Police Story by Alan Stang American Opinion March 1980

8/21/2019 Police Story by Alan Stang American Opinion March 1980

1/13

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

7


2/13


3/13

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

9


4/13

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 .


5/13

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


6/13

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

71


7/13

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


8/13

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

73


9/13

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


10/13

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

77


11/13

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.

79


12/13

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 . . . .

81


13/13

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

Documents

Police Story by Alan Stang American Opinion March 1980