Ellroy – White Jazz

Noonan, heading up a much-publicized Federal rackets probe centered in South Central Los Angeles, spoke to reporters at his office.

“During the past four days eight violent deaths have occurred within a three-mile South Los Angeles radius,” he said. “This is double the average of any one-month period of any given year going back to 1920. Add on the curious heart attack of a supposedly healthy young policeman at a nightclub later burned down, and count as perhaps curious the mutilated body of an unidentified man found two miles further south on the Compton–Lynwood border. Collectively, you have fodder for much interesting speculation.”

Noonan elaborated. “Three nights ago an unexplained shootout at an illegal after hours club in Watts occurred,” he said. “Two Negro men and three Negro women were killed, although rumors persist that one of the victims was white. The following morning a young LAPD officer named George Stemmons, Jr., was found dead, allegedly of a heart attack, in a back room at the Bido Lito’s jazz club.

A scant day and a half later Bido Lito’s burned to the ground. Federal agents overheard an eyewitness tell LAPD detectives that he heard a Molotov-cocktail–like explosion moments before Bido Lito’s caught fire, but the LAPD Arson Squad has now attributed the blaze, which took three lives, to a carelessly tossed cigarette.”

Reporters interrupted the impromptu press conference with questions. Repeatedly stressed: the Federal rackets probe is specifically targeted to discredit the Los Angeles Police Department’s Southside enforcement measures; isn’t the U.S.

Attorney taking an adversarial position predicated on incomplete information?

Noonan responded. “Granted,” he said, “that unidentified body found in the L.A.

County Sheriff’s jurisdiction may be a non sequitur, but I ask you to consider the following.

“One, remember what I told you about that eyewitness to the Bido Lito’s fire.

Two, consider that the father of the young policeman who expired of alleged heart failure at Bido Lito’s earlier, himself a high-ranking Los Angeles police officer, stated that he thought his son was murdered. That man has been suspended from duty for his open criticism of Chief Ed Exley’s handling of the situation, and is rumored to be resting at home under doctorordered sedation.”

Reporters pressed: isn’t the Federal-LAPD quagmire coming down to a battle waged by two highly respected, nationally known crimefighters: himself and LAPD Chief of Detectives Edmund Exley?

Noonan said, “No. I will not let personalities or political ambitions dictate the thrust of my investigation. What I do know is: after hours clubs are allowed to flourish in Watts under unofficial LAPD sanction. Five Negro citizens died as a result, and despite assigning a dozen officers to the case, Ed Exley has not been able to come up with a single arrest. He has shoved the suspicious death of a Los Angeles policeman under the carpet and has deliberately misrepresented the facts in a triple-homicide arson case.”

In related developments, Noonan refused to comment on the persistent rumor that LAPD Narcotics Division officers are soon to be called in for questioning, or whether Abraham Voldrich, a rumored Federal witness recently deceased, was murdered or committed suicide.

“No comments on those questions,” he said. “But on the topic of witnesses, let me state that when it comes time to present evidence to the Federal Grand Jury, I will offer a major surprise witness with extraordinary cachet and another witness prepared to give astonishing testimony.”

Side 171

Ellroy – White Jazz

Edmund Exley responded to the U.S. Attorney’s accusations: “Welles Noonan is an unscrupulous hack politician with spurious liberal credentials. He has no grasp of the situation in Southside Los Angeles and his smear campaign against the LAPD is based on lies, fatuous rumors and innuendo. The Federal rackets probe is a politically motivated front aimed at establishing Noonan as a viable candidate for State office. It will fall because he has grievously underestimated the moral rectitude of the Los Angeles Police Department.”

——–

Dues time/time running out–RUN

Herrick 187PC–six lA men and SidRiegle co-opted. Forty-eight hours in: No eyewitnesses, no vehicle pegged. No prints, no Richie-to-Mom letters found.

Confirmed. ihe dogs sucked stelfactiznide chloride.

Background check:

Laura and Christine Herrick–nice girls. Good students, square boyfriends–almost Hancock Park wives.

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