allen. Allen advised us in
a friendly way to
play
it cool. I told
him I thought
this
was good advice
and that we would definitely take it.
But Owens is like a
caricature
of a
policeman in People s World
His
manner is frenetic. He is seething.
His eyes dart everywhere, seeing
everything. Owens can
detect
evil in
your very appearance.
Walking upon this calm scene,
Owens shoves me up
against Mr.
Campbell's
car.
He searches me
roughly, pinching various parts of my
body. You're under arrest, he tells
me . He
puts
me in handcuffs and
shoves me roughly to his car.
You
made a mistake he
said
with glee.
Why an officer would be
happy
that
someone
has made
a mistake, I didn't
know,
and
still
don't.
Where I come
from, the officer
doesn't try
to trick
you into a violation; he gives you a
chance to obey.
Mr.
Campbell
tells me that, while
Owens was putting me in the car, of-
ficer Allen remarked: These Los
Angeles
County
boys are
pretty
brash,
aren't they?
I'll
say deputy Munoz replied.
Owens leaned
into the back seat
and
put his face very close to mine.
If
you mess up my car, I'm going to
come back there and hurt you he
whispered. He shut
the
door.
Owens searched
Mr.
Campbell, put
MARCH l98
him
in plast ic plexicuffs, and in-
stalled him beside me in the car.
Mr
.
Campbell asked him what
the
charge
was.
Numerous
Owens said archly.
That was
the
complete answer. I had
never
heard
of such a crime, but it
was obviously right up
there
with
rape
and felonious assault.
At the Malibu sheriff's station,
some
distance
away, wewere routinely
put
in
the
booking cage. Again we
asked what the charge was . They are
being compiled, we were told. The
man
doing the paperwork was deputy
Steinhurst,
2835, who complained
to still
another deputy
with annoy-
ance
that
he was having to do Owens 's
paperwork again.
Mr.
Campbell
asks
whether
we are allowed a 'phone
call,
and
is told that we are not al-
lowed a
'phone
call because we have
not
been charged. Another prisoner is
brought
in, booked for felony imper-
sonation, allowed his 'phone call and
released on bail.
A couple of hours passed. Finally,
Steinhurst
reappeared
and wrote un-
lawful
assembly/paramilitary on
our
booking
sheets. That's right,
sports fans Unlawful assembly: two
people The unlawful assembly is
paramilitary because of my J.C .
Penney
shooting suit,
which
has
magically become a guerrilla war -
fare uniform. Owens gloated
that
he was going for
the
highest possible
bail. Steinhurst
said this
would
probably
be five hundred dollars
each. Never having been arrested, we
wondered how to raise the money. And
the unlawful
paramilitary
assembly
was apparently to be only one of the
charges.
Steinhurst
returned
again and told
us mournfully,
There may
be an
automatic weapons charge. To say
wewere thunderstruck would be as big
an understatement as it would be to
call New York City a village. We were
dumbfounded
. An automatic weapon
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would bring in the federal boys. In a
state of terror we asked which gun was
supposed to be automatic .
Steinhurst explained
that
my .30
caliber M-1 carbine was probably
full-auto. He said that when you
pulled
the
trigger
the
bolt
went
back
and forth if you pulled it
back
and
forth; which reminded me of
Senator
Jesse Helms s explanation of Richard
Nixon s so-called full-employment
Budget:
If
we had some ham, we
could have some ham and eggs, if we
had some eggs.
Steinhurst s description of my car
bine is accurate.
The
bolt will go back
and
forth if you pull it back
and
forth, but not automatically; which,
as every shooter and police officer
knows, means that it is not automatic.
began to chuckle; I couldn t help but
chuckle, because, as explained to
Steinhurst,
I bought the carbine some
years ago, in a sporting goods store on
Forty-Second Street in New York City.
was chuckling because
the thought
of buying an automatic weapon in a
sporting goods store in New York City
produces a humorous response as in
voluntary as the patellar reflex.
Steinhurst
shrugged. What could he
say? Regular readers will remember
my description AMERICAN OPINION
September, 1979) of the experience
of David Moorhead of New Hamp-
shire, a seriously wounded Vietnam
veteran
trained
by the Veterans Ad
ministration to be a gunsmith, who
also was dragged to jail in handcuffs,
by the federal Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms goons. Moorhead owned a
legal semi-automatic rifle, which
the
government
itself
had sold as surplus,
but
the
anti-gun goons claimed was
a machine-gun. Was
the same
thing
now happening to me? Were the men
who had
taken
us in handcuffs to jail
trying to harass us for
the
crime of
peacefully owning guns? We heard
the
carbine bolt being manipulated
MAR CH 980
again and again, somewhere in
the
station.
The armorer will look at it in
the
morning, said Steinhurst.
Mr. Campbell laughed. After he
looks at it, it probably
will
be full
auto
,
don t
you
think?
A queasy, sick expression appeared
. on Steinhurst s face .
More
time
passed . We already had been in
custody more than four hours. And
now came the most shocking part of
the fiasco. When you are arrested, the
police routinely go through your wal
let, to see and catalogue what you
have. Once again, this is strictly rou
tine.
For instance,
in my wallet,
Owens found my permit to carry a
concealed weapon, issued by the sher
iff of San Bernardino
County.
Owens contemptuously threw the per
mit
down.
That s no good here he said
harshly.
This of course was totally ridicu
lous; a
permit
issued by
any
sheriff is
good throughout
the
state. So ridicu
lous was it
that
Steinhurst, in our
presence, told Owens he was wrong.
Also in my wallet, they found my
membership card in the Los Angeles
Press Club. They turned it over and
over, obviously hoping it would go
away. They didn
t
like it. The
sight
of
the card made them uneasy, a feeling
compounded by
Mr
. Campbell - no
doubt deliberately - who genially
told
them
was
national
press, on a
hundred radio stations every day.
So, now, Owens reappeared outside
the booking cage. A piece of paper
was in our benefactor s hand. He was
seething, frustrated. I ve got five
good
and righteous charges
against
you guys,
but
there s mixed emotions
about you back there. You re a report
er and we
don t want the
notoriety.
We re going to let you go,
and
give you
both a ticket. There l l be no bail and
you can have your s**t back.
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Owens didn t say a word
about the
law,
about
right
and
wrong,
about the
Constitution.
The
Constitution? His
speech told us that we were being re
leased only for fear that
the
world
might
find
out what
he
had
done.
Were it
not
for
the
Los Angeles Press
Club, we might still be in jail.
Our
benefactor gave us to
understand
that
his
harassment
was perfectly okay,
provided it could go on in secret. So
this piece is dedicated to you shooters
who have been harassed by
A.T.F.
and
other anti-gun types. This report is
for you victims who
don t
happen to
belong to
the
Los Angeles Press Club.
I wondered
at
the
time
w
hat
those
five good
and
righteo
us
charges
were. I
st
ill do.
Doesn t
it seem strange
that criminals so dangerous were re
leased?
But
we were.
Un
lawful as
sembly/paramilitary
was crossed
out
. Now we were accused of
dis
charge of firearm in county
area.
Steinhurst
asked me to sign a form in
two places. I took a
moment
to read it .
Steinhurst
was very nervous
and
got a
little nasty. He explained that he
would be there all night,
and
since I
seem to be in no hurry, he would
let
me stew.
I asked
Steinhurst
whether he saw
anything il legitimate in my desire to
read a legal document he was asking
me to sign in two places. No answer.
Later, while fingerprinting and
photographing me Stein
hurst
apolo
gized for his
outburst.
A man named Streeton,
the
watch
sergeant, came to tell us that Los
Angeles County is closed to shooting.
Somebody else said that
our
guns
would be
kept
for evidence . I pro
tested
that
Owens said
they
would be
returned.
There
was
another
summit
conference.
There
probably
haven t
been as
many
conferences there be
fore or since. We were escorted to a
room where sergeant Charlie
Mar-
shall, who said he specializes in
or
-
RCH 1980
gani zed crime, wrote down the serial
numbers
of our guns.
In
other words, I said, o ur guns
are now being registered.
Next
to me is a
deputy name
d :
Gentzvein.
Deputy
Gentzvein says
that s ridiculous,
and
that I don t
know
what
I m
talking about.
They
are
not
registering
the
guns , he says.
They
re
just
recording
the numbers
.
As Lewis Carroll
put
it, Twas bril
lig,
and the
slithy toves
did
gyre
and
gimble in
the
wabe . Marshall fin
ished recording the numbers without
registering
the
guns,
and
they were re
tu
rned.
The tickets we were
han
ded said
t
hat
the location of t he vio
lat
ion
was on Westlake Boulevard
at
Car
lisle. There s only one problem, which
is t
hat
Westlake Boulevard
and
Car
lisle is in Ventura County, where
Owens and Company have no ju risdic
tion. In Los Angeles County, we were
accused of a violation of Ordinance
1769, Article I, Section 100.
Our
attor
ney reports that in this huge county of
seven million people, there is only one
place you find a copy of
the anti-
shooter Ordinance: downtown in
the
Hall of Administration.
The
Ordi
nance is so rare that a lady
named
Marge O Connor
had
to supply him
with a Xerox copy. Here is
part
of
what
she
sent
him .Angelenos are sup
posed to
study
this, to find
out
where
they are
not
allowed to discharge a
firearm .
Begi nning
at the
southwest corner
of
the
northwest
quarter
of
the north
east quarter
of Section 26, Township
3
Nort
h, Range 14 West, S .B.M.;
thence northerly along
quarter
section
lines to
the
northwest corner of
the
south half
of
the southeast quarter
of Section 23, said township
and
range; thence easterly along
quarter
section lines to
the
northea
st
corner of
the
southwest
quarter
of
the
south
west
quarter
of Section 24 . . . .
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So Now You Know
There s
only
one problem.
Our
attorney asked for
all
the
law available on
the
subject.
What
you
just
read is an excerpt from
Section 134. There is considerably
more, but you probably have already
suffered enough.
The
problem is
that
Mr . Campbell
and
I are accused of
violating Section
about
which
there is not even a whisper in the ma
terial
sent
from
the Hall
of Adminis
tration to our attorney. Is there such a
section? We still
don t
know.
As it
stands
now, our trial is sched
uled for April eleventh.
Your reporter related
the incident
to
the
high-ranking Sheriff's Depart
ment official
quoted earlier.
He
called it unbelievable. I
can t
recall
anyone arrested for shooting in
the
county. Obviously, there is a lot more
to the incident that your reporter
doesn t
know.
Perhaps
by
the day
of
the trial we shall know it or part of it.
Stay tuned.
How
dds Up
So,
what
has your reporter learned?
Friends, the most
important
thing I've
learned is
the
necessity of paying my
dues promptly to
the
Los Angeles
Press Club. All Hail,
President
Bill
Far, Los Angeles Times
Some cynics
may
now be thinking
that
the
incident should also
teach
us
the
difficulty of supporting our local
police; and that the slogan,
Support
Your Local Police - And Keep
Them
Independent isn t
enough. After all,
goes this argument, to
support
your
local police is to
support
clowns like
some of those we encountered
at
Mal
ibu. Your reporter believes on
the
con
trary that
the
incident proves' we
should
support the
syst m
of local po
lice more th n ever The alternative to
local police is national police.
we
are going to have police
at
all, those
are the
only two ways to go.
The
more
local
the
better.
8
How would you like to see clowns
like some of those who harassed us
making arrests
throughout the
coun
try? In West Texas? In
Montana?
That s
what
the demise of the system
of local police would mean. One of
the beauties of
that
system is precise
ly
the
fact
that
it lets us confine
the
Los Angeles County anti-gun lunacy
to that jurisdiction for as long as it
takes to change things.
Remember
also that a bad apple in
a police
department
- whether he is a
subversive pretending to be a clown
for subversive purposes, or is
just
plain
incompetent
- embarrasses
every good officer. Like you and I
each officer is an individual,
and
must
be measured on his own perfor
mance.
Supporting
the
good guys
necessarily
means withholding sup
port
for
the bad
.
That
is
the
obverse
side of
the
same coin.
Once again, the reason all this is
worth repeating is
that,
if
the
situa
tion in our country degenerates, there
will be a proliferation of such inci
dents. Something like it
may happen
to you . In
the
heat of
the
moment,
human nature may lead you to blame
the
police.
This
would play into
the
hands
of those who would undermine
our country
and
its values.
It
would be
just
as silly as it would be to say
that
all Southerners are Conservatives.
Wouldn t
it, Jimmy Carter?
At
the
same time, such a prolifera
tion would prove
that
the
fine
men
left in your local
department
-
and
they are by far in
the
majority, in
cluding those in
the
Los Angeles
County Sheriff's
Department
- are
under
greater attack from
the
subver
sives,
and
goofballs our Liberals
are working so
hard
to
put
in uniform,
than
ever before. So they will need
your help more
than
ever before. And
they deserve it. As one canned sardine
said to another: We re
all in this
thing together. • •
AMERICAN OPINION