by Jack Webb
Reddin ordered that every survivor, every street witness be questioned again. The four must have addressed each other by their first names or nicknames, names that might be listed in LAPD’s huge “moniker” file.
Suspects? Too many. But not the right ones. Every drunk on the streets, every criminal with an arson record was checked out. More than one hundred were questioned and eliminated in the field. Another twenty suspects were grilled and cleared.
2:36 a.m. and all Reddin could be sure of was that Los Angeles had just sustained the biggest mass bombing in its history since the Los Angeles Times outrage almost half a century earlier.
Then came a break. Or was it a break? The survivors were still so shaken that you couldn’t be sure about their stories. But suddenly a woman patron remembered something.
“One of those four guys who caused the fire said he was a brother-in-law of Bob and Lyle Jacobson,” she said. “And he said his name was Oscar. I’d never seen this Oscar before, but I think the Jacobson brothers live around 25th and Vermont.”
“You sure?” a detective pressed her.
“I’m positive. I know he said his name was Oscar. You just find the Jacobsons. Then you’ll find Oscar.”
The upside-down book was checked—the telephone directory, which lists subscribers by street addresses. One Robert Jacobson lived at 1321 West 29th Street. Reddin ordered Felony Car Officers C. F. Call and R. R. Irwin to run it down.
3 a.m.
Drowsy, a little frightened, the Jacobson brothers answered the door. Sure, they would do anything to help the police. They’d heard the news flash earlier on the radio. It was awful.
But, the only thing was, they just didn’t have relatives or in-laws named Oscar. Officers Call and Irwin told them, “Think about it. Maybe you know an Oscar.”
That might be it, the brothers said. They did have a brother-in-law named Clyde Bates, and he worked with some fellow named Oscar. But they didn’t know Oscar’s last name or where he lived.
Didn’t even know Clyde’s address, come to think of it, though they could find the house. “Get your clothes on and come with us,” the officers told them.
Through the deserted, early morning streets, the police car raced a mile to a frame house on a quiet old street about in mid-city. The house was dark, and there was no answer when Call and Irwin pounded heavily on the door. They looked at the Jacobson brothers. “This is the place, all right,” they said. “We’re positive.”
Circling through the big yard, the two officers spotted a beat-up old blue sedan parked off in a corner. Inside, two men were snoring heavily. There was the stale smell of whisky.
Roughly Call and Irwin shook the bleary-eyed pair into consciousness. “That’s Clyde,” the Jacobsons said, pointing to the man in the front seat. “Who are you?” the officers demanded of the other, who was in the back.
“Brenhaug. Oscar Brenhaug. What the hell’s going on here?”
5:30 a.m.
The Jacobson brothers went home with the hearty thanks of LAPD.
At 77th Street, Officers Call and Irwin reported to Inspector Reddin. He ordered the suspects booked on suspicion of murder and asked for a quick fingerprint check.
Both had previous records in Los Angeles, and Bates had also been arrested on various charges in Ohio, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. He had done twenty-one months for taking a stolen car across state lines, and his accomplice had been arrested about a year previously by LAPD for drunkenness. Both worked for the same company.
Against this possibility, Reddin had detained all the uninjured witnesses through the night. Now he arranged an immediate show up of the prisoners. Larry Fenton, the Mecca bartender, singled out Bates as the man who had poured the gasoline on the barroom floor. Other witnesses were escorted outside to look at Bates’ blue sedan. They agreed that it was the getaway car.
Inspector Reddin knew that neither of the prisoners was yet aware how many lives had been taken. Maybe, if he gave them the shock treatment, they would blurt out a confession. Then he decided against tackling the conwise Bates who had admitted having been in the bar earlier.
Bates had denied any connection with the fire itself, and from his long experience with the police he knew enough to stick to his story as long as there was any chance of its being believed.
Instead, Reddin had Brenhaug brought from his cell to an interrogation room. Silently the inspector stared at him. The prisoner’s eyes shifted nervously, and he bit his lip. Reddin suddenly tossed a morning Times into Brenhaug’s lap, and the banner headline, Six Killed in Bar Blast, screamed up at him. He withered.
“Not very nice, is it, Brenhaug? Tell us about it.”
Brenhaug gestured aimlessly. “It’s hard to remember. You know? I had a few. And, well, things are a little hazy.” He bit his lip again.
“That’s all right, Brenhaug. We’ve got the time.” Reddin held him with a cold stare.
Fitfully Brenhaug’s memory returned. Not fully, not enough to make him look very bad, just enough to keep the detectives from pressing him too hard.
Bates and he had decided early Thursday night to go out for a few drinks… They ran into a couple of young fellows… Bates knew who they were… Personally he couldn’t remember… There was some bar-hopping… They wound up in the Mecca… Then a fight… They were thrown out….
“A couple of the boys got real mad. They said, ‘We’ll show them! They can’t throw us out!’ We went to another bar and had a couple of quick rounds. I think they were trying to get an alibi.”
And that was all. Brenhaug’s mind went conveniently blank on everything that had happened thereafter. When they returned to the car from the second tavern, he had passed out. He couldn’t very well be expected to remember any more, could he? Was he responsible for what somebody else did?
7 a.m.
Two hot reports, one from the Crime Lab, the other information which had been volunteered by a citizen, needed Inspector Reddin’s immediate attention.
Not only on Bates’ car but also on the suspect’s clothing, the Crime Lab had detected traces of gasoline. He assigned Detectives E. E. Cummins and R. M. Sluder to locate Bates’ wife and dig out everything possible about the man and his associates.
The citizen’s information was less specific. Maybe, he thought, one of the quartet was a fellow known as “Machete” or “Chavette.” The “moniker” file at Headquarters pulled a blank on both nicknames.
Good so far, but not good enough. After seven hours and ten minutes of investigation, Reddin had one solid suspect who wouldn’t talk and one who said he couldn’t remember. He had nothing on the other two except that they were young.
During the afternoon, Detectives Cummins and Sluder located Clyde Bates’ wife. She wanted to help, but she just didn’t know much about Clyde’s friends.
“Tell us what you can,” they said.
She thought some more. “I don’t know if this means anything,” she said doubtfully. “But sometimes I remember him saying he went with a fellow named Manuel Chavez. Yes, Chavez; that was the name.”
“Do you know where he lives, Mrs. Bates?”
“No, I’m not sure. Something like 25th Street. Yes, I think West 25th Street. That sounds like it.”
Friday: 6 p.m.
Detectives Sluder and Cummins ring the doorbell at a house on West 25th Street, and a young man answers.
“Does Manuel Chavez live here?” Sluder asks.
“Come in,” says the young man. “I’ve been expecting you.”
8 p.m.
Chavez was booked on the same charge of suspicion of murder. He denied any connection with the torch job and insisted he could not name the fourth man since he didn’t know anything about the crime. Reddin sent detectives to talk to Chavez’ young wife.
Saturday: 3 a.m.
On information supplied by Mrs. Chavez, a five-man team from Felony drives to the home of one Manuel Hernandez, aged eighteen. He is arrested as the fourth and last suspect.
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br /> On through the night and past Saturday noon, Inspector Reddin drove himself to wrap up the case. Now he could parcel out responsibility for the cleanup, and he chose two good homicide men, Sergeants J. A. Tidyman and V. V. Little, who were attached to 77th Street Detectives.
To Tidyman and Little went the long, dull chore of re-interviewing all the witnesses, reconciling any conflicting stories and whipping the mass of evidence into shape for presentation to the grand jury.
Saturday: 3:15 p.m.
After forty sleepless hours, as Inspector Reddin buttoned his pajama top, his last conscious thoughts were: Who sold them the gasoline? Where is that damned container? That’s all we need now.
On Sunday morning, Sam Campbell Ledgerwood, who slept days and worked nights, rarely saw a newspaper and didn’t bother much with radio or TV, strolled casually into 77th Street. Sam did like the Examiner on Sunday, and this morning he had at last got around to reading about the events of Thursday night.
“About these four fellows,” Sam drawled to the desk sergeant. “The four fellows mixed up in that bar fire, you know. I might have some information.”
“What kind of information?” asked the sergeant. For two days people had been volunteering information, and the sergeant was skeptical.
“I sold them the gasoline, I think,” Sam said.
In about two seconds, the sergeant was talking on the phone to the Detective Bureau, and a patrolman was escorting Sam to their office. “Say, maybe I should have dropped around sooner,” Sam said.
Late Thursday night, Sam recalled, two men had come to the gas station where he was night attendant and asked him to fill up an old five-gallon paint bucket. Sam remembered because the bucket was pretty dirty inside, encrusted with dried paint and little chunks of gravel.
It didn’t seem quite legal to put gasoline in that kind of container, and Sam had asked whether they didn’t want him to scour it out. No, they said shortly. Just fill it up. So he had pumped $1.45 worth of gasoline into their dirty old bucket, and they went away.
Of the four in custody, Sam singled out Bates and Hernandez, the teen-ager, as the pair who had made the purchase. From his description of the bucket, detectives finally located it, and Sam identified it.
Now, after the police had worked a total of 477 hours overtime, the case was cleaned up,* and a LAPD commendation report cited the teamwork Inspector Reddin had masterminded and the skill of his men.
* Brenhaug turned state’s evidence. Bates and Chavez were found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death. Their automatic appeal has not yet been returned. Hernandez was sentenced to life imprisonment, and is now doing time.
As soon as Tom Reddin woke up… he’d be interested in that.
II
In Los Angeles almost half the population is non-Caucasian. This is far more complicated than the collision of white and Negro which has touched off so many race riots in metropolitan cities. It is a dozen collisions, the Oriental, the Mexican, the Indian, the Southerner (both Negro and white), the Easterner and the Westerner; intra-racial as well as one skin pitted against another of a different color.
From different countries and sections of our country, newcomers bring old prejudices, old teachings, old social barriers. Confusingly, some of them bring new and different philosophies, alien to those of their own race. The Negro who migrates to Los Angeles from New York or Chicago is entirely different from the one who has come up from the South. In just one section of the city, the police find three sharply distinct social groupings among the Negro population.
To LAPD race war is a latent but ever-present threat which could bring only tragedy and shame to the city and recriminations to the police who are charged with keeping the peace. Yet the problem cannot be tucked into one powder keg marked “Race Relations—Sit on This.” It is a multi-faceted problem which involves parts of neighborhoods as well as whole areas, public places where the races meet, youth gangs, and sudden, ugly rumor.
The police aren’t supposed to be social do-gooders, but in LAPD’s philosophy they aren’t supposed to stand by till the reserves and National Guard have to be called out. So there is a Community Problems unit charged with preventing racial frictions from boiling over into street riots.
Once a disturbance is reported, or even the threat of one, Community Problems rolls. What is the dispute about? Who are the principals behind it, and where do they hang out? Who are their associates? What kind of cars do they drive?
Attached to the unit are both white and Negro officers. They work with community groups and church organizations as well as LAPD’s Gang Squad. They listen for trouble and then call for help. Only if more gentle persuasions fail does LAPD lean. And then, having been briefed all along by CP, it leans hard and fast to stop trouble in its tracks.
Wrigley Field is located in a largely Negro district, and the attendance at its baseball games was always racially mixed. Angelenos are passionate ball fans, especially when the Los Angeles and Hollywood nines were playing their intra-city series, and usually umpire-booing has a warming, inter-racial unanimity to it.
This time there was trouble. Several Negro players were involved in a contested decision, some white fans charged onto the field, and fist fights started sporadically. A “415,” designating a disturbance, flashed over the police radio to all units.
As seat cushions flew toward the infield, police reinforcements poured into the stadium. Systematically, the officers broke up the fights between fans and players. When the rhubarb was over, a few players and spectators were removed, and the game went on. But CP sniffed trouble.
To call off the series between the Angels and the Stars would have been a municipal calamity, possibly riot-provoking in itself. To continue it was to risk a race war unless the police could somehow reason with or overawe the fans.
Inspector Noel McQuown decided to try it both ways. For the rest of the week, as the series went on, he sat in a box at the ball park with the best view of the field, but he didn’t see a minute of a game. By special arrangement, the field announcer was posted beside him. If trouble erupted, McQuown had the loudest voice on the field to reason with the crowd.
To nip trouble in the bud, he conspicuously sprinkled uniformed men all through the grandstand. They were under special instructions: Keep pacing all the time; make sure every fan sees you.
Gradually the tension slackened. When the boos came, they were the outraged complaints of the man in the stand who always seems to see better than the near-sighted, not very bright official behind the plate. White fans booed when Negro players were called out, and Negroes groaned in sympathy as a white batter passed up three obvious balls and the umpire called them strikes. McQuown relaxed and began to pay attention to the game.
Sometimes, though, preventive policing can’t move fast enough to avert unnecessary bloodshed. From the harbor district at the city’s most southerly limits to San Fernando in the north, no section is free of the juvenile gang. There are the Negro gangs, the white gangs, the Japanese gangs, the Mexican gangs, and sometimes combinations.
They are classified by age as the “babies,” “midgets,” “gangs” and “seniors,” the latter of whom have graduated from pack society into marriage or possibly the penitentiary. They fight with knives, guns, clubs, lengths of pipe; and they fight over anything from dope and girls to social status and racial issues.
One night McQuown was making a late check of Patrol Area Number One when his police radio picked up an “ADW” call, assault with a deadly weapon. As he turned toward the scene, there was a second call: “Several wounded and all not found.”
On a quiet neighborhood street in the East End, he found a dozen wounded youths lying on the sidewalk, one of them with fifty stab wounds.
McQuown dispatched radio car men through the area and they found half a dozen more casualties who had crawled into yards and under porches. It was the biggest youth gang bloodletting in LAPD history, and the inspector wanted to know why it had happened. He radioed
Communications that he needed the Gang Detail assigned to Homicide.
As ambulances carried away the victims, Gang men briefed McQuown on the habits, sizes and peculiarities of the two warring gangs. The immediate spark had been jealousy by one gang because the other was reorganizing its strength. And eighteen youths paid for their animosity with broken heads, broken arms, bullet wounds and disfiguring knife slashes.
As a seven-year-old back home in Streator, Illinois, Noel McQuown used to sit on the curb at dusk and watch the town patrol wagon as it clanged bravely toward the lockup with the nightly roundup of drunks. He decided that someday he would be a policeman, and at the age of twenty-three he made LAPD.
But then his career took an unpredictable turn—as all police work has taken an unpredictable turn between the early 1920’s and the 1950’s—and McQuown today is LAPD’s authority on minorities and race relations. No longer is this a problem that can be driven back at the point of a night stick. The modern policeman must be something of a sociologist and very much a tolerant, understanding human being.
McQuown learned race relations the hard way as a Lieutenant in the Newton Street Division where some 80,000 residents, overwhelmingly Negro, are jammed into an area of less than seven square miles.
The crusaders for better race relations usually protest the breakdown of crime statistics by race, pointing out logically that poverty, ignorance, and vice are common to all colors of skin. But to the cop pounding a beat in New York’s Harlem, off the Loop in Chicago, or in LAPD’s Newton Street Division, the argument holds little consolation. Whatever the cause, crime runs high in Negro areas.
McQuown found himself assigned to the division with the highest rate of murder, rape, and aggravated assault in all Los Angeles. Per 100,000 population, Newton Street has some 9,500 crimes yearly, mostly offenses “against the person,” as the police statisticians call them. Only Central Division has a higher overall rate.