1953
LAPD Annual Fitness Report,
Marked _Confidential_, dated
1/3/53, filed by Lt. Dudley
Smith, copies to Personnel and
Administration Divisions:
1/2/53
ANNUAL FITNESS REPORT
DUTY DATES: 4/4/52--12/31/52
SUBJECT: White, Wendell A., Badge 916
GRADE: Police Officer (Detective) (Civil Serv. Rate 4)
Division: Detective Bureau (Homicide Adjunct Surveillance Detail)
COMMANDING OFFICER: Lt. Dudley L. Smith, Badge 410.
Gentlemen:
This memorandum serves both as a fitness report on Officer White and an update on the first nine months of the Surveillance Detail's existence. Of the sixteen men working the squad, I consider White my finest officer. To date he has been attentive, thorough, and has put in long hours without complaint. He has a perfect attendance record, and has often worked two-week stretches of eighteen-hour days. White transferred to Surveillance under the cloud of last year's unfortunate Christmas mess, and Deputy Chief Green, citing the four excessive-force complaints filed against him, had some misgivings about the transfer (i.e.: that White's propensity for violence and the potentially violent nature of the assignment would prove to be a disastrous combination). This has not proven to be the case, and I unhesitatingly give Officer White straight "A" markings in every fitness category. He has often evinced spectacular bravery. By way of example, I would like to cite several instances of White's performance above and beyond the call of duty.
1. 5/8/52. On a liquor store stakeout, Officer White (who is plagued by old football injuries) chased a fleeing armed suspect for a half mile. The suspect fired repeatedly back at Officer White, who did not return his fire for fear of hitting innocent civilians. The suspect took a woman hostage and held a gun to her head, which held off the backup officers who had caught up with Officer White. White then walked through a side alley while his partners attempted to calm the suspect down. The suspect refused to release the woman, and White shot and killed him at point-blank range. The woman was unharmed.
2. Numerous instances. One of the key duties of the Surveillance Detail is to meet paroled prison inmates upon their return to Los Angeles and try to convince them of the folly of committing violent crimes in our city. This job requires great physical presence, and Officer White has, frankly, been instrumental in scaring many hardened criminals into a docile parole. He has spent much off-duty time tailing parolees with particularly violent records, and he is responsible for the arrest of John "Big Dog" Cassese, a twice-convicted rapist and armed robber. On 7/20/52, White, while surveilling Cassese inside a cocktail lounge, overheard him attempting to suborn a minor female into prostitution. Cassese attempted to resist arrest, and Officer White subdued him through physical means. Later, White and two other Surveillance officers (Sgt. Michael Breuning, Officer R. J. Carlisle) questioned Cassese extensively about his post-parole activities. Cassese confessed to the rape/murders of three women. (See Homicide arrest report 168-A, dated 7/22/52.) Cassese was tried, convicted and executed at San Quentin.
3. 10/18/52. Officer White, while surveilling parolee Percy Haskins, observed Haskins in a known criminal assembly with Robert Mackey and Karl Carter Goff. All three men possessed long armed-robbery records, and White sensed that a major felony was in the making and proceeded on that assumption. He tailed Haskins, Mackey and Goff to a market at 1683 S. Berendo. The three robbed the market, and White attempted to arrest them outside. The three refused to relinquish their weapons. White shot and killed Goff and severely wounded Mackey. Haskins surrendered. Mackey later died of his wounds and Haskins pleaded guilty to armed robbery with priors and was given a life sentence.
In summary, Officer White has taken the high ground and has been instrumental in making the Surveillance Detail's first year a resounding success. I will be returning to my regular Homicide duties effective 3/15/53 and would like Officer White to join my squad as a regular Homicide detective. In my opinion, he has the makings of a fme case man.
Respectfully,
Dudley L. Smith, Badge 410,
Lieutenant, Homicide Division
LAPD Annual Fitness Report,
marked _Confidential_, dated 1/6/53,
filed by Capt. Russell Millard,
copies to Personnel and
Administration Divisions:
1/6/53
ANNUAL FITNESS REPORT
DUTY DATES: 4/13/52--12/31/52
SUBJECT: Vincennes, John, Badge 2302
GRADE: Detective Sergeant (Civil Serv. Rate 5)
DIVISION: Detective Bureau (Administrative Vice)
COMMANDING OFFICER: Capt. Russell A. Millard, Badge 5009
Gentlemen:
An overall "D +" fitness rating for Sergeant Vincennes, along with some comments.
A. Since he doesn't drink, Vincennes is excellent at liquor violation operations.
B. Vincennes oversteps his bounds where narcotics are concerned, insisting on making possession arrests when dope is found collaterally at Ad Vice crime scenes.
C. He has not fulfilled my fears that he would neglect his Ad Vice duties to offer assistance to his Bureau mentor, Lt. Dudley Smith. This is to Vincennes' credit.
D. Vincennes is not terribly resented for his testimony in the Christmas assaults matter, because he lost his much coveted Narco assignment and because none of the officers he specifically informed on went to jail.
E. Vincennes is continually pressing me to return him to Narco. I will not sign his transfer papers until he makes a major case at Ad Vice--this is a long-standing Ad Vice transfer stipulation. Vincennes has had Deputy D.A. Ellis Loew exert pressure on me to transfer him, and I have refused. I will continue to refuse, even if Loew is elected D.A.
F. There are rumors that Vincennes leaks interdepartmental information to the _Hush-Hush_ scandal rag. I have warned him: never leak word of our work or I will have your hide.
G. In conclusion, Vincennes has proven himself a barely adequate Ad Vice officer. His attendance is good, his reports are well written (and, I suspect, padded). He is too well known to operate bookmakers and adequate at working prostitution sweeps. He has not neglected his duties to fulfill his TV show commitments, which is to his credit. Ad Vice has a probable pornography crackdown coming up within the next few months and Vincennes has a chance to prove his mettle (and earn his major case transfer requirement) on that. Again, an overall "D +" rating.
Respectfully,
Russell A. Millard, Badge 5009,
Commanding Officer,
Administrative Vice
LAPD Annual Fitness Report,
marked Confidental, dated 1/1 1/5 3,
filed by Lt. Arnold Reddin,
Commander, Hollywood Division Detective
Squad, copies to Personnel and
Administration Divisions:
1/11/53
ANNUAL FITNESS REPORT
DUTY DATES: 3/1/52--12/31/52
SUBJECT: Exley, Edmund J., Badge 1104
GRADE: Detective Sergeant (Civil Serv. Rate 5)
DIVISION: Detective (Hollywood Squad)
COMMANDING OFFICER: Lt. Arnold D. Reddin, Badge 556
Gentlemen:
On Sergeant Exley:
This man has obvious gifts as a detective. He is thorough, intelligent, seems to have no personal life and works very long hours. He is only thirty years old and in his nine months as a detective he has amassed a brilliant arrest record, with a 95 percent conviction rate on the cases (mostly minor felony property crimes) he has made. He is a thorough and succinct report writer.
Exley works poorly with partners and well by himself, so I have let him conduct interviews alone. He is a peerless interrogator and to my mind has gotten many miraculous confessions (without physical force). All well and good, and my overall fitness grade on Exley is a solid "A."
But he is roundly hated by his fellow officers, the result of his servin
g as an informant in the Christmas shake-up, and he is despised for receiving a Bureau assignment out of it. (It seems to be common knowledge that Exley made the Detective Bureau as a result of his informing.) Also, Exley does not like to employ force with suspects, and most of the men consider him a coward.
Exley has passed the lieutenant's exam with very high marks and an opening is probably coming up for him. I think he is both too young and too inexperienced to be a detective lieutenant and that such a promotion would create great resentment. I think he would be a roundly hated supervisor.
Respectfully,
Lt. Arnold D. Reddin, Badge 556
EXTRACT: L.A. _Daily News_, February 9:
IT'S OFFICIAL: CONSTRUCTION
KING EXLEY TO LINK SOUTHLAND
WITH SUPERHIGHWAYS
Today, the Tri-County Highway Commission announced that Preston Exley, ex--San Francisco paperboy and L.A. cop, would be the man to build the freeway system that will link Hollywood to downtown L.A., downtown to San Pedro, Pomona to San Bernardino and the South Bay to the San Fernando Valley.
"Details will be forthcoming," Exley told the News by phone. "I'll be holding a televised press conference tomorrow, and representatives of the State Legislature and the Tn-County Commission will be there with me."
February 1953 issue, _Hush-Hush_ Magazine:
L.A. D.A. TAKES TIME OFF FROM
CAMPAIGN--RELAXING WITH COPPER
CUTIE!!!
by Sidney Hudgens
Bill McPherson, the district attorney for the City of Los Angeles, likes them long and leggy, zesty and chesty--and dark and dusky. From Harlem's Sugar Hill to L.A.'s Darktown, the 57-year-old married man with three teenaged daughters is known as a sugar daddy who likes to tss around that long slush-fund green--in dark hot spots where the drinks are tall, the jazz is cool, reefer smoke hangs humid and black-white romance bebops to the jungle throb of a wailing tenor sax.
Can you dig it, hepcat? McPherson, engaged in a reelection campaign, the fight of his political life against ace crimebuster Ellis Loew, needs time to relax. Does he go to the pool at the staid Jonathan Club? No. Does he take the family to Mike Lyman's or the Pacific Dining Car? No. Where _does_ he go? To the Darktown Strutter's Ball.
It's all shakin' south of Jefferson, hepcat. It's a different world down there. Get your hair marcelled, get yourself a purple sharkskin suit and trip the dark fantastic. D.A. Bill McPherson does--every Thursday nite.
But let's talk facts. Marion McPherson, Darktown Bill's long-suffering hausfrau, thinks Billy Boy spends Thursday nites watching Mexican bantamweights pound each other silly at the Olympic Auditorium. She's wrongsky--Bad Billy craves amour, not mayhem, on his Thursdays.
Fact numero uno--Bill McPherson is a regular at Minnie Roberts' Casbah--the swankiest colored cathouse on L.A.'s southside. Call it sinuendo, hepcat-- but we've heard he likes the thirty-five-dollar milkbath, plied by two very large Congo cuties. Fact numero twosky--McPherson was seen listening to Charlie "Bird" Parker (a notorious hophead) at Tommy Tucker's Playroom, on cloud ten from the Playroom's potent Plantation Punch. His date that night was one Lynette Brown, age eighteen, a dusky deelite with two juvenile arrests for possession of marijuana. Lynette told a secret _Hush-Hush_ correspondent, "Bill like his black. He say, 'Once you had black you can't go back.' He dig jazz and he like to party slow. He really married? He really distric' 'turney?"
He sure is, sweet thing. But for how much longer? There's a bunch of Thursdays between now and Election Day, and will Bad Bebop Billy be able to control his dark desires until then?
Remember, dear reader, you heard it first here--off the record, on the Q.T. and _very_ Hush-Hush.
EXTRACT: L.A. _Herald-Express_, March 1:
BLOODY CHRISTMAS POLICEMAN TO
LEAVE JAIL SOON
On April 2, Richard Alex Stensland leaves Wayside Honor Rancho a free man. Convicted last year on four assault charges related to the 1951 Bloody Christmas police brutality scandal, he walks out an ex-cop with an uncertain future.
Stensland's former partner, Officer Wendell White, spoke to the _Herald_. He said, "It was the luck of the draw, that Christmas thing. I was there, and I could have been the guy that swung. It was Dick, though. He made a good cop out of me. I owe him for that and I'm mad at what happened to him. I'm still Dick's friend and I bet he's still got lots of friends in the Department."
And among the civilian population, it appears. Stensland told a _Herald_ reporter that upon his release he'll go to work for Abraham Teitlebaum, the owner of Abe's Noshery, a delicatessen in West Los Angeles. Asked whether he bears grudges against any of the people who put him in jail, Stensland said, "Only one. But I'm too law-abiding to do anything about it."
L.A. _Daily News_, March 6:
SCANDAL TURNS CLOSE D.A.'S RACE TO
LANDSLIDE
It was expected to go down to the wire: incumbent city D.A. William McPherson vs. Deputy D.A. Ellis Loew, the winner to hold the job as top elected crimefighter in the Southland for the next four years. Both men campaigned on the issues: how to deploy the city's legal budget the best way, how to most efficaciously fight crime. Both men, predictably, claimed they would fight crime the hardest. The L.A. law enforcement establishment considered McPherson soft on crime and too liberal in general and threw their support to Loew. Union organizations supported the incumbent. McPherson stood pat on his status quo record and played off his nice-guy personality, and Loew tried a young firebrand routine that didn't work: he came off as theatrical and vote-hungry. It was a gentleman's campaign until the February issue of _Hush-Hush_ magazine hit the stands.
Most people take _Hush-Hush_ and other scandal sheets with a grain of salt, but this was election time. An article alleged that D.A. McPherson, happily married for twenty-six years, cavorted with young Negro women. The D.A. ignored the article, which was accompanied by photographs of him and a Negro girl, taken at a nightclub in south central Los Angeles. Mrs. McPherson did not ignore the article--she filed for divorce. Ellis Loew did not mention the article in his campaign, and McPherson began to slip in the polls. Then, three days before the election, Sheriffs deputies raided the Lilac View Motel on the Sunset Strip, acting on the tip of an "unknown informant" who called in with word of an illegal assignation in room 9. The assignators proved to be D.A. McPherson and a young Negro prostitute, age 14. The deputies arrested McPherson on statutory rape charges and heard out the story of Marvell Wilkins, a minor with two soliciting arrests.
She told them that McPherson picked her up on South Western Avenue, offered her twenty dollars for an hour of her time and drove her to the Lilac View. McPherson pleaded amnesia: he recalled having "several martinis" at a dinner meeting with supporters at the Pacific Dining Car restaurant, then getting into his car. He remembers nothing after that. The rest is history: reporters and photographers arrived at the Lilac View Motel shortly after the deputies, McPherson became front-page news and on Tuesday Ellis Loew was elected city district attorney by a landslide.
Something seems fishy here. Scandal-rag journalism should not dictate the thrust of political campaigns, although we at the _Daily News_ (admitted McPherson supporters) would never abridge their right to print whatever filth they desire. We have tried to locate Marvell Wilkins, but the girl, released from custody, seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Without pointing fmgers, we at the _Daily News_ ask District Attorney-elect Loew to initiate a grand jury investigation into this matter, if for no other reason than his desire to assume his new office with no dark clouds overhead.
PART TWO
Nite Owl Massacre
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The whole squadroom to himself.
A retirement party downstairs--he wasn't invited. The weekly crime report to be read, summarized, tacked to the bulletin board--nobody else ever did it, they knew he did it best. The papers ballyhooing the Dream-a-Dreamland opening--the other cops Moochie Mouse-squeaked him ad nauseam. Space Cooley playing the part
y; pervert Deuce Perkins roaming the halls. Midnight and nowhere near sleepy--Ed read, typed.
4/9/53: a transvestite shoplifter hit four stores on Hollywood Boulevard, disabled two salesclerks with judo chops. 4/10/53: an usher at Grauman's Chinese stabbed to death by two male Caucasians--he told them to put out their cigarettes. Suspects still at large; Lieutenant Reddin said he was too inexperienced to handle a homicide--he didn't get the job. 4/11/53: a stack of crime sheets--several times over the past two weeks a carload of Negro youths were seen discharging shotguns into the air in the Griffith Park hills. No IDs, the kids driving a '48--'50 purple Mercury coupe. 4/11--4/13/53: five daytime burglaries, private homes north of the Boulevard, jewelry stolen. Nobody assigned yet; Ed made a note: bootjack the job, dust before the access points got pawed. Today was the fourteenth--he might have a chance.
Ed finished up. The empty squadroom made him happy: nobody who hated him, a big space filled with desks and filing cabinets. Official forms on the walls--empty spaces you filled in when you notched an arrest and made somebody confess. Confessions could be ciphers, nothing past an admission of the crime. But if you twisted your man the right way--loved him and hated him to precisely the right degree--then he would tell you things--small details--that would create a reality to buttress your case and give you that much more inteffigence to bend the next suspect with. Art De Spain and his father taught how to find the spark point. They had boxloads of old steno transcripts: kiddie rapers, heisters, assorted riffraff who'd confessed to them. Art would rabbit-punch--but he used the threat more than the act. Preston Exley rarely hit--he considered it the criminal defeating the policeman and creating disorder. They read elliptical answers and made him guess the questions; they gave him a rundown of common criminal experiences--wedges to get the flow started. They showed him that men have levels of weakness that are acceptable because other men condone them and levels of weakness that produce a great shame, something to hide from all but a brilliant confessor. They honed his instinct for the jugular of weakness. It got so sharp that sometimes he couldn't look at himself in the mirror.