Tuesday, December 27, 1977

Escaped Murder Suspect Caught After Shooting Chase in the Bronx

A murder suspect who escaped from the prison psychiatric ward at Bellevue Sunday night (Christmas) was recaptured by Yonkers police after he reportedly stole a car and outran two police cars in a chase through the Bronx.

In October, the suspect, 25-yer-old Anthony Ricco, escaped from Rikers Island and held 50 police officers at bay while holding a gun to his wife’s head. In exchange for releasing his wife the police promised to take him to Bellevue instead of Rikers.

On Sunday, Ricco used a hacksaw blade to cut through bars on a second-floor window before lowering himself to the street with knotted bedding.

A friend who was with him when he was recaptured, 18-year-old Sondra Tyrel is being held on conspiracy charges. Police believe she had smuggled the blade in to Ricco.

A fellow inmate who proceeded Ricco down the rope fell into a pit in front of a basement window, breaking one foot and both ankles. He was recaptured immediately.

Ricco’s first stop after the escape was the Kips Bay Garage, diagonally across from Bellevue, where he stole a 71 Buick.

Police tried to arrest him after receiving a tip as to his whereabouts (1152 White Plains Rd near Virginia Ave in the Parkchester section of The Bronx). They waited for him in an unmarked car until he walked up to the stolen car at about 12:30 am. But, they said, he fired one shot at them, backed the car up into a lamppost and then roared away.

Miss Tyrel was found on the floor of the car with a bullet wound in her right hand.

Excerpt from The New York Times 12/27/77

Saturday, December 24, 1977

Fugitive Arrested in Slaying of Policeman in Harlem

A man who escaped from Green Haven prison was arrested early yesterday morning for the murder of an off-duty police officer and another man in a Harlem tenement on Wednesday night.

Ronald Haynes, 33, was arressted at 8 AM in his apartment on 111th Street. Police found the slain officer’s .38 in the apartment.

According to police, robbery was the motive for the crimein which Officer William Flood, a 37-year-old policeman who trained other officers for the Queens Area Task Force was fatally shot along with another man, Perry Young also 37.

Police are still investigating the case to find out why the police officer was in the building and what connection he had with Mr. Young a transvestite who was wearing women’s underclothes at the the time he was found. A woman’s wig was found nearby.

Officer Flood lived in Ronkonkoma LI with his wife and two children – he went to the building at 11:30pm after driving from a class at John Jay College.

Mr. Haynes followed Flood and Young, who appeared to be a woman into the building with the intention of robbing them. The suspect shot the officer in the head before he was able to fire a shot. Haynes, with a record of more than 20 arrests, had been a fugitive since 1976 (!).

Flood would not be given an Inspector’s funeral – normally given to officers killed on duty – because he was off duty. He was the seventh cop killed this year.

NYT 12/24/77

False Santas Ho-Ho Public for Funds

Officials warn that anyone can dress up like a Santa Claus or a nun and solicit money on the street. The only beneficiary of the donations is the imposter.

excerpt from NYT 12/24/77

A Grocer and His Dream Killed by Robbers in Brooklyn

Two men entered the small store. One pointed a gun at Mr. Rosado and shot twice, killing him. When the police found his body, the wallet in his pocket was empty.

The robbery that resulted in the death of Louis Rosado was the most revent of many holdups that have closed small businesses throughout the city, sometimes leaving blocks of abandoned stores.

Besides Mr. Rosado’s grocery, several stores on the block are empty. There is no longer any store on the block at which nearby residents can buy food.

Twice before he was held up. Once they put the gun against his head and pulled the trigger but the gun did not fire.


excerpt from NYT 12/24/77

Liquor Ban is Sought For Licenseless Club

The New York State Liquor Authority moved yesterday to stop Plato’s Retreat from serving liquor because, it said, the club catered to ‘swingers’ and encouraged secual relations on its premises among its patrons.

Carlo DiResta, an SLA investigator said he visited the club in the Hotel Ansonia with Ann Cronin on Dec. 2 and observed a variety of sexual activity.

The couple received a membership card after paying the entrance fee of $30. He said that three barmaids had served customers from a well-stocked bar, although the club does not have a license to dispense liquor, wine or beer.

There was no charge for the drinks since the club’s policy is to include them in the entrance fee. The club is registered as a not-for-profit organization.


excerpt from NYT 12/24/77

Friday, December 23, 1977

Two Teen-Agers in Bronx Are Held In Attacks on Woman Neighbor, 72

Two teenage boys, one 13 year old, the other 14, were held in the Bronx yesterday in connection with a six-day siege of terror against a 72-year-old woman, a former concert pianist, who lived in the same apartment building.

The two looted the apartment, smashing keepsakes of a lifetime and choking the woman and eventually raping her. Her only income was from social security.

The building was staked out in response to her first complaints, on the assumption that the intruders came from elsewhere in the neighborhood. Meanwhile the youths continued their raids on the woman’s apartment undetected.

Yesterday they were apprehended by Gonazalo Vargas the superindendent. The 14-year-old has a record of nine arrests dating to when he was nine.

The youths first broke in on Dec. 21. They returned on the 23rd and on each day thereafter for four days. Each time the woman called the police. Detectives said she gave confusing accounts of what had happened when police first responded. They said she created further confusion when she repeated her calls on succeeding days.


excerpt from NYT 12/23/77

Wednesday, December 21, 1977

Ex-Detective and Gunman Killed, 3 Officers Hurt in Street Shootout

A murder suspect apparently fearing that two police officers were waiting for him opened fire on a busy Brooklyn street yesterday, killing a retired detective and wounding three officers before shooting himself.

The two police officers had been investigating a minor traffic accident.

Pedestrians and motorists hastily sought cover as the shooting erupted at the corner of Bergen Street and Flatbush Avenue in the Park Slope section.

The police identified the slain gunman as William Ross Wakefield, 27 years old, who was being sought in the robbery last Thursday of the East New York Savings Bank during which the assistant manager was killed. He was also wanted in connection with 7 other bank robberies.

The accident that touched off the shooting spree involved a car driven by Raymond Gallo, a 50-year-old retired police detective.

A police car stopped to investigate and Mr. Gallo stood talking to Officer Lawrence Brom when Mr. Wakefield came up to them and opened fire with his .38. Mr. Gallo was hit in the chest and was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Officer Brom is in critical but stable condition with chest wounds. Wakefield exchanged shots with Officer Fred Connors and the gunshots attracted other officers from the nearby precinct house and the battle raged back and forth across Flatbush.

Mr. Wakefield started running from the scene after he was wounded severely in the neck. He collapsed two blocks away in the doorway of a Spanish restaurant. Some police reports indicated that he had been wearing a stocking mask over his head when he opened fire.

Detective Vito Navarra said a warrant for Mr. Wakefield’s arrest had been signed just minutes before the shootings. They had been questioning family and friends.
“He knew we were looking for him and might have gotten a little jittery.”

“I looked out the window and saw this guy running and bleeding. He stopped at the corner. He was already doing zigzags. He crossed the street and went into a restaurant. Five or six detectives went in and took the guy out and threw him in a open wagon.”

He had at least three bullets in his body.


NYT Bird 12/21/77

Tuesday, December 20, 1977

Thieves Get 700 Toys Donated by Brooklyn Students

About 700 toys, which the students at Winthrop Junior High School donated for distrribution to the children’s ward at Kings Country Hospital, were stolen from a teacher’s office at the East Flatbush school over the weekend.

“I think it is really rotten,” said Stazee Burnett, a ninth-grader who helped to wrap the gifts, although she could not afford to buy one. “Those children in the hospital – some of them don’t even have families, and this was like a little ray of hope.”

Various donations started coming in from neighborhood businesses and individuals.


excerpt from M. Breasted NYT 12/20/77

Monday, December 19, 1977

A Victim New York Took To Heart Is Now Held for Police in Vermont

Jerry Jenkins, the out-of-town newlywed to who NYC opened its heart after his car had been stolen – and driven on a fatal rampage – on his first night here last Monday, was arrested yesterday by NY detectives on a charge of cashing more than $2,500 in bad checks in Vermont stores.

The Vermont charge and arrest was apparently the direct result of the publicity surrounding the couple. He was booked on a charge of grand larceny.

There was even some question about whether Mr. Jenkins was a newlywed. The Vermont police said he told a bank in Burlington on 10/27 that he was already married then, to the woman who accompanied him here. Police there said they had been unable to find a marriage license. Mr. Jenkins carried a Texas driver’s license.

Jenkins told reporters that a roommate had swiped his checkbook. “The honeymoon is over,” said a policeman as the suspect was led away.

“I thought no one could con New Yorkers,” said Detective Edwin LaRock of the Burlington police.


excerpt from NYT 12/9/77

Thursday, December 15, 1977

Superkid: Man of the Year

Tis the season, so why beat around the bush? Our nomination for athlete of the year is the 17-year-old secretary-treasurer of the Kentucky conglomerate called Steve Cauthen Associates.

Not Reggie Jackson of the New York Yankees, not Bill Walton of the Blazers, not Walter Payton of the Bears, not even Virginia Wade of Wimbledon, but Steve Cauthen of the race tracks, the Superkid who started the year as an apprentice jockey and who will end it as a millionaire and as the most remarkable performer in the cutthroat world of professional sports in 1977.

That’s right: A little child shall lead them. Not only that, but two related thoughts: 1. the thoroughbred Affirmed will be voted 2-year-old champion of the year. And 2. Cauthen will open 1978 on the valuable back of Affirmed and will have one sweet chance of riding him to victory in the next Kentucky Derby.

Going into this weekend he has ridden more than 1,900 horses this year with 454 wins, 319 seconds and 282 thirds. Total purse: $5.7M which is a million more than the record set last year by Angel Cordero Jr. The jockey takes 10% of the prize money. He also has a musical recording and an advance on a book plus assorted other revenues.

Twice this year he has ridden 6 winners in one day. 4 times he has had 5 winners. 13 times 4 winners and 41 times 3 winners.

Ex NYT 12/15/77

Tuesday, December 13, 1977

Case of Boy, 13, on Rampage Cited In Call for Family-Court Judges

A 13-year-old boy who stole three cars, was sent to a shelter and then escaped and went on a wild ride in a fourth stolen car was cited yesterday as an example of “oversights and mishandling” by the juvenile justice system.

The boy ended his “wild and dangerous spree” last Wednesday. Jumping into a car that a garage attendant had just delivered to its owner, the boy sped up Amersterdam Ave, passed a red light at 72nd and narrowly missed hitting several pedestrians.
Commmandeering a private vehicle, officer Lou Salvatorelli caught up with the stolen car at Bway and 75th. The youth ran and the officer found him hiding under a Volkswagon.


excerpt from NYT 12/13/77

Monday, December 12, 1977

Policeman Indicted In Brooklyn Killing Of an 18-Year-Old

An off-duty police officer who shot and killed a teenager in Brooklyn last Sept 2 after a brief scuffle was indicted yesterday on charges of manslaughter in the second degree.

The officer, Roger Scheid, 26, was suspended immediately of the Department pending the outcome of the trial.

Yesterday’s indictment, by a King’s County grand jury, was the second this year involving a white police officer and a young black. (Torsney and Randolph Evans, 15. Torsney has since filed for disability retirement).

Three other New Yor City police officers have been charged with homicide in recent years. All five have been white and their alleged victims black or hispanic.

According to the police, Scheid, his brother and two women were driving through the Coney Island section last Sept 2 when his date pointed to a young black in a playground and said he had tried to rob her earlier that day.

Scheid confronted Frank Thompson, 18. According to police sources, Thompson pulled out a knife, slashed the police officer on the lower lip and ran off. Scheid cornered him in an abandoned building and ordered him to come out. The teenager was said to have lunged with the knife at which point Scheid fired six shots, two hitting him in the chest. He was dead on arrival at C.I. Hospital. The knife was found at the scene of the shooting.

In one of the earlier cases, officer Thomas Shea was acquitted in 1974 on charges of shooting to death Clifford Glover, 10, in South Jamica, Queens.

Last February, Officer William Walker was found not guilty in the 1974 shooting death of John Bradham, a 22-year-old Brooklyn College student.

In the only case to result in a conviction. Ryan was found guilty of beating to death Israel Rodriquez at a Bronx police station.

NYT Seigel 12/12/77

Sunday, December 11, 1977

Cauthen Reaches $6 Million Mark

As the track announcer put it yesterday at Aqueduct near the finish of the sixth race, “That’s Steve Cauthen going for six million dollars.”

The 17-year-old jockey they used to call “The Kid” was about to become racing’s first Six Million Dollar Man.

Ex NYT 12/11/77

Vermont Man Still City ‘Guest’ With Changed Status

A Vermont man who, with his wife, had been wined and dined and made an official guest of NYC after the armed theft of his car last Monday night was arraigned in Criminal Court yesterday and held on $1,000 bond for a hearing on
Extradition to Vermont on charges of cashing fradulent checks.

The deputy State Attorney in Chittenden County said he would be charged with cashing more than 10 checks valued at $2,500 when he had only $1.81 in in his account. He could be sentenced up to 10 years in prison.

They also lost their apartment in Burlington where they had been living since their marriage two months ago. The landlord said he evicted them when he heard what happened.

Failing to post bail, Mr. Jenkins was held for the night on Rikers.

Detectives said they thought Mrs. Jenkins had left town.

The Mayor was said to be ‘surprised and disappointed” when he learned about Mr. Jenkins’ arrest.

excerpt from E.P. NYT 12/11/77

New Yorkers Start Bundling Up As a National Cold Snap Arrives

Plunging temperatures, exacerbated by gusty winds, sent New Yorkers rummaging through trunks and closets for gloves, scarves and earmuffs as the vanguard of a national deep freeze moved into town yesterday.

A low of 20 degrees was reported at La Guardia. Wind gusts of up to 32 miles an hour created a wind-chill factor of 9 degrees below zero, providing doormen, taxi drivers, sidewalk santas and strangers with instant conversational commiseration.


excerpt from NYT 12/11/77

Saturday, December 10, 1977

Two Salesmen Tell of Taking Part In Surgery, in One Case on Skull


Two medical-equipment salesmen told a New York State legislative panel yesterday that on rare occasions they helped in operations in New York hospitals at the request of surgeons who were using the equipment for the first time.

One said he had helped open a patient’s skull and the other said he had taken part in knee surgery. There was no evidence that their participation had been detrimental.

One surgical-supply salesman, George Schott said that in 1972 he had assisted the chief of neurosurgery after the blade of a new surgical saw jammed in the patient’s skull.

Excerpt from Lawrence Altman New York Times Dec 10, 1977


Surgical Salesmen Admit Assisting In Over 900 New York Operations

Salesmen for one surgical equipment supply company have participated, to some extent, in more than 900 operations, and have “scrubbed in” on more than 3,000 operations in New York State in the last five years.

Almost all of the instances of participation were at the request of the surgeon and a source said he knew of no complaints from patients or doctors about the instances.

United States Surgical Corp is the sole manufacturer and marketer of Auto Suture surgical staplers in the country. Salesmen demonstrate the Auto Stapler and offer advice about its use during operations.


Excerpt New York Times




Friday, December 09, 1977

Matlack, Milner Go In Four-Team Trade

In a blockbuster trade that involved 11 players and four baseball teams, the New York Mets sent Jon Matlack to the Rangers and John Milner to the Pirates and conceded that they were “rebuilding.” The Rangers also got Bert Blyleven and the Pirates got Al Oliver. (The Mets got basically nobody.) The other team that was involved was the Braves.

Excerpt from Durso 12/9/77

New York Says ‘We’re Sorry’ To Robbed Honeymoon Couple

Mayor Beame made New York City’s love affair with Darlene and Jerry Jenkins official yesterday with a City Hall ceremony honoring the Vermont couple whose honeymoon almost turned into a nightmare.

Their introduction to New York last Monday was a man ordering Mrs. Jenkins out of their car at gunpoint. The gunman later drove the car along a West 42nd Street sidewalk, killing one and injuring 14 others before wrecking the car by driving into a fire hydrant.

“New York is normally a very warm town and we’re sorry it happened,” said Mr. Beame, who gave the couple a silver plate embossed with the city’s seal.

Since Monday, the shy couple has been almost overwhelmed by New Yorker’s generosity: The Daily News arranged for them to stay at The New York Hilton, eat at Windows of the World and see the Broadway show “I love My Wife.” Last night they got a doberman pinscher and a full set of china. On Sunday they are going to the Jets game.

“I think some of the people are very rude but I love this city, it’s beautiful,” said Mrs. Jenkins. “I was surprised because in Vermont you just don’t steal a car if someone is sitting in it.”

“In Vermont you wait until everyone’s asleep. Then you usually just take the CB radio,” said the husband.

“I want to go back to Vermont where all the quiet people are,” said Mr. Jenkins. “I want to go back to Burlington and look at three feet of shnow instead of cameras.”

The body of the 70 year old lay unclaimed and headed for potter’s field.


excerpt from Charles Kaiser NYT 12/9/77

Thursday, December 08, 1977

Joan Little is Seized in Brooklyn Case

Joan Little, who drew national attention in 1975 when she was acquitted of murder in the death of a prison guard she said had tried to rape her, was arrested early yesterday after a 70-mile-an-hour automobile chase through Brooklyn. Miss Little, 23, had been serving a seven-to-ten for b-and-e in NC.
She escaped a minimum security prison in Raleigh by scaling a fence.

During her 1975 trial, Miss Little, who is black, became for prison inmates, women’s groups, and blacks, a symbol of oppression.

Vernell Muhammad, a former friend of Miss Little told police they could find her a maroon Buick. Muhammad, back in NC, told authorities that he had been in touch several times with her and had visited her in Brooklyn. Last month she told him she was pregnant and that he was the father.


excerpt from M. Seigel NYT 12/8/77

Teen-Agers Accused of Killing Two

Two Bronx teenagers have been arrested and charged with killing two men and seriously wounding a 15-year-old boy in three separate knife attacks that took place within a block of one another in a two-hour period last week.

All three took place near 168th Street and Teller Avenue in the Morrisania section the night of Nov. 30, the police said, adding that detectives were at the scene investigating the first homicide when the second killing took place less than a block away. The attack on the 15-year-old occurred at the same site 40 minutes later.

The pair were arrested late Wednesday after a weeklong investigation by homicide detectives.

The area where the attacks took place was described as the turf of the Savage Nomades, which, like the Savage Skulls, is regarded as among the largest nad most vicious of the 21 gangs with 3,000 remaining in the Bronx following a sharp decline in such gangs over the last four years.

In 1973 there were reportedly 151 gangs with 10,000 members.


excerpt from NYT 12/8/77

Tuesday, December 06, 1977

Wild Drive in Stolen Car Kills 1, Injures 12 on Times Square Sidewalk

A teenager behind the wheel of a stolen car killed one pedestrian and struck a dozen others last night in a wild, plunging dirve along a crowded 42nd Street sidewalk that left victimes strewn for 500 feet between Eighth and Seventh Avenues off Times Square.

The driver, who allegedly commandeered the car at gunpoint from a newlywed Vermont couple who were checking into a midtown hotel, knocked victims into the air, out into the street and into doorways and game-parlor storefronts as panic-stricken pedestrians screamed and dived out of the way.

As the car sheared off a fire hydrant in front of a KFC and crashed to a halt just west of Seventh Avenue, the driver, identified by the police as 19-year-old Harvey Collins of 2155 Madison Avenue, leaped out roaring with laughter, according to witnesses, who said he was set upon by an angry crowd before police wisked him away.

“People were just flying up in the air like rag dolls, with their arms and legs flopping. It looked like he was actually trying to hit people. The car was barreling along at 30 or 40 miles an hour, swerving back and forth, hitting people as it went. Some flew eigth or 10 feet in the air.”

“One person flew up and hit the marquee of a theater.”

Mrs. Raymond Collins, the suspect’s mother, said in an interview last night that her son had a long history of mental illness. “He’s sick, he’s really sick,” she said. “I hope they put him in Bellevue.” “He wanted to get off the street. He said he felt the walls coming in. He said he would like to go away for 20 years. He’s not wrapped tight. He’s losing his mind.”

70-year-old RA Whitmore, a resident of the National Hotel at Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street was killed. Four of the injured were teenage girls from Lodi NJ who had come to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.


excerpt from R. McFadden NYT 12/6/77

Sunday, December 04, 1977

Four Dogs Are Killed as Hunters in Jersey Track Three Wild Packs

Eleven specially deputized hunters stalked three wild-dog packs through the pine woodlands of this rural community for three hours today before killing four of the animals.

Gurden Smith, a tall, wiry, 60-year-old unemployed house painter who has shot and killed 13 of the wild dogs in the last month.

Excerpt from The New York Times 12/4/77

Thursday, December 01, 1977

Officer Torsney Acquitted as Jury Rules Him Insane in Killing of Boy

Police Officer Robert H. Torsney was found not guilty by reason of insanity yesterday in the shooting death of 15-year-old Randolph Evans in Brooklyn on Thanksgiving day last year.

The shooting of the youth, who was black, and Officer Torsney, who is white, led to racial disturbances in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

Justice Barshay, before asking for the verdict, cautioned the spectators against demonstrations of any kind, but just after the verdict was read, as Torsney was led out in handcuffs, a spectator called out: “You’d better commit suicide.”

“It’s a racist system and society and this trial was a subterfuge from beginning to end,” she said.

The shooting took place shortly before midnight, when Torsney and his partner answered a radio report of an armed man at 515 Fountain Avenue, in an East New York housing development where young Evans lived with his family. AS the policemen left the building, Torsney was approaced by the boy and five others. Young Evans paused to speak to Torsney who pulled a gun from his holster and shot the boy in the head.

Torsney said he had seen the boy reach into his waistband for what appeared to be a gun but none was found and none was seen by witnesses.

“If there was no gun, this man is sick.” Said the prosecutor during summation.

The 32-year-old policeman had a record of previous epileptic attacks, said psychiatrists for both sides, he tended to panic in stressful situations, suffered from an unhappy childhood, and tended to hang back on police assignments. He had never before used his gun in his eight years on the police force.

Simpleton’s face. Dimwitted cop. Sad eyes.

NYT Dunning 12/1/77

Wednesday, November 30, 1977

Inquiry Finds Fraud in Race-Horse Switch

New York racing investigators have established to their satisfaction that the horse that ran and won at Belmont last September as the long-shot “Lebon” was actually the Uruguayan champion Cinzano, and that Dr. Mark J. Gerard was the hidden owner of the horse.

The New York Racing Association called it “one of the most serious race-track frauds in recent history.” There was photographic evidence of an earlier switch of South American horses by Gerard as well.

Racing fans in Uruguay heard of “Lebon’s” surprise victory on Sept. 23rd and the tabloid Mundocolor asked the AP for a winner’s-circle photograph.

Julian Perez, the racing editor and others immediately recognized the horse in the photograph as Cinzano. They called The Jockey Club in New York and the investigation began.

Ex NYT Montgomery 11/30/77

Cauthen: 6 Winners For 3rd Time in Year

Just when Steve Cauthen’s most loyal fans were beginning to wonder when the 17-year-old jockey was going to end a slump that had extended through 22 straight races along came the boy wonder to quell their doubts with six winners in eight appearances on the card yesterday at Aqueduct.

The teenage jockey’s performance was even more significant in that only one of his winning mounts was the favorite.

He now has 460 winners this season – 418 in New York. He is the first jockey to reach the $5 million mark in one season.

Ex 11/30/77 M. Strauss

Wolves at Flushing Meadows Zoo Recaputered After Killing 2 Deer

Parks Department personnel and the police spent Sunday night chasing 12 wolves that had escaped from their pen in the zoo at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Before the last one was rounded up yesterday morning, the wolves had killed two deer and injured two others at the zoo.

The wolves clawed their way through a chain-link fence. “We chased them on foot and by car all night. There was never any danger to people living outside the park. The wolves never left the zoo enclosure.”

Excerpt from NYT Schumach 11/30/77

Sunday, November 27, 1977

South Americans In US Said to Run Shoplifting Gangs

Every morning at about 9 o’clock as many as 50 Chilean nationals gather in a 24-hour restaurant in Washington Heights and, over coffee, talk about business. Their business takes them on the road and they notify each other of where they will be working so they won’t cover the same territory. Then, climbing into their cars, they are off to their work – shoplifting.

Law enforcement authorities say they are a few of the well over one thousand South Americans – Chileans, Colombians and Peruvians who have become increasingly skilled at and now devote full time to shoplifting, netting as much as $1,000 each on a good day for about four hours work.

Although shoplifting is estimated by the United States Department of Commerce to cost stores up to $5 billion a year in this country, most of it is done by amateur thieves – teenagers out on a spree or kleptomaniacs who cannot resist taking something without paying for it. The emergence of the South American ring marks a new trend toward organized professional shoplifting.


excerpt from David Bird NYT 11/27/77

Friday, November 25, 1977

Rikers Island No Less Grim 2 Years After Its Rebellion

So far this year, 36 inmates have attempted to escape from Rikers: three were drowned, four are still at large and the rest were recaptured. Last year 16 attempted to escape.

Excerpt from The New York Times Kifner 11/25/77

Tuesday, November 22, 1977

Ringer Horse Is Traced to Saratoga

The mystery horse in the Belmont Park ringer case spent time at Saratoga last summer under an apparent alias, investigators have learned.

Less than a month before he won a race at Belmont under the false name of Lebon, the ringer was Denim at Saratoga.

Gerard imported Lebon and Cinzano, a much faster horse, from Uruguay last June. A third horse in the consignment, an Argentine-bred named Boots Cononero was also shipped to the farm in Muttontown LI. All three horses look alike: bay colts with no markings except an irregular star, a patch of white, on their foreheads.

On Sept 23rd, after having run dismally at odds of 7-1 on Sept 9, the horse represented as Lebon won easily at Belmont for a payoff of $116 for $2. Gerard has been identified as the bettor who collected about $77,000 in winnings on the long shot’s 57-1 victory. But the authorities have declared the “Lebon” was actually a ringer, and they suspect the mystery horse was really Cinzano.

Ex NYT Cady 11/22/77

3 Gunmen Dine, Then Rob 19 In Queens Restaurant

Three gunmen robbed 19 patrons and seven employees of $10,000 in jewelry and $1400 in cash early yesterday in a restaurant in the Rego Park section of Queens.

The police said the robbers entered the restaurant – the Vienese Pub at about 11:30pm and ordered dinner. After eating, they paid their bill of $30 and then went to the restaurant’s bar, where they produced guns. They ordered the customers and employees to lie in the rear and then robbed them.

The manager said that the gunmen then took him to the safe in the basement and that, when he said he did not know the combination, had his neck and ear slashed. They gunmen fled in a stolen car.

Excerpt from New York Time Nov 22, 1977



Sunday, November 20, 1977

Spinks Gets Match With Ali Feb 15

While Leon Spinks, the 24-year-old Olympic champion was pounding out a close but unanimous 10-round decision last night over Alfio Righetti, the hitherto undefeated champion of Italy, more attention was focused on M. Ali who sat watching, then on the fighters.

Although the fight was active enough and more competitive than some had expected, there was no doubt that Ali was the only person in the building who really mattered. The crowd of 3000 reacted much more noisely to his prefight speech from the ring than to anything that happened in it afterward.

“I am here for one reason, to see which of these fighters is worthy of challenging me,” Ali cried out in his customary evangelical style, but in a voice that sounds hoarser than it used to. “I am the savior, the prophet, the resurrector,” he went on. “I am the onliest one keeping this thing alive. I am 36 years old and I’m still the greatest fighter of all time.”

Ex NYT Leonard Koppett 11/20/77

From the Police Blotter:

A 19-year-old man was stabbed to death at Madison and Montgomery Streets in the Two Bridges area of Manhattan where he lived. He was identified as Orlando Trujillo of 65 Pike Street. The police said he had a record of burglary and grand larceny arrests.

A bird watcher found the body of an unidentified man in his 50’s tied in a blanket in a wooded area off Grand Central Parkway and Francis Lewis Blvd in the Jamica Estates section of Queens. The man, who had $105 in his pockets, had apparently been shot in the head and strangled.

A Staten Island man was shot to death, allegedly by his friend who had been his best man at his wedding.


excerpt from NYT 11/20/77

Saturday, November 19, 1977

Buttock Pinch Without Consent Is Ruled a Crime in New York

Pinching or touching the buttocks of a person without that person’s consent is a crime in New York and punishable by a jail term, a Manhattan Criminal Court judge has ruled.

“If the alleged occurrence had in fact taken place in an area where the social mores condone the unconsented touching or pinching of the buttocks – rumor has it that Italy may be such an area – perhaps the defendant’s position could be sustained.”

Sexual abuse in the third degree is a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to three months in jail.

Excerpt from Tom Goldstein New York Times Nov 19, 1977



Police Press Hunt for Youth Suspected of Two Dozen Flatbush Rapes

A special task force of as many as 40 police officers has begun a nightly stakeout of a neighborhood in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn in an effort to capture a youth suspected of raping two dozen women there since June 1976.

Aged 20 to 89, all were raped in apartments where they lived alone, according to the police, in a neighborhood of tidy prewar apartments and pastel-painted frame houses known as Parkville.

Some women in the community have been alarmed by reports of the rapist, who has been dubbed by the police as “the night stalker” because of this pattern of striking in the early-morning hours.

According to a general description complied by the police, the suspect is a slightly built black youth, between 14 and 20 years old, from 5 feet 2 inches to 5 feet 6 inches and weighing from 125 to 140. Many of the women are elderly and unable to supply a detailed description. About half have been over 50.

“A major problem has been that many of the women have waited a period of time before calling the police – as much as 20 to 40 minutes and this enables the suspect to fell before our cars can respond.”


excerpt from Judith Cummings NYT 11/19/77

Thursday, November 17, 1977

Motorists to Be Allowed to Park at Most of 14,000 Broken Meters

Nearly one-fourth of New York City’s 65,000 parking meters are not working because they have been vandalized or broke through normal use, city traffic officials said yesterday. The smashed, headless or missing meters have cost the city $1.4 million in lost revenue durig the first 10 months of 1977. A four month contract dispute has slowed repair work.

One block where the parking meter problem was evident yesterday was West 72nd Street between Broadway and Columbus Avenue in Manhattan, where more than a dozen consecutive meters were without heads.

Excerpt from New York Times Nov 17, 1977



Wednesday, November 16, 1977

Three Inmates at Rikers Arrested

The police arrested three Rikers Island inmates yesterday, saying that they had been involved in a series of shootings, assaults and shakedowns this year of drug dealers and store merchants in a four-block area in Harlem. The men were charged with murder in the shooting of a man last month. All three had been arrested and held on Rikers Island on other charges since the killing in October.

At least 36 persons have been shot, 17 fatally, in the area between West 145th and West 149th on Eighth and Seventh Avenues this year. Four were shot on three separate incidents on the night of Oct 1.

“These three were members of a stickup gang that robbed drug pushers, operators of after-hours clubs and neighborhood people,” said Inspector Charles Henry.

Excerpt from The New York Times L Williams 11/16/77

Tuesday, November 15, 1977

SLA Head Criticizes Judge on Studio 54 License

Michael Roth, the outgoing chairman of the NY State Liquor Authority accused Judge Hyman Korn of State Supreme Court of being “influenced” by the chic clientele of Studio 54 – when he ordered the club be granted a liquor license.

He also asserted the DA Morgenthau had impeded the authority’s crackdown on unlicensed bottle clubs in the city by refusing to prosecute two owners of the disco for selling liquor without a license.

Roy Cohn, who represented Studio after the SLA denied the disco a license, submitted with his arguments a long list of politicians, actors, actresses and other people described as “members of New York society” who were said to patronize the club. Included in the list were Jacqueline Onassis and members of the Kennedy, Carey and Rockefeller families, Bella Abzug, Borough President Percy Sutton, Deputy Mayor Stanely Friedman, Woody Allen, Jack Nicholson, Truman Capote, Frank Sinatra and Liza Minelli. Andy Warhol and Calvin Klein signed affidavits supporting the club’s appeal.

The club applied for a license April 14. In April and May the club was granted several one-night catering permits allowing it to sell liquor but, according to Roth, these were abused and the club was denied permits to sell liquor for the weekend of May 20 to 22. Rubell and Schrager were arrested after Roth was sold two drinks on the 21st.

On August 12 the SLA voted 3 to 2 to refuse the license.

The club told Judge Korn that the disco had improved the neighborhood and that denial of the liquor license would endanger an investment of $397,000.


excerpt from NYT 11/15/77

Sunday, November 13, 1977

Retired Businessman, 68, Found Slain, Roommate, 63, Injured in a Reported Robbery in Luxury Building

A 68-year-old retired businessman was stabbed to death early yesterday and his 63-year-old roommate suffered head injuries in what the roommate said was an attempted burglary at a third-floor apartment in the Sovereign at 425 East 58th in Manhattan.

He said he had retired at about 7:30pm Friday night and was awakened at 1:30am yesterday by two men, who struck him on the head with a metal instrument and then bound him and left him in one of the apartment’s three bathrooms. He said he managed to free himself and as he crawled out of the bathroom, the burglars seized him and bound him again. Then they fled.

Excerpt from New York Times 11/13/77

Saturday, November 12, 1977

Around the Stadium, the Games People Play Are Not Baseball

There were all the young dudes, already half in the bag an hour before game time, standing in front of the Sportsman’s Bar and Restaurant, making sounds like, “Yaaahhh, Yaaaahh,” at those ticket-holdres who were hurrying to the safety of the Stadium as if running away from the plague.

And when it was over, with the Yankees scoring the winning run at the stroke of midnight, the people gave one short but spectacular shout of joy and then began tamely filing to the exit.

There seemed to be a sense of relief, not only at the final score but also at the actual conclusion of the long game; it was, after all a week night and there was school and work looming hours away.

ex NYT Kornheiser 11/12/77

A Blind Newsdealer Wards Off a Robber

A 70-year-old Greenwich Village newsdealer who is legally blind foiled a robbery by a 16-yar-old youth yesterday morning, according to police.

Jack Furman, the news dealer, whose stand is near St. Vincent’s Hospital told police he saw the youth reach for his change box at 7:30am.

Mr. Furman, who can see shapes, threw paperweights at the youth and hit his target at a distance of 50 feet. The youth, who had an artifical leg, hit him over the head with a crutch. Bernard Dukes lost a leg several years ago after a tumor was discovered.


Excerpt from New York Times Nov 12, 1977

Friday, November 11, 1977

24 Young Inmates At Rikers Capture Van in Escape Try

Twenty-four teen-aged inmates of the Adolescent Reception and Detention Center on Rikers Island commandeered a prison van in an unsuccessful escape attempt from the island last night. Several guards were injured, including the van’s driver, who was taken to the hospital in serious condition.

A Correction Dept. spokesman said that the prisoners had overpowered the driver, attacked another guard and tried to speed across the narrow causeway linking the prison with the Queens mainland. The driver was “garroted” from behind by an inmate while the van was taking the inmates from a visitor’s area at the main building to separate quarters elsewhere on the island.

Excerpt from The New York Times 11/11/77

Thursday, November 10, 1977

Prostitutes From Midwest Vanish From 8th Avenue During Hunt by Visiting Police

“The pimps have pulled all the white girls from the Midwest off the streets,” a prostitute told the two Minn. policemen. “You ain’t going to find one of them tonight mister.”

On foot and riding in an unmarked New York police car, the two Min. policemen got their first intensive look at Midtown Manhattan’s sleazy “Minnesota Strip.”

“We realize all of the publicity about our visit might keep the streets clean for a few days.” The policemen flew home last night saying they would return soon without advance notice to resume looking for about 400 girls who they believe are recruited every year in Minn. by New York-based pimps.

Covenant House received calls from terrified young women who had heard about the offer to return home. But they also received threatening calls from pimps who said, “Tell those rednecks from Minneapolis that they won’t take a girl home alive,” Father Bruce Ritter of Covenant House said.

NYT 11/10/77

Flood Damages in New York Area Put in Millions And Weather Service Sees Chance for More Rain

As the dirty flood waters receded in the city and suburbs yesterday, homeowners and municipal officials began to clean up damages whose costs will run into many millions of dollars.

Mayor Beame flew over Staten Island, the city’s worst hit area and appealed to Governor Carey to declare it a disaster area. 3,000 homes were flooded and 700 had to be evacuated there.

The rainfall on Tuesday set a record totaling7.4 inches. The total rainfall for the storm is now 9.19 inches. The figure was measured at La Guardia Airport, but the Central Park station – although infrequently used because its instruments are often vandalized – is considered the official measuring place.


excerpt from NYT 11/10/77

Wednesday, November 09, 1977

An Argentine Implicates Dr. Gerard

With an agonized mixture of loyalty and feelings of betrayal, an Argentine veterinarian acknowledged tonight that his friend and sometime employer, Dr. Mark Gerard of Muttontown LI, had once asked him to find a ‘cheap’ horse with markings similar to those of a good horse Gerard had already decided to buy.

He spoke of the Argentine horses Chirico and Sundoro which were acquired by him for Gerard for shipment to the United States. He said Dr. Gerard first decided to buy Chirico, a 5-year-old who had won three or four races here and earned about $18,000. He described the horse as a reddish bay without white markings.
While Chirico was waiting for a place on a cargo plane to the United States, the vet was surprised by a call from Dr. Gerard who told him that his wife wanted a saddle horse and asked him to find a cheap thoroughbred, specifying that it, too, be a bay without white markings.

“I was somewhat suspicious, because in quarter-horse races down here they sometimes switch animals, and the easiest ones to switch are those without markings,” he said. However, he said, he went about fulfilling the request and soon found Sundoro, a 6-year-old dark bay without markings who had won one race in an undistinguised career.

“I don’t know what happened with those horses in the States,” the vet went on. “But I’m very concerned that there may be a problem because I am concerned about the reputation of Argenine horses. This is the only way I can find for washing away my stupidness. I was used by Mike Gerard as a useful idiot.”

Ex NYT 11/9/77

Tuesday, November 08, 1977

An Appeal To Girls On ‘Minnesota Strip’

Two Minneapolis police officers, in an unusual mission, wee prevented yesterday by heavy rains from beginning a search along Eighth Avenue’s notorious ‘Minnesota Strip’ for Midwestern teenagers who have become prostitutes in New York.

“There is a no-strings-atttached safety valve for any young woman who want to return home,” said Lieut. Gary McGaughey in his appeal to hundreds of teenagers from the Minneapolis area believed to have been lured into lives of prostitutes here.

‘Safe houses” have been established in Minneapolis partly because many parents refused to accept the teen-age girls after learning that they had been prostitutes.

NYT Raab 11/8/77

Into Each Life ‘Some’ Must Fall, But Really

And the rains came. In drizzles and torrents, gales and buckets, the rains came, bringing hardship and loss to hundreds and soggy, sodden inconvenience to almost everyone else. It rained cats and dogs, lizards and frogs. Into each life some must fall. Lovely for ducks. Etc.

Swepts by high winds, more than five inches of rain flooded gutters and basements, highways and byways, soaking raiment, swelling streams, stalling cars, slowing trains and closing schools.

On city streets, stranges commiserated. On subways, soaked to the skin, they smiled and shrugged. In the suburbs, high winds and fallen tree limbs toppled power lines. Leaves clogged the drains. And still it rains.


excerpt from Carey Winfrey NYT 11/08/77

Rain and High Winds Lash Area, Causing Floods and Train Delays

5” of rain and gale-force winds battered the metropolitan area yesterday, and the National Weather Service said the storm would last at least until the early morning hours today. Flooding was widespread.

On the streets of downtown Manhattan, it was a day of ruined umbrellas as winds of 30 miles an hour and more whipped around the tall buildings.


excerpt from Frank Prial NYT 11/8/77

Thursday, November 03, 1977

Investigators Fly to Uruguay For Clues to Racing Mystery

A five-man task force, armed with photographs and paternity-testing gear, flew to Uruguay last night in a attempt to unravel the bizarre horse racing affair that may come to be known as the Case of the Dead Ringer.

A top-flight Uruguyan horse named Cinzano, whom Gerard allegedly destroyed June 12 because it suffered a broken skull in an accident, is believed to have won a race at Belmont on September 23rd – racing under the name of Lebon, a mediocre animal.

Meanwhile, a London-based insurance company had paid Cinzano’s owner $150,000 on the ‘death’ of the horse.

The horse known as Lebon was so overlooked by bettors that it paid $116 for a $2 win bet. The board contends that Gerard was the single largest bettor on the horse, collecting about $77,000 after making several trips to the $50 window rather than placing one large bet at one time.

At most major tracks in the United States, American-bred horses may not compete unless their lips have a permanently tattooed identification number.
South American horses are not tattooed.

ex NYT 11/3/77

Wednesday, November 02, 1977

Tapestry Stolen From St. John the Divine

A valuable 17th-century tapestry was stolen and two others were damaged between Monday night and yesterday morning in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

The stolen tapestry, woven in 1661 from a cartoon by Raphael, was one of a set of two hanging over a tomb. The cathedral put the value of the stolen tapestry which measured 7 x 12 at more than $20,000. A detective put the figure at $30,000.

There was a broken window in the basement indicating that the vandals had entered that way. But the police also theorized that the thieves could have been in church Monday evening and hidden there. It was easy for them to leave because all the doors open freely from the inside.


excerpt from E. Perlmutter NYT 11/2/77

Stolen Pipes of Organ May Produce Illicit Air

Officials at the University of Miami think that a student is stealing pipes from the organ at the Episcopal chapel to use as marijuana-smoking ‘bongs.’

Fourteen of the pipes, valued at $600 and ranging in length up to three and a half feet have been taken since the beginning of class.

“It’s actually a possibility,” said David Wike, campus security director. “Some guy will get a crazy idea and do something like that.”

He said bongs and other marijuana paraphenalia were outlawed in dormitories this year.


excerpt from NYT 11/2/77

Monday, October 31, 1977

A Prisoner in Manhattan Escapes for Third Time, but Is Recaptured

A prisoner who had escaped from custody twice before got away yesterday from a detective who had brought him to the Manhattan DA’s office for questioning. The prisoner made his escape after spraying ammonia in the detective’s fave and seizing his revolver. The DA’s office said the detective suffered chemical abrasion of the corneas and was taken to Bellevue. He also suffered a broken nose and the lose of several teeth in the struggle with the prisoner, Antonio Gonzalez.

In an incident last year Gonzalez seized a state trooper’s car and gun and later took over another car, forcing four civilians to drive him to the Delaware Water Gap.

NYT 10/31/77

Sunday, October 30, 1977

Pimps Establish Recruiting Link To the Midwest

Two Minneapolis policemen will search the streets of midtown Manhattan next week for hundreds of Middle Western teenagers who have been lured into lives as prostitutes in New York.

Besides trying to get the youngsters to return to their homes, the Minneapolis officers will be looking for more evidence of a recruiting pipeline.

“We have a tremendous amount of young women entrapped into prostitution and in a short time they are taken to New York,” said one of the officers.

The pimps are targeting Minneapolis because the city has become a magnet for thousands of teenage runaways in the upper midwest.

Last year 400 teenagers from the Minn. area were picked up by pimps and sent to New York. The overall number in the last couple of years “must be a least a thousand and the problem is getting bigger and bigger.”

The first indication of a prostitution connection between New York and Minn. came in the early 1970s when vice squad detectives began arresting young blond women from the midwest for streetwalking in the Times Square area. A section of Eighth Avenue was named the Minnesota strip.

New York pimps have stepped up recruiting efforts because blond Scandinavian types are much in demand in the city. About 200 New York pimps have been identified as looking for prostitutes in Minneapolis. The women are induced to prostitute themselves in Minn. first as a training session and to earn the plane fare to New York.

“The pimps tell the girls – and this is partially true – that if they are arrested in New York, identification checks are not as thorough as in Minneapolis and their ages won’t be known.” A 16-year-old said she was arrested 40 times without her true age and identity being ascertained. There were 6,000 prostitution arrests last year in New York City.

One girl had her nose broken and her face gouged by her pimp. Another had her jaw broken. A 16-year-old who was recruited when she was 14 told Minn. police she turned over more than $100,000 to her pimp in an 18-month period.


NYT Raab 10/30/77

Saturday, October 29, 1977

Berkowitz’s Judge Chided On Interview

Justice John Starkey of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn came under sharp criticism in legal circles yesterday for speaking freely to a newspaper reporter about the forthcoming trial of D. Berkowitz and there were indications that he might be replaced as the trial judge.

The judge, obviously upset by the furor over an article in yesterday’s Post, said:
“I’m beginning to think of taking off. My wife is very much annoyed. She shuns publicity. And when the story broke over the last week she had to cancel her beauty parlor appointment.”

He is quoted as saying he would not accept a plea of guilty if young Mr. Berkowitz continues to say that his crimes had been committed at the instigation of demons.

Justice Starkey called the newspaper article “accurate but distorted.” He denied one statement attributed to him saying the defendant was virtually certain to spend most, if not all, of his life in a maximum-security mental institution.

Excerpt from Max Seigel Oct 29, 1977 New York Times

Friday, October 28, 1977

Court Stays Racing Suspension of Veterinarian in ‘Ringer’ Case

At Belmont a horse identified as Lebon was riden to victory on September 23rd. Investigators have found that the horse was not really Lebon, but most likely Cinzano, a much faster Uruguyan import who supposedly died at trainer/owner Mark Gerard’s in Muttontown NJ last June. Dr. Gerard is one of 20 veterinarians who maintain private practices at Belmont. He has several hundred horses under his care.

Lebon and Cinzano came to the US from Uruguay in a consignment of 17 horses. The two in the ringer case were taken to the Gerard two-acre farm. According to Gerard, Cinzano had to be destroyed soon after having arrived at the farm when he suffered a fractured skull. A $150,000 insurance policy was paid on the horse whose owner was listed as Joseph Taub.

The racing board suspended Gerard and Jack Morgan an assistant of Gerard’s, saying “Lebon wasn’t Lebon, there was heavy betting by one individual, and the answers given so far have not been satisfactory.” The 57-1 shot netted about $70,000 to the one gambler. He carried the money to his car in a brown paper bag under Pinkerton escort. The story was that the bettor was Gerard.

ex NYT Cady 10/28/77

Thursday, October 27, 1977

4 Shot and a Bank Robber is Slain After Chase Near Gramercy Park

A bank robber who took two hostages while trying to make a getaway was fatally shot yesterday and a policeman and three civilians were wounded in a fusillade of bullets on a busy street near Gramercy Park.

The shootout capped a wild chase of several blocks through heavy traffic in which two pedestrians were run down and half a dozen automobiles including a police car and a taxi cab were wrecked.

Both hostages were held briefly as a shield and were released unharmed.

A man in his mid-twenties, who later died on the operating table at Bellevue Hospital, ordered tellers at the Union Federal Savings bank at 23rd and Third to fill a black bag with money. With $2500 in hand and his .38 the gunman jumped into a cab which got stuck in traffic. The gunman then jumped into another taxi heading in the opposite direction. Heading south on Lex they were “confronted by the steel fencing of Gramercy Park.” They turned onto East 21st. A police car making the same turn rammed into the back of a gray Ford Pinto. A block further on, the cab rammed into a heavy truck. The gunman ran for it but found himself in a blind alley. He came back out and grabbed another hostage yelling “Get away, get away or I will blow his head off,” said a witness. “There were cops all around and they were yelling, “Drop the gun or we’re going to waste you. Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” The hostage said the gunman fired 4 or 5 shots at police. “He would fire one shot at police then he would put the gun to my head, then he would fire another shot at police. In other words it was an alternating action.” At least twice while the gunman pressed himself and the hostage aainst the stone doorway, the police fired at him, according to the witness. “We thought he would be shot,” said the hostage’s wife. “I didn’t think he would be shot by the gunman. I thought he would be shot by police. There were lots of them.”

A policeman who had worked his way around in an effort to flank the gunman was spotted and shot in the leg. With that the gunman made a break for it and more than 30 shots were fired. The police said seven or eight of them hit the bank robber. The police said he had a record of five arrests and served time in California. “When the guy fell,” the witness said of the mortally wounded suspect, “the cops jumped on hime with their knees and feet. They just stomped him. He was screaming in agony. I saw them running and leaping on him.”

Excerpt from Joseph Treaster Oct 27, 1977 New York Times

Witnesses Give In; Man Held in Killing

After finally winning the cooperation of a reluctant neighborhood, Brooklyn homicide detectives arrested Joseph D’Amico yesterday evening and charged him with the murder of his neighbor, Angelo Treglia, on a crowded Bensonhurst street over the weekend.

A key role in the arrest was played by Detective Edward Zigo, who spoke to many of the residents in Italian, easing their fears and persuading them to cooperate with the police.


excerpt from Kleiner NYT 10/27/77

Wednesday, October 26, 1977

Refusal by Police to Raid Hotel Stirs Controversy Among Agencies

The refusal by the NYC police to raid a midtown hotel Oct. 11 that was suspected of being used by pimps to house teen-age prostitutes erupted yesterday into an open dispute among city, state and police officials.

Investigators from a legislative crime committee working with the city had proposed the raid in the hope of obtaining evidence about the recruitment of teenagers in organized prostitution rings in the city. They obtained a warrant but police legal blocked the raid.

“This is part of a negative attitude by the police,” said Sidney Baumgarten, director of the city’s Midtown Enforcement Project. “The police don’t want to do anything different or innovative, even when children are involved.”

Law-enforcement officials said that news of the aborted raid later leaked out to the pimps who, together with their prostitutes, later abandoned the hotel (the Senton West at 39 West 27th Street).

Information about pimps in the hotel was obtained from a 16-year-old girl was was arrested on prostitution charges September 5. She said a pimp had recruited her in her hometown of Minneapolis and brought her to New York. (Why are they targeting Minneapolis – norwegian blondes?) She told police she had been housed at the hotel with other teenage girls.

NYT Raab 10/26/77

Brooklyn Terror: Youth Gang Takes Over Apartment House

A neighborhood gang has seized a six-story apartment house in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, terrorizing the more than 100 tenants by ripping out the building’s pipes, punching out its windows and smashing its furnishings. Only two tenants remain, and the gang has boasted of plans to burn the house down. As of late last week, the police seemed unaware of what had happened.

The building is in a neighborhood where gangs seeking plunder, clubhouses and turf have seized tens of other buildings, robbing some of the tenants not only of their possessions but of their homes. The residents have been forced like refugees to flee from building to building. The gang follows.

Marauders, armed with machetes, baseball bats, guns and chains have terrorized the community, battling in the middle of busy intersections, vandalizing cars and apartmentw, mugging elderly couples and finally invading entire buildings and forcing the tenants out.

For the building at 396 South Fourth Street, the problem began about a month ago when the superintendent, Freddy Espada, ordered members of the gang, called The Love Brothers, to stay away from the apartment house. He was beaten and his life was threatened. He fled, the gang moved in, and the building began to deteriorate rapidly.

“We had to get out of there,” said Manny LeBron, who fled last week with his pregnant wife Lucy. “They broke the pipes, the broke the windows, there was water all over the stairs, people were screaming in the halls and one night they started shooting bullets out the window from one apartment into another.”

“I have to stay because I have no place to go,” Mrs. Celestina Rodriguez (63) said the other day as she huddled nexxt to two pots of boiling water on the stove – the only source of heat in her ground-floor apartment. Night had fallen and a damp chill seeped through her three-room $105-a-month apartment. Several friends offered to store her things until she finds a place to live.

“I never saw myself like this,” Mrs. Rodriquez said, weeping. “I’m scared. I’m so scared.”

The police seem to have made no effort to curb the gangs activities at the building.

“We sell them to the landlords across the street,” said 16-year-old Nelson Vasquez who rattled off the going prices for a stolen refridgerator ($25); a steam radiator ($3); a stove ($35) and a sink ($10). He is the stepson of the former super.

“My father used to deliver seltzer to Bushwick. Now there’s no one left in Bushwick, it’s all burned down. We’re next.”


excerpt from Dena Kleinman NYT 10/26/77

Brooklyn Police Appeal for Witnesses

“We urge you to come forward,” the loudspeakers of the police cars blared as they cruised along West Ninth in the Besonhurst section of Brooklyn yesterday morning. “Help bring this murderer to justice. Remember, this is your neighborhood, help protect it.”

But the unusual police effort to find witnesses to the murder of Angelo Treglia was met with silence. The well-liked plumber was shot to death on the street on Saturday in full view of many of his neighbors but, so far – to the frustration of police – no one has come forward. Police say that on Saturday afternoon there were 50 or 60 people on the block.

Mr. Treglia, a slim, well-liked plumber who often did favors for neighbors had just finished repairing a bathroom shower a few doors from his home and was loading his tools into his truck. Four shots rang out. Mr. Treglia fell dead, three bullets in his head, one in his shoulder.

“It was over a concrete job,” one said. In front of the Treglia home there is a botched concrete-repair job on the curb and sidewalk. Another man had done the job and Treglia was trying to get him to fix it. “They were out in front fighting about it the other day,” a woman said, “but then they went into Italian and I couldn’t follow them.”

The second man was known as “Crazy Joe.”

About 200 neighbors attended a mass for Treglia yesterday. Tilda Treglia, the widow, broke down at the mass. “What are they waiting for, a third murder?” she said. She referred to a recent case a few blocks away in which Frank Juliano, 22, was shot to death in front of a bar. In that case, too, no witnesses have come forward.


excerpt from John Kiener NYT 10/26/77

Tuesday, October 25, 1977

30 New York Policemen Fail Corruption-Complaint Tests

The telephone-caller told the detectiveat the station house that his cousin had been arrested by a police office who then stole $300 from him. A caller to another precinct said that his neighbor, who he believed was a police officers, was selling narcotics.

The two officers who took these telephone calls did nothing about them. Now both – along with 14 other police officers, including a lietenant, five sergeants and eight detectives – are facing disciplinary action by the New York City Police Department as part of its continuing efforts to combat corruption.

All 30 failed an “integrity control test” that they did not know they had taken. Sixty others passed. The test was conducted by Internal Affairs.

In 1973, in the aftermath of the Knapp Comm. Finding of widespread police corruption in NYC, the department received 3,400 complaints in 74 and 75. Last year the number was down to 2,000.


NYT Buder 10/25/77

Monday, October 24, 1977

Rodgers Once More Victor in Marathon

Maybe it was the crowded corridor that formed along First Avenue. Or the vision that suddenly came to Bill Rodgers after 20 miles, when his legs felt tight. Or maybe Rodgers is simply the world’s best marathon man.

Frank Shorter, Olympic Gold medalist in 1972 dropped out at mile 16.

ex NYT Amdur 10/24/77

Saturday, October 22, 1977

Berkowitz Is Ruled Fit for Trial; Declares He’ll Have ‘a Lot to Say.’

The defendant, who had consistently declared his readiness to stand trial despite his lawyers’ efforts to have him declared mentally incompetent, smile broadly when the judge, John Starkey, announced his ruling.

“Your honor, remember what I said,” he called out in the makeshift courtroom, “Lock the door and throw away the key. I mean it.”

The question is: can he perceive, recall, relate? Yes. Does he have rudimentary understanding of the trial process? Yes. Can he establish a working relationship with his attorney? Yes. Is he sufficiently intelligent to listen and evaluate? Yes. Is he able to stand trial? Yes.


Excerpt from Max Seigel Oct 22, 1977 New York Times

Thursday, October 20, 1977

Yankees’ Center of Controversy

“Reggie Jackson on your ball club,” Reggie Jackson said on his second day of spring training with the Yankees last March, “is part of a show of force. It’s a show of power. I help to intimidate the opposition, just because I’m here. That’s part of my role.”

His teammates did not accept him at first; then, just as Thurman Munson, the acknowledged team leader, had made a breakthrough, a magazine article appeared in which Jackson was quoted (accurately) as saying, “I’m the straw that stirs the drink. Munson thinks he can be the straw that stirs the drink, but he can only stir it bad.” (Was he provoked by Munson’s racist comments? Munson was not the leader of the black players).

Jackson, never one of the crowd wherever he was, spent the rest of the season virtually alienated from the rest of the team. Billy Martin didn’t like him either, despite his hitting ability, because he was Steinbrenner’s prize. Not the manager’s.

Jackson’s ultra-sensitivity and his insecurity plagued him during the first few months of the season. His constant show of money (he would sit in the aisle seat on the team bus and count his ‘roll,’) his frequent references to his so-called ‘160 IQ’ and his compulsive loquaciousness did nothing to endear him to the other players. Resulting slights by his teammates bothered him and affected his play.

He sees a lot of girls,” a friend related yesterday, “but he doesn’t need the East Side singles bars, the Joe Namath bar scene. He goes to bed early. One o’clock is late for him. It’s not what you would expect from a bachelor athlete living in New York.”

Jackson avoids liquor, prefering white wine and an occasional beer.

On a shopping trip in KC with Hunter, Gullet and Pinella, only Pinella, the only nonmillionare in the group, purchased anything. “Lou bought $50 shoes, but I would neve wear anything like that,” said Jackson, minutes after counting the $100 bills in his wallet. “He also got some $20 shirts, but the shirt I’m wearing now cost $60.)

His superiority (actually inferiority – result of racism?) complex created problems with other Yankees. The problems, in turn, helped plunge Jackson into periodic states of deep depression. Only Fran Healy, a seldom used catcher was able to stir Jackson out of those depths, becoming his confidant and his only genuine friend on the team.”

“He’s extremely complex, sensitive, articulate, loquacious and at times controversial,” Healy said yesterday before the parade. “One thing is for certain: he’s not one dimension. As a baseball player, under the circumstances, he had a great year.”

Jackson reached his lowest point the night of the final game against KC when Martin removed him from the lineup. One the plane ride home Jackson was severely depressed and filled with hatred for Martin.

Then, just nine days later, the dramatic and dynamic qualities soared to the top of Jackson’s being and he concluded the most trying year of his life with an exhibition that only he among present day players could have produced.

“If we win tonight,” Hunter and Ken Holtzman, also Jackson’s teammates in Oakland, had said before the game Tuesday night, “Reggie will be the hero. We’ll bet our salaries on it.”

Like Jackson, they were winners.


RECORDS BY JACKSON

Most home runs, consecutive, in game – Three
Most home runs in a Series – Five
Most total bases in a Series – Twenty-Five
Most runs in a Series – Ten
Most home runs in a game – Three tying Babe Ruth who did it twice
Most runs in game – Four – tied four other including Enos Slaughter
Most total bases in game – twelve tying Babe Ruth

ex NYT Chass 10/20/77

The Two Season of Reggie Jackson

Nearly three hours after his three home runs had won the World Series for the Yankees and redemption for himself, Reggie Jackson, like almost everyone else around him, appeared in awe of what he had accomplised. “There’s a part of me I don’t know,” he was saying softly at his locker. There’s a ballplayer in me that responds to all the pressure.”

At King Arthur’s Court on the Upper East Side in July he had said: “I’m still the straw that stirs the drink. Not Munson, not nobody else in the club.”

All the other Yankees had dressed and departed Tuesday night except for Thurman Munson who was on his way out now. “Hey, coon,” called the catcher grinning, “Nice goin’, coon.” Reggie Jackson laughed and hurried over and hugged the captain. “I’m going down to the party here in the ball park,” said Munson, grinning again. “It’s just for white people but they’ll let you in. Come on down.”

The day after the Jackson-Martin confrontation at Fenway in June, there was a meeting in Gabe Paul’s office. Jackson said Billy stood over him challenged him. He stood over me and said, “I’ll make you fight me, boy.” But there was no way I was going to fight him. I’m 215 pounds, he’s almost 50 years old. I win the fight, but I lose.”

That’d be something, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Reggie Jackson. Somehow I don’t fit.”

Thurman Munson reappeared. “Hey, nigger, you’re too slow, that party’s over but I’ll see you next year. I’ll see you next year wherever I might be.

“You’ll be back.”

“Not me,” said Thurman Munson, who has talked of demanding to be traded to the Cleveland Indians. “But you know who stuck up for you, nigger, you know who stuck up for you when you needed it.”

“I know,” said Reggie Jackson. “But you’ll be here next year. We’ll all be here.”

ex NYT Anderson 10/20/77

Yanks Revel in Unabashed Adulation

Broadway, for nearly a mile from Bowling Green to City Hall, was a huge smile and triumphal shout yesterday as hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers staged one of the city’s most memorable ticker tape parades to honor the Yankees for their first World Series victory in 15 years.

The city, it seemed, had a future again. Joe DiMaggio, one of the greatest stars of earlier Yankee teams that won World Series titles with apparent ease, caught the feeling on the stage of City Hall. With the banners of the first Yankee championship hanging over the City Hall entrance behind him, DiMaggio, who had become tearful during the singing of the national anthem, reluctantly yielded to requests to say something.

“I hope the players get a good rest and perhaps start another dynasty in New York.”

ex NYT Schumach 10/20/77

Wednesday, October 19, 1977

Yankees Take Series; Jackson Equals Mark of 3 Homers in Game

With Reggie Jackson hitting three home runs in three straight at bats, the New York Yankees swept all those family feuds under the rug last night and overpowered the Los Angeles Dodgers, 8-4, to win their first World Series in 15 years.

They won it in the sixth gme of a match that had enlivened both coasts for the last week, and that rocked Yankee Stadium last night as hundreds of fans poured through a reinforced army of 350 security guards and stormed onto the field after the final out.

The last Yankee championship was in 1962 when they defeated the San Francisco Giants toward the end of a postwar reign. And it marked a dramatic comeback from the four-game sweep they suffered last October at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds.

Jackson hit his three home runs on the first pitches off three pitchers, and he became the only man in history to hit three in a Series game since Babe Ruth did it for the Yankees twice, in 1926 and again in 1928.

But nobody had ever before hit five in a World Series – let alone five in his last nine official times at bat – a feat that the 31-year-old Pennsylvanian accomplished during his last three games in California and New York.

This was mainly a night for hitting by both the Yankees and Dodgers – late of Brooklyn – the teams that once produced the perfect game, the dropped third strike and the Subway Series.

In the ninth inning Jackson left for a batting helmet to protect himself in right field.

The Best Bonus for Martin is Presented by the Players

Martin’s day at Yankee Stadium began with a 1:30pm meeting the Paul, the club president, who had called him at his NJ apartment and asked him to come in early. “I didn’t know what he wanted. I wondered who jumped the club now.”
Paul told him he would return next year for the second year of his three year contract and a hefty bonus: $35,000 in cash, a blue Lincoln Continental Mark V that retails for $22,000 and payment of the rent on his $400 a month apartment.


ex NYT Durso 10/19/77

The Moving Finger Writes, Etc.

It had to happen this way. It had been predestined since Nov. 29, 1976, when Reginald Martinez Jackson sat down on a gilded chair in New York’s Americana Hotel and wrote his name on a Yankee contract. That day he became an instant millionaire, the big honcho on the best team money could buy, the richest, least inhibited, most glamorous exhibit in Billy Martin’s pin-stripped zoo. That day the plot was written for last night – the bizarre scenario Reggie Jackson played out by hitting three home runs, clubbing the Los Angeles Dodgers into submission and carrying his supporting players with him to the baseball championship of North America. His was the most lurid performance in 74 World Series, for although Babe Ruth hit three home runs in a game in 1926 and again in 1928, not even that demigod smashed three in a row.

Reggie’s first broke a tie and put the Yankees in front, 4-3. His second tattened the advantage to 7-3. His third completed arrangements for a final score of 8-4, wrapping up the championship in six games.

Jackson had made a home run on Saturday and another in his last at bat on Sunday. His first at bat last night was a walk so in his last four official turns he hit home runs. In his last nine times at bat, this Hamlet in double knits scored seven runs, made six hits and five home runs and batted in six runs for an average of .687 compiled by day and by night on two seacoasts 3,000 miles and three time zones apart.

Ever since the Yankees went to training camp in March, Jackson had lived in the eye of the hurricane. All summer long as the spike-shod capitalists bickered and quarreled, contending with their manager, defying their owner, Reggie was the most controversial, the most articulate, the most flamboyant.

His first home run knocked the Dodgers’ starting pitcher, Burt Hooton out of the game. His second disposed of Elias Sosa, Hooton’s successor. Jackson was the lead off hitter in the eighth. For the third time, Reggie hit the first pitch but this one didn’t take the shortest distance between two points. Straight out from the plate the ball streaked, not toward the neighborly stands in right but on a soaring arc toward the unoccupied bleacher’s in dead center, where the seats are painted black to give batters a better background. Up the white spec climbed, dwindling, diminishing until it settled at last half way up those empty stands, probably 450 feet away. This time he could not disappoint his public. He stepped out of the dugout and faced the multitude, two fists and one cap uplifted. “I must admit,” said Steve Garvey, the Dodgers’ first baseman, “when Reggie hit his third home run and I was sure nobody was listening, I applauded into my glove.”

When the last jubilant playmate had been peeled off his neck, Reggie took a seat near the first-base end of the bench. The crowd was still bawling for him and comrades urged him to take a curtain call.


ex NYT Smith 10/19/77

Delirious Fans Run Wild As Some Violence Erupts

While hundreds of people gasped, and others ran to police officers to lodge complaints, a teenage boy was beaten up at third base by three men wearing blue uniforms. There were conflicting reports whether the men with clubs who hit him were New York police officers or the Stadium’s private security force.

“They sure had a little rumpus over there,” said one hospital employee, “it’s been busy all night.”

Meanwhile dozens of people in the stands who tore out the blue stadium seats were taken away.

“I bet the kids aren’t from the city. Were are they from? Yonkers? They think they can come down here and do this to us.”

At the start of the eighth inning when a Yankee victory seemed assured, cherry bombs and firecrackers began exploding in the stands and on the field. The barrage led Reggie Jackson to don a hard hat for protection.

At the end mounted police were overwhelmed in the effort to stem the tide of roaring fans.

The scene outside the stadium became turbulent as the fans departed. Police chased some fans up 161st Street and curious crowds followed.

The fans stormed out, heading for anyone in pinstripes. Jackson dodged a few and elbowed a few. Nettles swung in self-defense before finding shelter in the dugout.

Reggie Jackson, who wore a hard hat out in right field after a series of cherry bombs made the muscular slugger jump with fear, dashed away from fans as best he could. He bowled one over, chopped another down with a right hand. He ran out of fear.

His quickness impressed Don Sutton who said: “He’s the most valuable player, you bet, and his most impressive move all night was the open field run he made to get to the dugout and escape those crazies at the end of the game. He could help the New York Giants.”

ex NYT Eskenazi 10/19/77

Scrappy, Controversial Yankee Manager – Alfred Manuel (Billy) Martin

“I’m insecure too,” said Martin (in LA), “but I’m insecure because I don’t have a lot of mone, and that’s natural isn’t it?” Then he smiled and said: “How about that? One beer and I’m philosphizing.”

“I’ll never change and I never have changed.” Alfred Manuel Martin was born on May 16, 1928 in Berkeley,CA. With his father gone and him mother working, he was raised by his grandparents, who lived a few blocks away. His grandmother called him “Bellissiomo” or “Belli” for short. Other kids, hearing him called that, naturally made it “Billy.”

ex NYT Koppett 10/19/77

Tuesday, October 18, 1977

Body of Gem Dealer Positively Identified

A body exhumed by Puerto Rican authorities was identified by them tonight as that of Abraham S. the New York diamond dealer who disappeared July 28th.

The chief pathologist acknowledged that medical examiners had exhumed the body last Friday and examined it on Saturday but had failed to realized it was the body they were looking for.


excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/18/77

Monday, October 17, 1977

Dodgers Rout Yanks, 10-4, and Trail, 3-2

The Los Angeles Dodgers struck a few blows for brotherhood when they mauled the New York Yankees, 10-4, and sent the World Series back east with the Yankees now leading by only three games to two. The Dodgers routed the Yankees pitching star Don Gullet on a total of 13 hits.

ex NYT Durso 10/17/77

Sunday, October 16, 1977

Yankees Win, 4-2, and Can Take World Series Today

Ron Guidry threw nine sizzling innings of four-hit ball.

The Yankees buried their hatchets today, behaved with the decorum of prep school boys.

Reggie Jackson, the team leader in money, quarrels and controversy. Lou Pinella made a leaping catch above the left-field fence.

ex NYT Durso 10/16/77

Yankee Discord

“What was your reaction to Gabe Paul’s statement?” someone asked Martin. “He gave you a vote of confidence.”

“Then I’m fired,” the manager said.

Actually, Gabe Paul had said, “I don’t believe in votes of confidence. In most cases, it is the kiss of death.”

“On any ball club,” Paul had said, “there is only one manager, only one owner and only one president.”

“And his name is George Steinbrenner,” a man responded.

Fitted together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, they make a picture of the best team money could buy, the damnedest agglomeration of clashing egos and battling capitalists that ever contended for the rounders championship of North America.

Ever since Abner Doubleday converted a cow-pasture to unnatural uses, it has been agreed that it took a good team and a lucky one to win a pennant.

Thurman Munson wants to go to Cleveland. Craig Nettles wants to go to San Diego. Mike Torrez wants to go to Boston. Mickey Rivers says he is leaving the team.

ex NYT Smith 10/16/77

Saturday, October 15, 1977

Yankee Egos and Tommy John

When the World Series resumed tonight, the Yankees were in midseason form, meaning their egos were producing obnoxious fumes again. Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson were snarling at each other. Thurman Munson was hoping to be traded and protesting his ticket locations at Dodger Stadium this weekend.

ex NYT Anderson 10/15/77

Torrez Stops Dodgers on 7 Hits as Yanks Take 2-1 Edge in Series

Just when people were suggesting that brawling in public would bring them no good end, the New York Yankees put aside their family feuds tonight, overpowered the LA Dodgers by 5-3 and took a lead of two games to one in the 74th World Series.

The Yankees scored three times in the top of the first off Tommy John stunning the largest crowd to pay its way through the turnstiles of the palatial park since it opened 15 years ago.

Not many people here believed that all this success would turn the Yankees into a peaceful, harmonious clan of baseball capitalists. Gabe Paul, the president of the club, even portrayed their latest flap as “another chapter in the tumultous history of the 1977 Yankees.”

They not only defeated the Dodgers’ best pitcher, they moved to within two victories of the championship.

“We’ll go to Yankee Stadium to play,” said Tommy Lasorda, “we’ll go to Fairbanks Alaska. Look, just because a couple of kooks do something is no indication of the overall crowds. (Not so sure about that.) We’re not worried about the fans. It isn’t the guys with the hot dogs who get the hits.”

Dusty Baker tied the score in the third with a home run. This was the Yankees first appearance in Dodgers Stadium since 1963 when they were swept by the Dodgers in 4 games (a few famous Brooklyn players were still on the team).

Yogi Berra said of the Yankees turmoil, “I didn’t see nobody punch anybody yet.”

ex NYT Durso 10/15/77

Despite the Remonstrance, ABC Espouses Trust in Cosell

Despite a torrent of complaints from viewers around the country about the verbal excesses and melodramatic style of Howard Cosell during the World Series telecast, officials of ABC Sports said yesterday they had no intention of relieving him of the assignment.

They said they believe his abrasiveness contributed to rather than detracted from the viewers enjoyment of the broadcasts. ABC conceded that the calls about Cosell had been very heavy and virtually all negative.

A lot of people said they turned off the sound and listened to radio coverage. Ratings were substantially higher this year than they were last year when the games were televised on NBC. Nationally, the opening game drew 50% (!) of the prime time audience.

“That’s Cosell. People have strong reactions to him, but for all their complaining they watch him and seem to enjoy disliking him. It’s not our style to give into this kind of criticism and pressure. We think Cosell is one of the best announcers in the business”

ex NYT Brown 10/15/77

Man, 82, Killed Wife by ‘Defending Self’

An 82-year-old man accused of strangling his 76-year-old wife testified today that he had killed her in self-defense during an “argument over her boyfriends” in which she had fought “like a wildcat.”

Peter Cipolla, his quavering voice barely audible, told a jury that his wife of 52 years had attacked him, scratched his face and head and bit deeply into his left hand. “I never saw her so mad before.” He told the jury that she fell and he fell and lost consciousness. When he recovered a short while later, he said she was ice cold. The retired hairdresser was arrested March 17 at his home in North Valley Stream. A pathologist testified that Mrs. Cipolla had died of “manual strangulation.”

Excerpt from John McQuiston Oct 15, 1977 New York Times




Boy, 15, Using a Bat to Disarm Suspect, Slays Him with Gun

Swinging his baseball bat to disarm a would-be robber who had forced his way into a South Bronx apartment at gunpoint, a 15-year-old schoolboy knocked the gun out of the intruder’s hand, fielded it and fired one shot, killing the suspect.

The intruder, 20 year-old Charles Benford, was killed in the 15th-floor apartment of Bettye Ramos, 47 in a middle-income housing complex in the Southview section. He had been shot in the back.

Mrs. Ramos had left her apartment at 8:20am to walk her poodle. The gunman forced her back into the apartment. Alfredo Armentores, who was dressing for school, ran from his bedroom and saw his mother struggling with the gunman. He returned with his baseball bat and seeing his mother struck on the head with the butt of a 25-caliber pistol, slammed the bat against the assailant’s head and shoulders. The gunman fired two shots at the youth. Carol Rodriquez, a 23 year-old daughter grabbed a lamp and slammed it down on the man’s head. As he fell to his knees Alfredo batted the gun out of his hands. In a scramble for the gun, Alfredo got to it first. He then fired the fatal shot, striking the intruder in the back. After calling police, he and his sister dragged the man into the hall.


Excerpt from New York Times Oct 15, 1977

A Body Is Exhumed in Gem Case To Make a Dental Identification

The charred body of a murder victim resembling a missing NY gem salesman was exhumed today in an effort to make a positive identification.

Photographs of the body and samples of hair had been identified by the victim’s brother, but the exhumation was ordered in an effort to confirm the indentification.

A reinvestigation of the three homicides was ordered this week by Colonel Hector Lugo.

Officials said that they had wanted to wait until next week before exhuming the body, buat they finally acceded to Dr. S-Hakimi’s request after his daylong appeal to them. “I’ve been waiting for two and a half months, why do I have to wait any longer for an answer if this is my brother,” he angrily told police.

Dr. S-H searched for six days here last August, looking for traces of his brother, and said local authorities had never mentioned to him the July 29 victim whose age, height and weight appeared to match his brother’s description.


excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/15/77

Body in Gem Death Lost in Puerto Rico

The charred body of a murder victim believed to be that of a missing NYC diamond dealer has disappeared, Puerto Rican officials acknowledged today.

The Commonwealth Justice Department ordered an immediate investigation but police said the body’s disappearance was a result of confusion atteh morgue or undertaker’s and was not a conspiracy to hide or destroy the corpse.

One body was exhumed last night and three others today. But none were the man found shot four times and badly burned last July 29.

Several officials said it was unlikely the body would be found quickly or at all. The confusion caused more distress for the brother. “Would you believe what I am going through?” he said at the cemetery. “I’m disgusted. Don’t they keep records?”


excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/15/77

Friday, October 14, 1977

World Series Shifts Across the Continent

The city of Los Angeles; which had already taken the 1984 Olympics and Joe Namath from New York, braced today for another confrontation: the 74th World Seriesm which will resume here tomorrow with the Dodgers and the Yankees deadlocked at one game apiece.

The crowd of 56, 691 in New York for game two was the largest and at times most unruly of the season in Yankee Stadium.

Five young men who had hopped out of the grandstand and run onto the field were chased, ejected and arrested – one in the seventh and four in the ninth. A smoke flare was tossed onto the grass in right-center field and delayed the game until Reggie Jackson picked it up with his glove and fipped it over the fence. And the Dodgers complained that they had been pelted by all manner of flying objects. “Whisky bottles, beer bottles, little rubber balls, they were throwing anything they could get their hands on,” said Mike Garman, who weathered the storm in the bullpen below the left field seats. “The security officers out there were doing nothing. There weren’t enough of them anyway.”
“Ice cubes, fruit, you name it,” said Reggie Smith, the right fielder for the Dodgers. “Somebody hit me with a hard rubber ball, right on top of the head. Ot was like someone hit me with a hammer.”

ex NYT Durso 10/14/77

Martin-Jackson Feud On the Road

Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson, star performers in the Yankees’ version of “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” escalated their soap opera into a major war of words today.

The latest episode began when Martin responded to Hackson’s remarks about the manager’s use of Catfish Hunter, and when Martin repeated his implication that Jackson had been inept against Paul Splittorff in KC.

“Why do we have to have all this kind of talk now when we’re trying to win the World Series?” Martin asked, angrily ripping the baseball cap from his head and swinging it onto the desk in his clubhouse office (in LA).

“If you can’t do your job, shut up. He’s got enough trouble playing right field without second-guessing the manager.”

“His job is to play right field and hit, and he’s getting paid a lot to do that. My job
is to manage, and I’m not getting paid a lot to do that. He’s a man of many moods, and it’s too bad he is. He’s putting pressure on himself. He’s better get two hits tomorrow night.”

“I think we found out this summer I’m running this ball club,” Martin continued.
The fiery Yankee manager also referred to the first Series game, when Jackson’s tardy fielding of a single to right field almost gave the Dodgers a run.

“Did you hear me criticize him the other night? When Rivers had to come all the way over and make the play? I didn’t say a word then. If I’m going to back him, why doesn’t he back me? What is this – a one way street? He’s got a lot of growing up to do.”

“Catfish couldn’t throw in September because of his illness. He did throw on the side. You’d think some people had enough trouble doing their own job without doing mine.”

“It’s just an overheated argument,” Munson said. “Reggie’s been struggling, and he’s like to be doing better. Billy just doesn’t realize he’s Mr. October.” (Good call by Munson!)


ex NYT Chass 10/14/77

Slain Man Identified As Diamond Dealer

The brother of a missing New York diamond dealer today identified the charred body of a murder victim as that of his brother, Abraham Shafizadeh.

Colonel Sanchez said the police were still trying to “definitely” confirm that the body was that of Mr. S before a decision was made about exhumation.

The police are unsure if this murder and two 1974 murders are linked. The police, however, were known to be looking into a connection between Mr. Acevedo and Robert Jacobs, a controversial jeweler here. Both of them have offices in the same building and Mr. Acevedo is a salaried employee of Mr. Jacobs’. The police have questioned Mr. Jacobs about a reported $100,000 debt he owed Mr. Howard Block, the diamond dealer slain in 1974. “It’s a very interesting coincidence,” said Colonel Sanchez.


excerpt from Selwyn Raab NYT 10/14/77

Thursday, October 13, 1977

O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again – Thomas Wolfe

For a couple of days and nights now, it has almost seemed like old times- the Yankees and the Dodgers – with the D train an elbow-rubbing aprlor car for ticketholders as it coursed under the Harlem River to the Stadium stop at 161st Street. But it isn’t old times – even Joe DiMaggio has a hard time getting Yankee Stadium tickets.

The Yankees vs, the Dodgers – a match that once made the city stop in its tracks on October afternoons. It was the Bronx against Brooklyn, and all other allegiances were cancelled for the duration. It was Pee Wee Reese vs. Phil Rizzuto, Don Newcombe vs. Allie Reynolds, Red Barber vs. Mel Allen. It was fans lined up outside Yankee Stadium and Ebbets Field in all-night procession by the thousands. It was a city under the seige of baseball, and anyone who wasn’t interested had a week in October to play solitaire.

It is 36 years since Mickey Owen dropped that third strike, 22 since Johnny Podres beat the Yankees for the Dodgers first Series victory, 21 since Don Larsen pitched his perfect game, and a generation sice Walter O’Malley abandoned Ebbets Field for the gold mine of Chavez Ravine.

For those of us who gave up serious consideration of baseball with the passing of the Brooklyn Dodgers, this is a week for reminiscence at best, accompanied by a massive lack of interest in the outcome.

The baseball generation brought up on the Mets doesn’t know how to hate. But to those of us for whom Ebbets Field was a second home, the Yankees – even more than the Giants – were, and remain the enemy.

For, after years of futility in the National League, when the Dodgers finally won the pennant in 1941 it was the Yankees who ened our reverie and won the Series.
It was the same in 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953 before Johnny Podres shut them out in the final game of the 1955 series. But then, the Yankees won again in 1956.

In 1941 the Dodgers were all that Brooklyn thought about, and when they won the pennant, they closed the schools, had a parade, and two million people showed up. The team promised to beat the Yankees.

But unlike the Mets, who knew how to finish miracles once begun, the Dodgers found ways to undo them. In 1941 the darkest moment came when Mickey Owen dropped the game-ending third strike and the Yankees poured four runs over in the ninth and won the game.

The Yankees won in 1947 despite heroics on the field from the Dodgers. The Yankees won again in 1949, and in1952, when we had barely recovered from Bobby Thomson’s home run of the year before – a hit that will live in infamy – it was Billy Martin (ah, for sweet revenge) who did it to us with a catch he never should have made.

The victory in 1955 was sweet, but its effect short-lived.

In 1963, when the Dodgers returnedf from Los Angeles, it was still possible to root because Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax and Johnny Podres (all Brooklyn heroes) helped destroy the Yankees.

Since then it hasn’t mattered.

ex NYT Schnurman 10/13/77

It Was a ‘New York Night’ In and Out of the Stadium

It was a night, like every night in New York, of small battles and small victories. It was a World Series night at Yankee Stadium and the crowd that filled the stately park in the Bronx was simply New York shoehorned into a baseball field.

By the time Steve Garvey hit his homer in the ninth, the crowd had become restless and unruly. Firecrackers and smoke bombs were tossed from the stands onto the field and fights broke out in the seats. Some fans in the upper levels doused those below them with beer. The game was delayed several times as young fans raced across the field. (One fan slid across home plate in the ninth!)

ex NYT Eskenazi 10/13/77