An LA Cop. John Bowermaster
The sidewalk lead to the building’s patio area. Paul looked back at Ed, shaking his head, telling him, “Jesus H. Christ, check this shit out.” Ed looked down the walkway over Paul’s shoulder. There were domino blocks scattered all over the sidewalk lying in two streams of blood coming from the patio area by the pool just ahead of them.
The bodies of two black males were lying on the concrete patio next to an overturned metal table. One of a dozen tables surrounding the pool area where residents gathered at night to escape the heat of their apartments.
The pool water was drained long ago, replaced with dirt-filled level to the concrete patio. Weeds covered the dirt. A large group of residents were standing by the bodies. Witnesses told the officers the men playing dominos were brothers.
After losing the game, one brother got mad. Calling his brother “a dirty motherfucker.”
Both men were armed. The verbal exchanges escalated into a gunfight. With both firing their weapons several times, killing each other.
Paul leaned toward Ed’s ear, whispering, “We’ll be here all night interviewing this crowd. Over a game of dominos.” At 11:30 a.m., the detectives finished their investigation at the crime scene. The coroner removed the bodies from the courtyard. The officers went to their unit to return to Wilshire to go end of watch.
Eight-thirty a.m. was their scheduled end of watch time for morning watch. They worked passed their EOW, tied up on a double homicide all-night. Causing them to be late for their court case at the criminal courts building downtown.
As X-96 pulled away from the crime scene, Paul advised control they were out to the barn for EOW. Control responded, “7-X-96 morning watch, meet 7-L-40 on TAC-2.”
Paul said, “7-X-96 Roger.” 7-L-40 was monitoring the frequency; before Paul could respond, the watch commander came on TAC-2 to contact them. “7-L-40 to 7-X-96. The DA in department 103 called. She needs you guys in court ASAP. Go straight to court, they’re waiting for you.”
“X-96 Roger.”
Paul switched to the control frequency to notify control. “7-X-96 morning watch, show us at 210 Temple St. Department 103. Control, 7-X-96 roger.”
Because X-96 was late for court, they continued the case until later that afternoon.
It was 4:00 p.m. when they called their case. By 5:00 p.m., they’d finished their testimony and returned to their unit to head to the barn for EOW. When they got in their unit, the radio was filled with chatter. Officers requesting help, with shots fired at Fifty-Fourth Street and Compton Avenue.
Officers requested additional units to respond. It sounded like every unit in the city was responding. Ed started the car, telling Paul, “Let’s see if they need additional units.”
7-X-96 responded to the location. Control kept broadcasting “All units responding, there are multiple shots being fired coming from the house on the South side of Fifty-Fourth Street west of Compton Avenue. Approaching units use caution.” When X-96 arrived, it looked like half the city was at the location. Police cars were everywhere. The Highway Patrol and the FBI were at the scene.
Officers took cover behind vehicles and buildings along Fifty-Fourth Street. Several officers had semiautomatic rifles, trying to take a position out of the line of fire erupting from the small house.
7-X-96 learned later there were over four hundred officers at the scene and they fired nine thousand rounds of ammo between the suspects and the police. Many officers ran out of ammunition during the first few minutes of the gunfight with the suspects.
Civilians were hiding behind buildings and parked cars. They blocked Compton Avenue north and south of Fifty-Fourth Street. 7-X-96 pulled their unit onto the sidewalk on Compton Avenue, two blocks north of Fifty-Fourth Street. Ed and Paul ran the rest of the way on Compton to Fifty-Fourth Street.
They learned there were multiple suspects believed to be members of the SLA, barricaded in the house on Fifty-Fourth Street. Nobody knew if Patty Hearst was inside the house. Everyone knew Patty and the SLA were in Los Angeles area somewhere.
Judging by the continuous gunfire coming from the house, the people inside had no plans to surrender or negotiate with the police. The gunfight continued for two hours. On Fifty-Fourth Street on the north side, the buildings received two hours of continuous impacts from rounds fired by the suspects. The police fired nine barrages of tear gas into the house, attempting to force the suspects to surrender. Smoke bellowed out of the broken windows.
At first, everyone thought it was tear gas. But the smoke was from a fire inside the house. The heat from the tear gas canisters started a fire. Gunfire continued for a short time. The smoke got thicker. A woman exited the front of the house unarmed. Officers took her into custody.
Two women came out the back door. The second woman out provided cover fire for the first female; the police shot the first female.
The police shot the second female, providing cover fire; she collapsed in the doorway. A third female inside the house grabbed the wounded woman in the doorway, pulling her back inside the burning house. Flames lapped out the broken windows.
The house became quiet. No one attempted to exit the house or gave any sign of wanting to surrender. It was obvious there was no chance anyone could survive the intense flames, heat, and smoke coming from inside the house.
Nobody would attempt a rescue or try to put the fire out and risk being shot by someone inside or by a round going off in the chamber of a weapon lying inside the house in the fire.
The police found four suspects under the house. In the ashes after the house burned to ground on top of them.
By late that night, the house was a pile of embers. The fire department finished soaking the ashes with water so the homicide detectives and FBI could search for the bodies. The first female lay dead in the rear yard.
In the front yard was a short stone wall. It was the only structure still standing.
It was a long day for 7-X-96. The officers returned to Wilshire and went EOW.
After the morning watch roll call, Ed and Paul drove back to the scene on Fifty-Fourth Street. Hundreds of bullet holes riddled the building across the street from the burned-out residence where the SLA made their last stand against the LAPD.
The FBI had straddled a white wooden sawhorse barricade on top of the stone wall in the front yard with an FBI wanted poster of Patty Hurst stapled on it. Patty was lucky. She wasn’t with Cinque on Fifty-Fourth Street that day.
After the shooting in the sporting goods store two days earlier, Patty left Los Angeles, heading back to San Francisco. They arrested Patty on September 18, 1975, in a San Francisco apartment, sixteen months after the SLA shoot-out in Los Angeles.
Ed Bowes first partner, Paul Fitzpatrick was twenty-six years old. He was a construction framer before joining the department. Building single-family homes and apartment buildings for a developer in the San Fernando Valley.
Paul was a hustler, working construction; he worried about not making enough money to carry him through the lean times. He always searched for side jobs.
Paul’s stature and the way he dressed reminded anyone that saw him of the Paul Bunyan character you read about as a kid. A person bigger than life with his height at 6 foot 4 inches, tipping the scales at 220 pounds.
He always wore work boots, jeans, and flannel long-sleeved shirts with the sleeves rolled up exposing his white long-sleeved T-shirt underneath. All he needed was an ox to make the Paul Bunyan image complete.
The construction business was an occupation affected by the weather. There were days when he wasn’t able to work because of the forecast of bad weather. Paul couldn’t afford the hit of not having a full paycheck every week because some weather reporter made a bogus weather report.
He always told Ed he hated weather reporters. “Those assholes don’t understand how they can screw up the lives of people. With their bullshit weather reports.