Ellroy – White Jazz

Glenda–hard to conjure–easy to hear:

“You want to confess.”

Two nights, six legal pads–Dave “the Enforcer” Klein con fesses– Killings, beatings, bribes, payoffs, shakedowns–my police career up to Wylie Bullock.

Lies, intimidation, vows trashed, oaths broken. Exley and Smith–my accessories–tell the world.

Ninety-four pages–Shipstad leaked it to Pete B.

Conduit Pete, copies to: _Hush-Hush_, the L.A. _Times_, the State AG.

Time ticking, Noonan crazed: the press conference is pending, Ineed you to talk.

Threats, offers, threats–

I talked:

“Give me two days of freedom under Federal guard. When I return to custody we’ll prepare my testimony.”

Noonan–reluctant, half crazy: “Yes.”

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——–

L.A. _Herald-Express_, 12/6/58:

LAPD–FEDERAL PRESS CONFERENCE CANCELLED

The announcement last week surprised everybody: the Los Angeles Police Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern California District, were holding a joint press conference. Adversaries during U.S. Attorney Welles Noonan’s still ongoing Southside rackets probe, the two law enforcement agencies had recently come across as anything but friendly. Federal officers charged the LAPD with allowing vice to rage in South-Central Los Angeles, while LAPD Chief of Detectives Edmund Exley accused Mr. Noonan of mounting a politically motivated smear campaign against his Department. That dissention ended last week when both men issued identical statements to reporters. Now, tomorrow’s press conference has been precipitously called off, leaving many members of the Southern California law enforcement community baffled.

Last week’s press release was carefully worded; it hinted only that a cooperative Federal-LAPD effort had been mounted, one perhaps aimed at securing indictments against members of the LAPD’s Narcotics Division. Much more was to have been revealed tomorrow, and an anonymous source within the U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that he thought the joint effort was scotched due to breach of official promises. Queried as to exactly what “promises,” the source stated: “A Los Angeles police officer skipped Federal custody. He was to have testified against members of the LAPD Narcotics Squad and a criminal family they have long been allied with, and he was also to have induced a total of four other potential witnesses into testifying. He did not deliver those witnesses, and when allowed two days out of custody to take care of personal matters, he attacked his guard and escaped. Frankly, without him the Federal Government has only Mickey Cohen, a former gangster, to offer testimony.”

CRIME WAVE SPECULATION

This situation occurs in the middle of a statistically staggering Los Angeles crime wave, much of it Southside based. The City homicide rate for the past month soared 1600%, and although neither the LAPD nor U.S. Attorney’s Office will confirm it, speculation has linked last week’s gangland killings in Watts to the Hollywood Ranch Market shootout that also left four dead. Add on the mysterious disappearance of Los Angeles District Attorney Robert Gallaudet and the November 19 Herrick family slayings, still unsolved, and you have what Governor Goodwin J. Knight has called “a powder keg situation. I have every confidence in the ability of Chief Parker and Deputy Chief Exley to maintain order, but you still have to wonder what could cause such a drastic upsweep in crime.”

Asked to comment on the press conference cancellation, Chief Exley refused.

Queried on the recent crime wave, he stated: “It was simply coincidental and non-tangential, and now it’s over.”

L.A. _Mirror_, 12/8/58:

LAPD PRE-EMPTS FEDS IN DARING MOVE

The Los Angeles Police Department’s famously stern Chief of Detectives Edmund J.

Exley called an impromptu press conference this morning. He was expected to digress on the recent Federal Southside crime investigation and offer comments on why the LAPD and local U.S. Attorney’s Office have apparently abandoned their short-lived “cooperative venture” into probing both Southside malfeasance and the Los Angeles Police Department’s own Narcotics Division.

He did neither. Instead, in a terse prepared statement, he blasted the Narcotics Division himself and said that he would personally deliver incriminating evidence to a specially convened County grand jury, then offer tax fraud information unilaterally to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Describing “Narco” as a “police unit autonomously run amok,” Exley stated that Side 240

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he was certain its “long-standing tradition of graft” did not extend to other LAPD divisions, but Internal Affairs Division, under his supervision, was going to “comb this police department like a bloodhound sniffing out graft to make sure.”

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