L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

Notes

Chapter One: The Mickey Mouse Mafia

“[A] dead-rotten law enforcement”: Stoker, Thicker’n Thieves, 131.

Mickey Cohen was not a man: “Year Passes but Murder Not Solved: Search for Woman’s Slayer Recalls Other Mysteries,” Los Angeles Times, February 14, 1949; Stoker, Thicker’n Thieves, 199. Quotes from Cohen come primarily from his published memoirs (as told to John Peer Nugent), In My Own Words; Muir, Headline Happy; and Vaus’s Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime, as cited below.

“I looked”: Hecht, “Mickey Notes,” 4, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

The fact of the matter was: Demaris, The Last Mafioso, 30-31.

“Power’s a funny thing”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 81.

Administrative vice’s response was: California Special Crime Study Commission on Organized Crime report, Sacramento, January 31, 1950, 32. See “Cohen Introduces Sound Recorder,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1949, 10, for an account of the incidents of the evening. “Cohen to Testify in Partner’s Case: Deputy Sheriff Denies Policeman’s Story That Meltzer Displayed Gun at Arrest,” Los Angeles Times, May 10, 1949, A8, would seem to verify Mickey’s claim that the gun was planted. However, historian Gerald Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” claims that strong circumstantial evidence linked the gun to Meltzer (404).

Mickey was furious: Stoker, Thicker’n Thieves, 179. “Brenda’s Revenge,” Time magazine, July 11, 1949.

As Mickey started to: Mickey’s claim to have driven all the way back to Wilshire without looking up seems implausible given the two miles of curves he would have had to traverse on San Vicente Boulevard.

Cohen didn’t report: Cohen, In My Own Words, 122-23; Jennings, “Private Life of a Hood, Part III,” October 4, 1958.

The evening of: Cohen, In My Own Words, 125-29. Muir, Headline Happy, 202-10.

By 3:30: Some accounts of the shooting mention only the shotgun (or two shotguns). See Muir, Headline Happy, 205, 207-209; Cohen, In My Own Words, 126.

Later that night: Muir, Headline Happy, 202-209; “Full Story of Mob Shooting of Cohen,” Los Angeles Daily News, July 20, 1949.

The papers, of course: Howser was actively attempting to organize and extort money from Northern California bookmakers, slot machine operators, and other gamblers. Fox, Blood and Power, 291.

Brown was a big teddy: Author interview with Daryl Gates, December 10, 2004; McDougal, Privileged Son, p. 194.

“I had gambling joints: Cohen, In My Own Words, 146-47.

Cohen arrived in Chicago: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 418.

Chapter Two: The “White Spot”

“Wherein lies the fascination …”: Wright, “Los Angeles-The Chemically Pure,” The Smart Set Anthology, 101.

Other cities were based: Findley, “The Economic Boom of the ’Twenties in Los Angeles,” 252; “The Soul of the City,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1923, 114; Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis, 80; Davis, “The View from Spring Street: White-Collar Men in the City of Angeles,” Sitton and Deverell, eds., Metropolis in the Making, 180. The “white spot” metaphor began innocently, as a description of business conditions in Los Angeles in the early 1920s, but soon took on troubling racial connotations.

The historic center of: Percival, “In Our Cathay,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1898, 6. See also AnneMarie Kooistra, “Angels for Sale,” 25 and 29 for maps of L.A.’s historic tenderloin district, as well as 91, 174-75; Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 89; Woods, “The Progressives and Police,” 57; Sitton “Did the Ruling Class Rule at City Hall in 1920s Los Angeles?” in Metropolis in the Making, 309.

The city also boasted: Hurewitz, Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics, 104; Mann, Behind the Screen, 89.

Congressman Parker’s position: “Col W. H. Parker Called By Death: South Dakota Congressman Passed Away Yesterday—Speaker Cannon Expresses Deep Regret,” clipping from Deadwood newspaper, William H. Parker Foundation archives.

As a child, Bill: The oldest Parker sibling, Catherine Irene, was born on August 29, 1903. Bill was born two years later, on June 21, 1905, followed by Alfred on May 29, 1908; Mary Ann in 1911; and Joseph on April 10, 1918. Author interview with Joseph Parker, Houston, Texas, December 12-13, 2004.

As an obviously intelligent: Sjoquist, “The Story of Bill,” The Link, 1994; Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 91.

In later years, Parker: See “Police Instincts of Bill Parker Flourished Early,” Los Angeles Mirror-News, June 18, 1957, for a typical (and improbable) account of this period in Parker’s life.

Los Angeles was Deadwood: In 1934, the United States Geographical Board recognized the most popular variant, today’s “Los An-ju-less.” Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 26. However, controversies about the proper pronunciation lingered into the 1950s. “With a Soft G,” Time magazine, September 22, 1952.

Whatever its pronunciation: John Anson Ford, who moved to L.A. in 1920 from Chicago, recounts the wagon trail-like quality of the migration in this description of the journey: “We had not expected to find so many other motorists, equipped very much as we were, all heading for California. On long level stretches of the dirt roadway each day we could see cars ahead and behind us, perhaps half a mile apart. Each car was followed by a long plume of dust. These automobiles, laden with camping equipment, household goods, and the unkempt appearance of both children and adults, made them easily distinguishable from local farmers or city dwellers. An amazingly large segment of the nation was on the move—and that move was to California.” Ford, Honest Politics My Theme, 52-53; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 75; Starr, Material Dreams, 80.

“The whole Middle West”: Garland, Diaries, 40.

“If every conceivable trick: http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/hollywoodsign/index.html.

Then there was the: Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis, 127. See also Tygiel, “Metropolis in the Making,” 1-9.

The Parkers settled first: “Champion ‘Ag-inner’ of Universe Is Shuler, Belligerent Local Pastor Holds All Records for Attacks Upon Everybody, Everything,” Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1930, A2; Starr, Material Dreams, 136-39.

By 1910, the year: http://www.life.com/Life/lifebooks/hollywood/intro.html; Starr, Material Dreams, 98; Ross, “How Hollywood Became Hollywood,” in Sitton and Deverell, eds., Metropolis in the Making, 262.

Parker was plankton in: “Plans Submitted for Fine Theater: Picture Palace to Follow Elaborate Spanish Architecture,” Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1920, V1.

The first was Theodosia: “Milestones,” Time magazine, April 18, 1955.

As the movies heated: Dixon, “Problems of a Working Girl: Queer Aspects of Human Nature Exhibited to Quiet and Watchful Theater Workers, Says Love is Catching ’Like the Measles,” Los Angeles Times, July 15, 1919, 112.

As chief of police: Parker’s claim to have been born in 1902 rather than 1905 dates to this era, raising the possibility that he lied about his age so that he could claim to be slightly older than Francis. Divorce petition, Francette Pomeroy, Oregon City, OR.

Despite (or perhaps because of): Author interview with Joseph Parker, Houston, Texas, December 12-13, 2004. It should be noted that my account of Bill’s first marriage comes almost entirely from his wife’s divorce petition. Such accounts are invariably one-sided; exaggerating spousal cruelty was a common tactic for achieving a speedy divorce. It should also be remembered that Bill’s response to his wife’s behavior would have struck many men as wholly justified at the time.

Any attempt to heist: Reid, Mickey Cohen: Mobster, 39. See also unpublished notes for Mickey Cohen biography dated February 6, 1959, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, Box 7.

Chapter Three: The Combination

“The purpose of any political”: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 315, 341.

He was born Meyer: There is some confusion about Mickey’s birth date. Cohen himself generally claimed that he was born in 1913; however, his funeral marker says he was born in 1914. Still other evidence points to a 1911 birth date. See Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 1; Cohen, In My Own Words, 3. Other accounts of Mickey’s life say that his father was a grocer.

Fanny, Mickey, and sister: Boyle Heights’s Jewish population jumped from 10,000 in 1917 to 43,000 in 1923, making it home to about a third of Los Angeles’s Jewish population. Romo, History of a Barrio, 65. The current brick Breed Street Shul was finished several years later, in 1923.

Mickey soon became a: Clarke and Saldana, “True Life Story of Mickey Cohen,” Los Angeles Daily News, July 1949. This is the beginning of a nine-part series on Mickey that is a valuable, though not always reliable, guide to his life. See also “Cohen Began as a Spoiled Brat,” the second installment in the series.

Mickey’s entree came from: Mickey’s exact age at the time of this incident is somewhat unclear. In Mickey Cohen: Mobster, Ed Reid says that this occurred when he was seven (37-39). In his autobiography, In My Own Words, Cohen says that this incident occurred when he was nine (5).

What followed was a: Cohen, In My Own Words, Chapter One.

Clearly, Mickey had a: The FBI would later estimate his IQ to be 98. Cohen FBI files.

While Mickey started his: The following year Los Angeles would surpass it—a lead L.A. would maintain until the 1990s. Klein, The History of Forgetting, 75. However, Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 73, disputes the belief, widespread at the time, that Los Angeles was suffering a crime wave.

“The white spot of …”: “The Soul of the City,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1923, 114.

By 1922, Harry Chandler: In 1909, progressive reformers had dismantled the old ward system that had allowed Democrats, Catholics, and Jews to be elected to political office in favor of a system that provided for only citywide at-large elections. The result was a city government dominated by Times readers—white, middle-class Protestant Republicans. Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 9.

The Times newsroom claimed that Chandler was the eleventh wealthiest man in the world. Gottlieb and Wolt, Thinking Big, 125; “The White Spot Glistens Brightly,” Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1921, II; Taylor, “It Costs $1000 to Have Lunch with Harry Chandler,” Saturday Evening Post, December 16, 1939.

Now was just such: Sitton, “Did the Ruling Class Rule at City Hall in 1920s Los Angeles?” in Sitton and Deverell, eds., Metropolis in the Making, 305.

At first, everything went: Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, 219. Los Angeles mayors initially served only two-year terms, hence the high tally.

This was embarrassing: Sitton, “The ‘Boss’ Without a Machine: Kent K. Parrot and Los Angeles Politics in the 1920s.”

By firing Oaks and: Sitton, “The ‘Boss’ Without a Machine: Kent K. Parrot and Los Angeles Politics in the 1920s.”

Bootlegging had been a profitable: Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 60.

At first, much of: Anderson, Beverly Hills Is My Beat, 130. See also Nathan, “How Whiskey Smugglers Buy and Land Cargoes, Well-Organized Groups Engaged in Desperate Game of Rum-Running,” Los Angeles Times, August 8, 1926, B5; Rappleye, All-American Mafioso, 40; and Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 60. It is not surprising that Nathan neglects to mention Combination figures such as Guy McAfee, who had ties to the Chandler-favored Cryer administration.

In the big eastern: Law enforcement was too. Historian Robert Fogelson has argued that people engaged in both professions for similar reasons, notably out of a desire for upward social mobility. According to Fogelson, this is one of the reasons why graft and corruption were so prevalent in urban police departments: Many of the men who staffed them were as interested in getting ahead as the men who were paying them off. See Fogelson, Big City Police 29, 35.

For more on Crawford, see “Crawford Career Hectic, Politician Gained Wide Notoriety as ‘Pay-Off Man’ in Morris Lavine Extortion Case,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1931, 2. See also Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 305-6.

Crawford got back in: The exact relationship between Crawford and Marco is unclear. While Crawford seems to have kept a hand in prostitution, he was apparently more of a political fixer; Marco, in contrast, was more hands on. Most accounts of the era accord Crawford the position of primacy; however, some describe Marco as the leader of the Combination. Others point to Guy McAfee, “Detective McAfee is Exonerated,” Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1916, I9.

Cornero tried to buy: I say “seemed overt” because in this instance, Farmer’s claim of self-defense was actually quite plausible. Nonetheless, in general it was clear that Farmer enjoyed considerable advantages, including (somewhat later) having his personal attorney on the Police Commission. Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 233, 237.

“Mr. Cryer, how much …”: “Bledsoe Hurls Defy at Cryer, Challenges Parrot’s Status as De-Facto Mayor,” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1925.

“Shall We Re-Elect…” “Shall We Re-Elect Kent Parrot?” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1925, A1.

The Times publisher was: For a discussion of Parrot’s sway over the LAPD, see “Oaks Names Kent Parrot, Charges Lawyer Interfered in Police Department, ‘Dictatorial and Threatening,’” Los Angeles Times, July 29, 1923, I14; “Dark Trails to City Hall are Uncovered: How Negro Politicians Make and Unmake Police Vice Squad Told in Heath Case,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1923, and “Kent Parrot Accused by Richards as ‘Sinister,’ Retiring Harbor Commissioner Names Him as Would-Be Boss,” Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1923, Sitton, “The ‘Boss’ Without a Machine,” 372-73.

In truth, each camp: Sitton, “Did the Ruling Class Rule at City Hall in 1920s Los Angeles?” 312. See also Domanick, To Protect and Serve, 40-49, for an extended and colorful discussion of James Davis.

With a measure of: The arrest of councilman Carl Jacobson was a variant on a common police racket known as the badger game, an extortion racket made possible by the fact that extramarital sex was actually illegal in Los Angeles. The setup was simple: Working with an unmarried female accomplice, the police arranged an assignation, usually at a downtown hotel, and then burst in to make an arrest—unless, that is, they received a payoff. In this instance, however, Councilman Jacob-son boldly refused to go with the usual script. Insisting that he had been framed, he demanded a trial and was acquitted. He later sued Crawford, vice lord Albert Marco, Callie Grimes (the would-be temptress), and five police officers. However, they, too, were acquitted, leaving the question of exactly what happened in Ms. Grimes’s bedroom hopelessly unsettled. “Crawford Career Hectic,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1931, 2. See also Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 252-55.

Parker tried to focus: Starr, Material Dreams, 70.

Freed of his wife: Fogelson, Big City Police, 82, 103. Author interview with Joseph Parker, Houston, Texas, December 12-13, 2004.

On April 24, 1926: Fogelson, Big City Police, 102; letter from the Board of Civil Service Commissioners, September 28, 1926, William H. Parker Police Foundation Archives. Note that Police Commission minutes misrecord his name as “William H. Park.”

Chapter Four: The Bad Old Good Old Days

“[A] smart lawyer can …”: White, Me, Detective, 188; Sjoquist, History of the Los Angeles Police Department, 37.

“The name of this city …”: Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, 26, quoting the diary of the Rev. James L. Woods, November 24, 1854 (at the Huntington Library).

“While there are undoubtedly …”: “Committee of Safety Makes Its Report,” Los Angeles Herald, November 8, 1900; Fogelson, Big City Police, 9.

In their defense: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 24.

The activities of plainclothes: Fogelson, Big City Police, 51.

In 1902, the LAPD’s: Kooistra, “Angeles for Sale,” 25. Reverend Kendall’s Queen of the Red-Lights, which is based on Pearl Morton, is an excellent introduction to the genre.

The decision to prohibit: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 49.

There were moments when: Kooistra, “Angeles for Sale,” 71.

One night soon after: For one of Parker’s several accounts of this episode, see Dean Jennings, “Portrait of a Police Chief,” 84. In the 1930s, Arlington was the reputed bagman for the Combination’s gambling interests.

Today the police beat: New York City was something of an exception. There the profusion of publications put reporters in a more supplicatory position. Muir, Headline Happy, 41.

Infuriated at the idea: Jacoby, “Highlights in the Life of the Chief of Police,” Eight Ball, March 1966, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

“‘Come along, sister, and…’”: Quoted in Starr, Material Dreams, 170-71. That same year, the old police station/stockade was torn down and the new Lincoln Heights Jail was built in its place. Ted Thackrey, “Memories—Lincoln Heights Jail Closing,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, June 27, 1965.

Cops sometimes acted violently: White, Me, Detective, 188; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 225.

The existence of “the third degree” was a hotly debated topic at the time. Police chiefs denied its existence. Critics insisted that it was routinely used. To some extent, both sides were talking past each other. Police chiefs defined the “third degree” as torture, critics as coercive pressure. The analogy to current-day interrogation tactics for suspected terrorists is very close. See also Wickersham Commission, 146-47; and Hopkins, Lawless Law Enforcement.

Remarkably, the LAPD was: Carte and Carte, Police Reform in the United States, 60. See also Hopkins, Lawless Law Enforcement.

Parker told the man: “Why Hoodlums Hate Bill Parker,” Readers Digest, March 1960, 239, condensed from National Civic Review (September 1959).

“Open the door so …”: Stump, “LA’s Chief Parker.”

Later that year: Wedding announcement, Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1928, 24.

The Great Depression intervened: Starr, The Dream Endures, 165.

“Statements from Bill kept …”: Letter from Helen, William H. Parker Police Foundation archive.

Chapter Five: “Jewboy”

“I wasn’t the worse …”: Cohen manuscript, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library. Mickey would later claim to have fought seventy-nine pro fights, including five against past, present, or future world champions. Cohen biographer Brad Lewis counts a more modest (but still impressive) record of sixty wins (twenty-five by knockout) and sixteen losses. Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 14.

As a condition for his: Unpublished Cohen manuscript, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Mickey was not: Cohen, In My Own Words, 6-8.

Yet despite this youthful: Reid, Mickey Cohen, 39-40.

Lou Stillman’s gym: Schulberg, The Harder They Fall, 90.

The men surrounding Mickey: “Lou Stillman, Legendary Boxing Figure, Is Dead,” New York Times obituary, August 20, 1969. The Times’s obituary credits the “open sesame to low society” remark to Damon Runyon, suggesting that perhaps Runyon used it first.

“A card of membership …”: Johnston, “The Cauliflower King-I,” The New Yorker, April 8, 1933, 24.

Moreover, he wasn’t making: Establishing with any precision when Mickey returned to Cleveland is difficult. Ben Hecht writes that Mickey returned in 1932/3, which would make any meeting with Al Capone himself unlikely, given Capone’s 1931 conviction for income tax evasion. However, a document in the Newberry Library’s Hecht Papers that was apparently prepared by Mickey himself says he returned to Cleveland at age seventeen, which would have been the year 1930.

Unlike New York City: Moe Dalitz had established important relations with the various Italian gangs that held sway over different parts of Cleveland, but he had not yet made Cleveland his primary base of operations.

Great Depression or no: Cohen, In My Own Words, 15-16.

Cohen’s job in Chicago: Ben Hecht presents a somewhat different account of this incident, saying that Mickey was given a “louse book” to operate, one that catered to ten-and twenty-cent horse bettors, on the North Side. Quoting Cohen, Hecht writes, “The first thing I know a Chicago tough guy calls on me where I’m running my little louse book and says he has been engaged for twenty dollars to put the muscle on me. I don’t ask who engaged him but I said, ‘I’m going to give you a chance to prove you’re a tough guy.’ And I pulled my gun. In that time I would of felt undressed if I wasn’t carryin’ a gun. The tough guy ran behind a door and I blasted him through the door which is the last I saw of him.”

“After that meeting,…”: Reid also claims that Mickey didn’t arrive in Chicago until well after Al Capone’s 1931 arrest. However, the volume and detail of Cohen’s recollections from this period make it doubtful that his Chicago recollections were entirely fabricated.

Chapter Six: Comrade Bill

“With few exceptions”: Wickersham Commission, Nos. 1-14, 43.

Hollywood was Los Angeles’s fast: Kooistra, “Angeles for Sale,” 88, quoting Bob Shuler’s Magazine.

“Listen, you stupid fuck,”: Jennings, “Portrait of a Police Chief,” 87.

Despite such obstinacy: In 1930, the written examination accounted for 95 percent of officers’ scores, with marksmanship and seniority accounting for the remaining 5 percent. Memorandum to the general manager civil service, “Subject: Facts on Chief Parker’s Exam Records,” June 1, 1966, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives. This memo provides a comprehensive overview of Parker’s history in the department.

“Take him someplace and …”: Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 85.

“I got out,”: Stump, “L.A.’s Chief Parker.”

By 1929, Los Angeles: One of the more startling features of this era is the widespread acceptance of the Klan, which permeated 1920s Los Angeles. Throughout this period, the Police Commission, which was responsible for regulating a wide variety of public events, routinely approved a regular Saturday night Ku Klux Klan dance on Santa Monica Boulevard. Palmer, “Porter or Bonelli for City’s Next Mayor,” Los Angeles Times, May 26, 1929, B1.

To block the Klansman: Sitton, John Randolph Haynes, 218. Parrot retired to Santa Barbara and effectively withdrew from politics. In the mid-1930s, the Los Angeles papers would attempt to resurrect the specter of Parrot; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 311.

That the LAPD: In 1919, the Boston police department became the first police force to attempt to affiliate with the American Federation of Labor. When officers went on strike, a week of chaotic looting and rioting ensued. Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge called in the National Guard to secure the city. Coolidge then dismissed the eleven hundred officers who had walked off their jobs, a show of resolution that paved the way to his successful run for the White House. Afterward, Boston hired a new police department and granted its officers almost all of the benefits the strikers had originally demanded.

The issue that drew: In 1931, the Fire and Police Protective League tried again and was able to persuade the electorate to amend the charter to specify that officers could only be dismissed for “good cause.” It also gave officers accused of misdeeds a chance to appear before a board of inquiry consisting of three captains, randomly chosen. Again, the practical results were disappointing. Captains were not exactly eager to challenge the chief or his superiors. Town Hall, “A Study of the Los Angeles City Charter,” 116-17, 108-109.

In 1934, Parker got: Leadership of the union was divided evenly between the police department, which named two police representatives, a sergeant representative, a lieutenant representative, and a captain or higher representative to the organization’s board, and the fire department, which named two firemen, an engineer, a captain, and a chief representative to the board. These elections were not exactly democratic exercises. According to former Deputy Chief Harold Sullivan, the lieutenants exercised great control over police activities on the board, which makes Parker’s election all the more mysterious. Author interview with Harold Sullivan, July 7, 2007, Los Angeles, CA.

In the summer of 1934: See City Council Minutes, August 14, 1934, pp. 234-35.

The city council seems: City Council Meetings, vol. 248, August 14, 1934, pp. 235-36; City Council Minutes, August 15, 1934, p. 269, for the final text of Amendment No. 12-A. The city council also debated an amendment to abolish the Police Commission that day. It narrowly lost.

The public was not: Carte and Carte, Police Reform in the United States, 105.

Some observers did pick: City Council Minutes, vol. 249 (October 5, 1934), 18. The Los Angeles Times misreports the vote count as 83,521 ayes to 83,244 nayes. “Complete Vote Received for Thursday’s Election,” Los Angeles Times, September 30, 1934, 5.

For further discussions of Section 202, see also Escobar, “Bloody Christmas,” 176-77.

Union activism is not: Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 22-23. The quote comes from the Harold Story Papers, Special Collections, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.

Even at the time: Nathan, “‘Rousting’ System Earns Curses of the Rum-Runners, Chief Davis’s Raids Keep Whiskey Ring in Harried State,” Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1926, B6.

Nor were regular citizens: LAPD officers were deputized by the counties in question and thus authorized to make arrests. Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 342; Bass and Donovan, “The Los Angeles Police Department” in The Development of Los Angeles City Government: An Institutional History, 1850-2000, 154.

“It is an axiom with …”: Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 53; Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 50. Both may well be quoting Gerald Woods, who in turn is almost certainly quoting an unidentified article in the L.A. Record.

But as implausible as: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 322, 259.

In 1934, Chief Davis: See “Facts on Chief Parker’s Exam Records,” Assistant General Manager Civil Service, June 1, 1966, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives, Los Angeles, CA.

Then, suddenly, his career: See Deputy Chief B. R. Caldwell’s letter to HQ, Los Angeles Procurement District, February 23, 1943, for a detailed (if occasionally opaque) discussion of Parker’s career from 1933 through 1943. William H. Parker Police Foundation, Los Angeles, CA. See also Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 28.

In 1933, voters had: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 316-17; Sitton, Los Angeles Transformed, 12-13.

During the 1920s, Kent: Kooistra, “Angeles for Sale,” provides an excellent account of McAfee’s activities throughout the 1930s. See also the October 9, 1953, FBI memo on Jack Dragna (Dragna FBI file 94-250); Weinstock, My L.A., 56; and Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 335.

The key to it all: Donner, The Age of Surveillance, 59-64.

Chapter Seven: Bugsy

“Booze barons;” “Are Gangsters Building Another Chicago Here?” Los Angeles Times, March 29,1931, A1.

By 1937, Bugsy Siegel: Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 29-31. Readers interested in a more sober assessment of Siegel should consult Robert Lacey’s Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life.

Siegel first visited Los Angeles: In addition to appearing as a dancer in vaudeville shows and on Broadway, Raft was also a regular presence at Jimmy Durante’s Club Durante and at Texas Guinan’s El Fey. This did not mean that Raft himself was in any way fey. In addition to being a sometime prizefighter, he was a close associate of Manhattan beer king Owney Madden. Such tough guy-showbiz connections were quite common in the 1920s. Bootlegger Waxey Gordon was an enthusiastic backer of such Broadway musicals as Strike Me Pink, even going so far as to order his gunmen to turn out in tuxedos for opening night. (Wisely, he also had them check their guns at the coat check.) Muir, Headline Happy, 159.

He was receptive: Muir, Headline Happy, 160-64, discusses Siegel’s post-Prohibition quasilegitmacy (and stock market troubles). See also Lacey, Little Man, 68, 79-80.

Siegel’s lifestyle reflected his: Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 27, 30.

“Caution, fathered by the …”: Muir, Headline Happy, 161.

Los Angeles offered the: Muir, Headline Happy, 157-62. Siegel himself sometimes put the date of his arrival in Los Angeles one year later, in 1935. “Siegel Denies Buchalter Aid: Film Colony Figure Testifies on Removal Fight,” Los Angeles Times, May 27, 1941, A1.

“If I had kept…”: Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 36-38; Muir, Headline Happy, 162-65.

Bugsy’s pals back East: See Hecht, “Mickey Notes,” 1, Hecht Papers, New-berry Library; Cohen, In My Own Words, 41.

One who declined to: A 2 percent take would have generated a healthy $200,000 a year in bookie action—not bad for the Great Depression. Hecht, “Mickey Notes,” 4-5, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Cohen had outstayed his: In his autobiography, Cohen claims that he didn’t take a dive (30). In his earlier conversations with Ben Hecht, however, he admitted that he did. Cohen manuscript, 19, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Mickey was living like: Taxi companies routinely employed violence to secure the best stands. Payoffs to police were also common. In Los Angeles, independent cabbies’ frustration with the dominant Yellow Cab company (which was widely believed to have struck a deal with the police) boiled over into full-scale riots on more than one occasion in the 1930s. Cohen manuscript, 21-23, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

“I says”: Hecht manuscript, 82-84 Hecht Papers, Newberry Library; Cohen, In My Own Words, 36-37.

The next day Mickey: This account draws heavily on Ben Hecht’s account and is strikingly different from the blustering story Mickey tells in his autobiography. Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

(Years later, columnist Florabel…): Cohen, In My Own Words, 45.

Cohen hit Neales’s joints: Notes in the Ben Hecht Papers suggest that Siegel paid the sheriff’s department $125,000 on at least one occasion. Hecht, “Mickey Notes,” 4, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library. In the early 1950s, the California Commission on Organized Crime discovered links between Sheriff Biscailuz and Irving Glasser, a notorious bondsman closely associated with Siegel and Cohen. Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 402.

Soon after: Cohen manuscript, n.p., Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

“Ya know, I’m going …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 41.

“It was a bad …”: Unpublished manuscript, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

During his first: Hecht manuscript, 9-10, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

This attitude angered Mickey: Cohen, In My Own Words, 41.

Chapter Eight: Dynamite

“We’ve got to get”: Richardson, For the Life of Me, 224.

In a city awash: McWilliams, Southern California, 170.

Clinton had always been: “Penny Money At Cafe: Clinton ‘Caveteria’ Caters to Customers of Lean Purse,” Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1932, A8. See also Starr, The Dream Endures, 165-66.

Clinton’s introduction to politics: Ford, Honest Politics My Theme, 86-87, 90.

The county grand jury: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 339, 351.

Clinton turned to Judge: The case was one of statutory rape; the victim was actually a prostitute supplied by a madam who specialized in underage girls. In the lead-up to Fitts’s decision not to prosecute, one of the developer’s employees arranged to purchase property from the DA’s parents for a strikingly generous price. Fitts’s investigators then prevented the girl in question from testifying by holding her in isolation in a downtown hotel. Richardson, For the Life of Me, 176.

The report was scathing: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 35657; Starr, The Dream Endures, 168-69; Parrish, For the People, 127.

The counterreaction was: McDougal, Privileged Son, 44; Starr, The Dream Endures, 169. For more evidence of Fitts’s thuggery, see Richardson’s account of when a Fitts investigator jabbed a gun in his belly, For the Life of Me, 177.

Clinton came under pressure: Starr, The Dream Endures, 169; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 355.

The Shaws weren’t: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 261, 357. See Richardson, For the Life of Me, 220, for a more positive assessment of Raymond.

Then Raymond himself got: Sitton, Los Angeles Transformed, 16-17. Gerald Woods speculated that Raymond was targeted for a hit out of fear that he might testify to the Combination’s connections with the Shaw machine in the upcoming trial of Shaw campaign assistant (and former Police Commission member) Harry Munson (357-58). Tom Sitton finds evidence that Raymond also approached the Combination with a shakedown request.

On the morning of: Underwood, Newspaperwoman, 175.

“They told me they …”: Richardson, For the Life of Me, 221-22.

The next morning, Raymond’s: See Weinstock, My L.A., 56-57, for an account of the connections between Raymond, Clinton, and the Combination; Sit-ton, Los Angeles Transformed, 17-18.

Chief Davis’s career: Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 77-78.

In April 1938, the: Underwood, Newspaperwoman, 176-78.

Davis parried that everyone: “Davis Defends Police Spying at Bombing Trial, Bitter Clashes Mark Chief’s Day on Stand,” Los Angeles Times, April 27, 1941, 1. See also Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 76; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 361; and “The Case of Earl Kynette,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, July 8, 1966.

One year earlier, Mayor: See Sitton, Los Angeles Transformed, 18-23, for the definitive account of the race.

In theory, thanks to: Sitton, Los Angeles Transformed, 32.

Despite his closeness to: “Chief Shifts 28 Officers in New Shake-Up of Police,” Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1939, 2.

A few days later: Gambling ships first appeared off the coast as early as 1923, but it was Tony Cornero who had the audacity to reconceive of them as floating casinos. He would die of a heart attack eighteen years later at a craps table in Las Vegas, just months before he, Milton “Farmer” Page, and other Combination figures finished building the world’s largest casino, The Stardust. At Cornero’s request, a band played “The Wabash Cannonball” at his funeral. Richardson, For the Life of Me, 227.

There was just one: “Chief Shifts 28 Officers in New Shake-Up of Police,” Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1939, 2.

Mayor Bowron was exultant.: Richardson, For the Life of Me, 219-28; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 367.

Yet the triumph of: Los Angeles’s city charter sharply curtailed the power of the mayor. City departments operated under the control of general managers who enjoyed civil-service protection and who answered to independent boards of commissioners. Mayors enjoyed only the right to nominate commissioners (who then had to be approved by the city council), though mayors frequently sought to expand their authority by demanding written resignations in advance. Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 370.

In theory, promotion in: Author interview with Harold Sullivan, July 26, 2007.

The acting chief of: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 371.

One hundred seventy-one: See William H. Parker Police Foundation archives for this and other Civil Service board notices.

From the first, Bill: Letter of recommendation from Inspector E. B. Caldwell, Parker Foundation archives; “Police Due for Shake-up Tomorrow, Chief Announces: New Divisions Will Be Organized and Shifts Made of Many Uniformed Officers in Sweeping Program,” Los Angeles Times, November 30, 1939. See also Sjoquist, History of the Los Angeles Police Department, 84.

Demoralized by his de facto: Letter from Caldwell to HQ Los Angeles Officer Procurement District, February 23, 1939, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

Chapter Nine: Getting Away with Murder (Inc.)

“Men who have lived”: Muir, Headline Happy, 161.

District Attorney Buron Fitts: Central Avenue played an important and unique role in Los Angeles politics. During the 1920s, its large and fast-growing African American population emerged as one of the only reliable voting blocks in the city. A handful of political bosses controlled many of these votes and were sometimes able to demand considerable freedom for illicit activities, a situation that greatly frustrated African American progressives like Charlotta Bass Hayes, publisher of the California Eagle. Parrish, For the People, 127; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 347.

“You never heard of…”: Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 60.

Bugsy Siegel was one: Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 27.

The next day the: Muir, Headline Happy, 167-69; Richardson, For the Life of Me, 4-5.

Mickey and Bugsy: Cohen, In My Own Words, 58.

“I found Benny a …”: Later (much later) Cohen would circulate stories of how he’d stood up to “the Bug” at their first meeting (while generally omitting the story of what happened to him as a result). Cohen, In My Own Words, 38. Cohen’s comments to Ben Hecht in the mid-1950s make it clear that even at his craziest, Mickey knew how powerful Siegel was. Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

It was an arrangement: Cohen, In My Own Words, 36.

Only after the countess: Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 74-78, provides a somewhat fanciful account of this episode.

The evening before Thanksgiving: “Widow of Victim Heard at Murder Trial of Siegel: Heard Shots Killing Mate,” Los Angeles Times, January 27, 1942, A1; “Siegel and Carbo Identified as Murder Aides, Tannenbaum Tells Killing,” Los Angeles Times, January 28, 1942, A1.

Abe “Kid Twist” Reles: Turkus and Feder, Murder, Inc., 52.

In January 1940, two: Nash, World Encyclopedia of Organized Crime, 331.

It took twelve days: Turkus and Feder, Murder, Inc., 67.

Reles wasn’t prosecutors’ only: “Murder Plot Story Filed: Testimony Transcript in Siegel Case Gives Gang,” Los Angeles Times, August 31, 1940, A1.

The raiding party—three: Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 47-48.

Bugsy’s bed was still: “Siegel’s Attic Capture Told, Witnesses at Death Trial Describe Hunt in Suspect’s Mansion,” Los Angeles Times, January 31, 1942, A1. See also Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 100-101; Muir, Happy Holidays, 176-77.

Dockweiler was in a: Dean Jennings argues that O’Dwyer was on the take (We Only Kill Each Other, 121). Jerry Giesler argued that prosecutors in L.A. were on the take (The Jerry Giesler Story, 237-38).

Back in New York: “Plunge Fatal to Gangster, State Witness Against Buchalter and Others Attempts to Escape,” Los Angeles Times, November 13, 1941, 2.

What had happened to: “Abe Reles Killed Trying to Escape, Sheet Rope Fails After He Lowers Himself from 6th to 5th Floor, Motive Puzzles Police,” New York Times, November 13, 1941, 29. Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 128-29, makes the case for defenestration.

Without Reles, the prosecution’s: Giesler, The Jerry Giesler Story, 239-40.

But Robinson: For an assessment of his gang and an account of the meeting, see Hecht notes, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, Chicago.

“The poor bookmakers”: Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, Chicago.

“Dragna was inactive at: Cohen would later claim that he had been attuned to the danger of a resentful Dragna all along (In My Own Words, 63). This is the wisdom of hindsight.

Sica did. Then he: Cohen, In My Own Words, 62.

Utley took it bravely: “Report Hints Cohen Had Part in Slayings,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1959; “Mad Gunman Captured, Mickey Cohen Tells Inside Story of L.A.,” Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1950, 1.

Jack Dragna was less: Cohen, In My Own Words, 63-64.

Chapter Ten: L.A. Noir

“If you’re going to …”: Wilkerson III, The Man Who Invented Las Vegas, 12.

Bugsy Siegel wasn’t: For more on Hohmann, see Sjoquist, History of the Los Angeles Police Department, 84; and Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 380.

Hohmann had been: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 381.

As chief, Hohmann had: “Special Police Groups Press Fight on Crime, Cities Combat Increased Felonies with Crack Units; in Los Angeles It’s ‘Metro,’” Los Angeles Times, February, 23, 1964.

Bill Parker was demoralized: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 420.

JAPS OPEN WAR ON: AP headline immediately following Pearl Harbor.

The situation was actually: The guns at Fort MacArthur, which was supposed to protect the U.S. naval station at San Pedro/Long Beach, would have been useless against a carrier-based aerial attack. Verge, Paradise Transformed, 33-34, 22.

“Why, the Japanese bombed …”: Verge, Paradise Transformed, 22; author interview with Harold Sullivan, July 26, 2007. Concerns about Japanese fishing vessels reflected well-founded worries about Japanese espionage. Since at least 1939, the Japanese military had used Mexican-based fishing vessels to monitor the Pacific fleet based at Long Beach. That same year, Japanese agents had recruited a Nisei former sailor as an intelligence agent and managed to steal important code books. Verge, Paradise Transformed, 10.

The efficiency of the operation was no coincidence. One official involved in the raid told the Times, “Although we had our plans set, the Japanese attack caught us a bit early.” “Japanese Aliens’ Roundup Starts: F.B.I. Hunting Down 300 Subversives and Plans to Hold 3000 Today,” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1941, 1; “Round Up of Japanese Aliens in Southland Now Totals 500: Officers, Working with F.B.I., Continue Hunt; Asiatic, Who Had Pledged Loyalty, Found with Guns,” Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1941, 4; “Little Tokyo Banks and Concerns Shut, Even Saloons Padlocked; Extra Police on Duty to Prevent Riots,” Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1941, 4.

For once, Bill Parker: Verge, Paradise Transformed, 23-24.

Parker’s thoughts turned to: Captain Robert L. Dennis to HQ, Los Angeles Officer Procurement District, February 23, 1943, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

However, Hohmann continued, these: Arthur Hohmman to HQ Los Angeles Officer Procurement District, February 19, 1943, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives. The conclusion of Hohmann’s letter also suggests that Hohmann may have personally blocked Parker’s earlier attempts to enlist in the military, which if true would be another interesting twist in what was clearly a complex relationship.

His mood improved considerably: Col. Jesse Miller, Director, Military Government Division, to First Lt. William Parker, May 11, 1943, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives. For Parker’s impressions of New England, see his June 30, 1943, letter to Helen, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

It was, Mickey thought: Cohen, In My Own Words, 65.

In Algeria, Parker was: Brig. Gen. J. K. Dunlop, Regional Allied Commissioner, letter of reference, January 15, 1944, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

There was, however, one: Letter to Helen Parker, March 12, 1945, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

For Mickey Cohen, the: The $500,000 estimates came from Carey McWilliams, Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, and puts his take at $120,000 a year.

Mickey had his own: Cohen would later estimate that his was one of approximately two hundred major bookmaking commission offices nationwide at the time. Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Things were going so: The de jure owner of the stock farm was actually a former LAPD officer, Jack Dineen. California Special Crime Study Commission report, January 31, 1950, 32.

Meyer and Bugsy had: Lacey, Little Big Man, 79-81.

In 1931, the state: Russo, The Outfit, 292.

Wilkerson was the publisher: Weller, Dancing at Ciro’s, 88-89.

So Wilkerson decided to: Wilkerson III, The Man Who Invented Las Vegas, 49. For a judicious account of Bugsy Siegel’s much smaller role in the creation of Las Vegas, see Johnson, “Siegel, Bugsy.” See also Muir, Headline Happy, 193-94.

The invasion of Normandy: Related in letter to Helen, September 9, 1944, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

Lt. Parker Wins Purple: “Lt. Parker Wins Purple Heat,” Los Angeles Times, August 6, 1944, 2.

For Parker, one brush: Verge, Paradise Transformed, 113-14.

I respectfully submit that: “Memorandum for the Adjutant General, Subject: Relief from Active Duty,” undated, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

“So now I come: Bill Parker to Helen, October 8, 1944, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

That Helen’s initial response: In her address book, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

Parker’s retreat was swift: Parker letter to Helen, December 10, 1944, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

On February 24, 1945: The tiffs, of course, continued. Within a matter of weeks, Bill was writing somewhat carping letters complaining of the quality of Helen’s letters. Almost none of Helen’s letters have survived, making it difficult to evaluate this claim.

Parker’s first assignment in: Parker letter to Helen, May 26, 1945, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

“All my life I…”: Parker letter to Helen, undated but from Frankfurt, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

In fact, the LAPD: C. B. Horrall to Capt. W H. Parker, June 26, 1945, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives. Parker’s July 19, 1945, letter to Helen contains details of Parker’s deliberations with Colonel Wilson, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

The Los Angeles business: McDougal, Privileged Son, 2, 176.

Parker also tended to: “W. H. Parker Heads Fire Police League,” Los Angeles Examiner, January 7, 1949.

The group mentioned that: Author interview with Harold Sullivan, July 26, 2007.

In the spring of 1947: “Parker’s the One in ’51, Los Angeles Police Post 381, American Legion, Unanimously Presents William H. ‘Bill’ Parker for the Office of COMMANDER of THE AMERICAN LEGION, DEPARTMENT of CALIFORNIA, for the Year 1951-52,” August 1950 (Number Three), William H. Parker Police Foundation archives. See also “Police Post Gets Membership Drive Trophy,” L.A. Fire and Police Protective League News, 1947, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

Chapter Eleven: The Sporting Life

“[T]o be honest with …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 81.

First, there were: Cohen, In My Own Words, 51-52.

So much for “the: See Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 57, for an account of the killing. The January 1950 study of the state of California’s Special Crime Study Commission report said that the LAPD suspected “Hooky” Rothman and Joseph “Scotty” Ellenberg of being the gunmen, although they never found evidence to arrest and prosecute them (13). Mob figure Jimmy Fratianno identified Rothman as the triggerman (Demaris, The Last Mafioso, 25). The excrement anecdote comes from Anderson, Beverly Hills Is My Beat, 137.

When Mickey swung by: The shooting occurred on May 15, 1945. See Cohen, In My Own Words, 71-73. Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, offers very different accounts (53-54).

Still, it was a: The date of these dice games is uncertain. Later news accounts suggest they may have occurred in the late forties. See “Cohen Admits Big Gambling Take in Hotel Dice Games,” Chicago Tribune, 3. Intriguingly, this article also notes that from 1947 onward, the Ambassador was owned by J. Myer Schine, whose son, David Schine, emerged in the 1950s as an intimate of Senator McCarthy’s chief investigator, Roy Cohn. Cohn, a bitter opponent of Robert Kennedy, would later become a prominent organized crime defense lawyer.

“I’d like to see …”: Hecht, A Child of the Century, 610-11.

Tell “em they’re a…”: Hecht, A Child of the Century, 612.

Wilkerson was right.: Muir, Headline Happy, 190-91; Russo, The Outfit, 295.

At issue was the: May, “The History of the Race Wire Service.”

Bugsy knew the boys: Anderson, Beverly Hills Is My Beat, 144-45; Cohen, In My Own Words, 79; Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 198-210.

After talking to Cohen: Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 208-9.

“The people in the …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 81.

“The LAPD had already: “Capt. Jack Donahoe of Police Retires, Handled Many Famous Cases,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, March 8, 1962, B1.

“One of the finest…”: Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, 8.

In the fall of: Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, 8-9; Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 38.

What they heard was: For more on Howser’s checkered career, see Warren Olney, “Law Enforcement and Judicial Administration in the Earl Warren Era,” Earl Warren Oral History Project, University of California, 1981; “Hidden Microphones Hear Cohen Secrets, Police Device Records Intimate Talks in Home,” Los Angeles Times, August 16, 1949, 1.

Chapter Twelve: The Double Agent

“The heart is deceitful”: Jeremiah 17:9, King James Bible.

Vaus first started: Vaus, Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime, 18-21.

“Come back tomorrow night…”: Vaus, Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime, 18-20. See also Stoker, Thicker’N Thieves, 82-86.

Prostitution in Hollywood has: Rasmussen, “History of Hollywood Madams Is Long, Lurid,” Los Angeles Times, November 30, 1997, B3.

Charles Stoker had first: Vaus, Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime, 23; Stoker, Thicker ’n Thieves, 81.

When Stoker got back: Stoker, Thicker’N Thieves, 85-87.

Allen unleashed a stream: Stoker, Thicker’N Thieves, 91.

Stoker had no: Stoker, Thicker’N Thieves, 94-95.

Two facts: Vaus, Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime, 30-34, 36-46, 52.

Vaus had never been: Vaus, Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime, 37.

“No cop had a”: Vaus, Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime, 39.

Vaus had told Cohen: Stoker, Thicker’N Thieves, 94.

In August 1947, Parker: Stoker provides the sole account of this meeting (142-43). Given the questions that would later emerge about his motivations and veracity, it should be treated with caution.

Stoker felt uneasy about: Stoker, Thicker’N Thieves, 222-23.

Soon after Stoker’s: Stoker, Thicker’N Thieves, 181-85, 187-90.

So Stoker agreed to: Stoker’s account of this meeting (186-88) and indeed this period is intensely controversial. Parker himself would later completely disavow Stoker’s account of events, even claiming by late 1949 that Sgt. Elmer Jackson’s involvement with Brenda Allen was in fact a frame-up. Yet certain parts of Stoker’s account ring true. First, the evidence against Sergeant Jackson (though not the chief himself) seems strong. Second, the picture of Parker Stoker presents has notable similarities to that presented by Fred Otash, another maverick LAPD officer, in his book, Investigation Hollywood!. Other figures who knew Parker well likewise believe that he was prepared to use the kinds of extreme tactics described by Stoker to become chief.

On May 31, 1949: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 407.

There was also the: “CONVICT DESCRIBES KILLING BY L.A. COP: Slaying of ‘Peewee’ Lewis Described at San Quentin,” Los Angeles Daily News, June 7, 1949.

The revelations streamed forth: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 407.

Just when a narrative: Audre Davis’s later arrest certainly doesn’t bolster her credibility. Nonetheless, historian Gerald Woods insists that prosecutors had developed “a strong circumstantial case against [Stoker].” The county grand jury thought otherwise; it declined to convict Stoker. See also, “Policewoman Implicates Sgt. Stoker in Burglary Love for Vice Squad Man Admitted by Audrey [sic] Davis,” Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1949.

At first, Mayor Bowron: “Police Commission Commends Horrall: Full Confidence in Chief and Staff Expressed in Written Statement,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1947. One month later, on July 27, Chief Horrall, Asst. Chief Joe Reed, and Capt. Cecil Wisdom were indicted for perjury. Sergeant Jackson and Lieutenant Wellpott were also indicted on perjury and for accepting bribes. However, none of the men were ultimately convicted. In retrospect, the case against Chief Horrall, who was known for his strikingly hands-off management style, seems weakest. He was almost surely innocent. As for Sergeant Jackson and his associates, the most accurate verdict would be “not proven.” Woods, “The Progressive and the Police,” 408.

Faced with a public: See Benis Frank, interviewer, “Oral History Transcript: General William Worton,” 307.

Chapter Thirteen: Internal Affairs

“I’ll be damned if…”: See Benis Frank, interviewer, “Oral History Transcript: General William Worton,” 310.

Like other departments, the: Chief Davis eventually handed over a list of 7,800 people who’d received badges. It included such luminaries as Shirley Temple (a Davis favorite), King Vidor, Louis B. Mayer, and Bela Lugosi. Larry Harnisch, “Mayor Investigates Honorary L.A.P.D. Badges,” October 28, 1938, Daily Mirror blog, accessed October 28, 2008.

The primary purpose of: See Benis Frank, interviewer, “Oral History Transcript: General William Worton,” 309.

To Sgt. Charles Stoker: Stoker, Thicker’N Thieves, 222; “New Police Chief on Job, to tell Program in Week,” Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1949, 1; Daryl Gates, Chief, 15.

It was, thought Gates: Author interview with Daryl Gates, December 10, 2004.

That Bill Parker was: “Chief Names Staff Inspector in Top Level Police Changes: Parker Given Number Two Post,” Los Angeles Times, July 15, 1949, 1.

For decades, vice and: “Police Shift Offices Due to City Hall Jam,” Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1949, 2.

General Worton and his: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 40910; “Ex-Marine Tightened Up Los Angeles Police,” Chicago Sun-Times, March 12, 1952.

General Worton was also: “Novice Chief Brings New Confidence …,” San Francisco Call-Bulletin, May 10, 1995.

“He would be”: Author interview with Bob Rock, December 10, 2004, Los Angeles, CA.

Parker moved decisively too: “Police Officer Keyes Resigns Under Attack,” Los Angeles Times, July 26, 1942.

“Well then go fuck …”: “‘Innocent’ in Cussing, Says Mickey Cohen,” Los Angeles Mirror, August 31, 1949.

Within weeks, his name: Server, Baby, I Don’t Care, 166, 203-204. See also “Americana,” Time, January 31, 1949. Mitchum’s conviction on drug possession charges was overturned in 1951, which suggests that the accusations against Mickey may well have been true.

With Mickey on the: Warren was backed up by five high-powered commissioners: former U.S. ambassador to Russia Adm. William H. Standley; former Union Pacific president William M. Jeffers; mining magnate Harvey Mudd; Gen. Kenyon Joyce, onetime deputy president of the Allied Control Commission for Italy; and Gerald H. Hagar, Oakland, past president of the Star Bar. “Warren Picks First of Crime Commissions: Jeffers and Mudd Among Those Named Under New State Law,” Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1947.

“Bookmaking has nothing to …”: Fox, Blood and Power, 288.

This system was: California Special Crime Study Commission report, January 31, 1950.

Olney realized that there: Special Crime Study Commission report, March 17, 1949, 72, 79-80.

The interruption of the: Special Crime Study Commission report, March 7, 1949, 16-25.

Mickey accepted the fact: In fact, by the late 1940s, Anthony Milano, under-boss of the Mayfield Street gang during Mickey’s Cleveland days and brother to Cleveland mob boss Frank Milano, lived virtually around the corner from Mickey, in an imposing private residence off Sunset Boulevard. Ostensibly, Milano was now the president of an eastern bank (a six-year-sentence stint in the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth evidently posing no obstacles to a career in finance). In practice, the LAPD noted that he was in contact with Mickey on an almost daily basis. Special Crime Study Commission report, January 31, 1950, 29-30.

Ovid Demaris’s book The Last Mafioso, which presents Jimmy Fratianno’s perspective on the period, suggests that Mickey was genuinely surprised by efforts to rub him out. Not everyone agrees. Rob Wagner’s Red Ink, White Lies argues that Cohen rejected Syndicate demands to share his underworld profits, thus triggering an entirely predictable gang war (229).

The trouble started: Cohen, In My Own Words, 95-100. There are multiple accounts of exactly what happened with the photographs. See also Jennings, “The Private Life of a Hood,” conclusion, October 11, 1958, 114.

Rist and his associates: “Bowron Asks Grand Jury Action in Police Scandal, Two Officers Suspended; Cohen Posts $100,000 Bail,” Los Angeles Times, March 23, 1949, 1.

In the world of: Mickey’s experiences in Cleveland contributed greatly to his multicultural precociousness. In the early thirties, the Cleveland underworld had been divided between two essentially cooperative groups, the Italian May-field Road gang, run by “Big Al” Polizzi, and the Jewish Cleveland Syndicate, whose leaders included Louis Rothkopf, Moe Dalitz, and Morris Kleinman. These two groups worked together closely in what was known as the Combination. Interestingly, during his days in Cleveland, Mickey had worked primarily with the Italian gangsters, particularly Mayfield Road gang underboss Tony Milano. Demaris, The Last Mafioso, 8-9.

Far from responding gratefully: Demaris, The Last Mafioso, 24.

Chapter Fourteen: The Evangelist

“He has the making …”: “Jigs and Judgments,” Time, July 23, 1951.

“A few nights”: Vaus, Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime, 71-72.

By November 1949, everyone: “Heaven, Hell & Judgment Day,” Time, March 20, 1950.

Suddenly, Vaus found himself: Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1949; Vaus, Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime, 71-76.

It was with some: Life, January 16, 1950; “Portrait of a Punk,” Cosmopolitan.

It is difficult to know how much financial pain Mickey was really feeling. In an article written several months after Vaus’s visit with Cohen, one of the most astute observers of the Southern California scene, lawyer/journalist Carey McWilliams, estimated that Mickey was receiving payoffs in the amount of $427,000 a year. Given the fact that the state public utility commission had effectively choked off the wire service that was once the most profitable part of Mickey’s portfolio, that number seems high. Columnist Florabel Muir, who was close to Mickey and had excellent sources in the underworld, believed that Cohen was under real financial pressure. Of course, Mickey had other activities—extortion, slot machines, perhaps narcotics—which undoubtedly helped offset at least some of the pain.

“Mickey lifted his hand”: See Cohen, In My Own Words, 106-107, for an account of the meeting. Sensitive to charges that he had considered betraying his faith, Cohen plays down the conversion angle. Compare Cohen’s account with Graham’s, “The New Evangelist,” Time cover story, October 25, 1954.

At 4:15 a.m. on February: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 137; Demaris, The Last Mafioso, 40.

Police later estimated that: Leppard, “Mr. Lucky Thrives on Borrowed Time,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, December 3, 1959.

During the fall of: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 411-12.

These were powerful backers: Author interview with Daryl Gates, December 10, 2004.

The race was now: Webb, The Badge, 250-52.

On August 2: “Parker Appointed New Police Chief Head, Patrol Division Head Promoted in Climax to Hot Battle Over Worton’s Successor,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1950, 1. See also Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 418. In describing Parker as the LAPD’s fortieth police chief, I discount Dr. Alexander Hope, who headed the volunteer Los Angeles Rangers (Sjoquist, History of the Los Angeles Police Department, 36). I also count previous chiefs who served more than one term, such as James E. Davis, only once.

Mayor Bowron was notably: Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1950. Later that day, Bowron issued a more positive statement on the Parker appointment.

“I know I’m supposedly …”: “Los Angeles Police Chief: William Henry Parker 3d,” New York Times, August 114, 1965, 8.

Chapter Fifteen: “Whiskey Bill”

“There is a sinister …”: Kefauver Committee report, quoted in Turking and Feder, Murder, Inc., 426.

It had been a: Mickey would later deny being held overnight. “That was always newspaper bullshit,” he claimed. “They’d say to me, ‘How long ya going to be in town?’ I’d say, ‘I’m leaving at such and such a time on Wednesday.’ So they’d give the story to the newspapers that, ‘We ordered him to leave town by Wednesday’” (In My Own Words, 147). This is probably boasting.

A freshman senator from: Russo, The Outfit, 259.

At some point in: Moore, The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime, 1950-52, 49. See also Russo, The Outfit, 251-52.

The killing itself was: “Truman Speeds War on Crime; Mickey Cohen Pay-off Charged, Racketeers’ Tax Returns to Be Eyed,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1951, 1.

“Lookit, nobody notified me …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 148; Russo, The Outfit, 255.

“I ain’t never muscled …”: “I Ain’t Never …,” Time, November 27, 1950.

Other Mob bosses had: Dragna’s legitimate businesses included a 538-acre vineyard near Puente and a Panama-flagged frigate that shuttled bananas between Long Beach and Panama. Special Crime Study Commission report, January 31, 1950, 25-26. For Mickey’s legitimate holdings, see “Portrait of a Punk,” Cosmopolitan. The Kefauver Commission was particularly well informed about Mickey because its chief investigator, Harold Robinson, had come from Warren Olney’s special crime study commission. Warren Olney, “Law Enforcement and Judicial Administration,” 297.

Anyone who bothered to: Calculations come from the Final Report of the Special Crime Study Commission, November 15, 1950, 37.

This should have led: Final Report of the Special Crime Study Commission, November 15, 1950, 39.

Mickey cracked his first: “MAD GUNMAN CAPTURED, Mickey Cohen Tells Inside Story of L.A., Bland Gangster Spars with Counsel in Quiz; Sheriff Also Testifies,” Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1950, 1.

The audience chuckled: Cohen, In My Own Words, 148.

During Parker’s first month: Webb, The Badge, 253.

Parker argued that if: The idea for an interagency intelligence agency was not new. In the fall of 1947, District Attorney William Simpson, Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz, and Police Chief C. B. Horrall had announced the creation of a similar entity. “Police Network in 20 Cities to Keep Constant Tab on Mobs,” Los Angeles Daily News, November 11, 1947. However, Parker revived the idea and gave it a concerted push that previously had been lacking.

“This plan goes deeper …”: Webb, The Badge, 253.

The assembled group was: “Parker Declares City Is White Spot of Nation,” Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1950.

“[W]e have become a …”: Parker, “Religion and Morality,” in Parker on Police, 18.

The idea of an: “Worton Shifts 33 in Police Shake-Up: Top Flight Officer Named Intelligence Aide to Chief in Reorganization Move,” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1949. Earlier in his career, Worton himself had been a special intelligence officer in the Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence. “Worton ‘Man of the Year’ in the Los Angeles Mirror Mailbag Vote,” December 30, 1949.

Parker shared Worton’s enthusiasm: Chief Parker, for one, seems to have suspected this. Kefauver, Crime in America, 241.

The intelligence division didn’t: Lieberman, “Crusaders in the Underworld: The LAPD Takes On Organized Crime,” Los Angeles Times, October 26, 2008.

“When Johnny saw the …”: Otash, Investigation Hollywood, 184.

“We’re selfish about it…”: “Novice Chief Brings New Confidence San Francisco Call-Bulletin, May 10, 1955.

As Kefauver attempted to: Because Guarantee Finance operated as a “fifty-fifty book,” with management and participating bookies sharing expenses, the cost of juice was almost certainly twice that figure—$216,000. Kefauver, Crime in America, 240.

Later that evening, at: Scene of the Crime, 126-27.

Mickey was hustled off: Cohen, In My Own Words, 150-51.

But solving the case: The LAPD was right. However, the two Tonys were killed not because the police were closing in on them for the Rummell shooting—they had no involvement in that—but rather because the two men had recently heisted a big bookmaking operation in Las Vegas. Demaris, The Last Mafioso, 51-54.

“The Weasel” had an: Stump, “L.A.’s Chief Parker—America’s Most Hated Cop,” Cavalier Magazine, July 1958. See also Demaris, The Last Mafioso, 56-60, for Fratianno’s account of the interrogation.

Parker moved quickly to: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 425-26.

“Well, get out,” Parker: Gates, Chief, Chapters One and Two. Gates’s characterizations of Parker are often ungenerous, as when Gates describes Parker as “a stern, cantankerous man with a reputation as a bully” (25). Throughout the earlier pages of his memoir, Gates presents himself as an independent-minded rebel, eager to break free of Parker’s tutelage. Yet in the version of Gates’s memoirs annotated by Helen Parker (available for perusal at the William H. Parker Police Foundation) a very different and in some ways more plausible picture of the young Gates emerges as an officer whom Parker had to push out into the field. There is probably at least some truth to this alternative account.

Fortunately, Daryl Gates was: Helen Parker would later deny claims that Parker was a heavy drinker, insisting that her husband simply enjoyed a cocktail or two at the end of the day. This claim can be set aside. Gates’s testimony on this point is compelling and corroborated by others, such as Deputy Chief Harold Sullivan.

As the Kefauver hearings: Gates, Chief, 37. Other federal law enforcement agencies had likewise missed opportunities to go after the little gangster. The Bureau of Narcotics had identified Cohen’s close associate, Joe Sica, as the principal supplier of heroin in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, but had failed to place him as a member of Cohen’s inner circle. More curious still was the conduct of the FBI. While the bureau developed a large file on Cohen activities, it showed no inclination to develop a case it could take to prosecutors. This was entirely in keeping with the FBI’s long-standing lack of interest in prosecuting organized crime, which director J. Edgar Hoover insisted was primarily local and thus a matter for local law enforcement to address.

When Cohen himself appeared: “Cohen Deals Going Before Jury Today, Federal Inquirers Expected to Hear of Borrowings,” Los Angeles Times, February 9, 1951, A1.

Cohen had long maintained: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 169. He ultimately sold it to the Texas Stock Car Racing Association instead. “Mickey Cohen Cashes In on His Glaring Notoriety,” New York Times, April 3, 1951, 28.

It was no use: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 169.

The trial began on: Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, n.p.

The prosecution’s strategy: “Cohen Profits Told as Tax Case Opens, Federal Prosecutor Attacks Gangster’s Story of Loans,” Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1951, 2; Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, n.p.

Perhaps the hardest to: Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, n.p.

At the end of: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 172-75; Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, n.p.

The smoking gun: Jennings, “The Private Life of a Hood,” conclusion, October 11, 1958, 116.

Mickey interjected. “Right now, …”: Cohen would later claim that Sack-man had set him up. The supposed rationale for the double-cross had to do with the problems Sackman himself was experiencing with the revenue bureau in connection with the Guarantee Finance Company. By offering the bureau Cohen, Mickey believed that Sackman was trying to save himself. This theory may be true. During the sentencing, Judge Harris would go so far as to state that Cohen “had talked himself into this case” by giving the revenue bureau a false statement when he could simply have remained silent. “Mickey Cohen Gets 5 Years, $10,000 Fine,” Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1951, 1; Hill, “5-Year Term Given to Mickey Cohen; Judge Finds Gambler ‘Not So Bad,’” New York Times, July 10, 1951, 1.

A request: The description that follows comes from Cohen manuscript, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

“I am praying that…”: “Jigs & Judgments,” Time, July 23, 1951.

One day in early: “Mickey Shifted to New Jail to End ‘Privileges,’ Crowding at County Bastille the Official Cause,” Hollywood Citizen-News, February 8,1952.

Cohen was placed in: “Cohen ‘Safe’ in U.S. Cell, Moved to Federal Pen, Brutality By Police Told,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, February 14, 1952.

“Mickey, my God, why: Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Although their client was: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 124.

“Mickey is in”: Hecht, “Mickey Notes,” 9, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Chapter Sixteen: Dragnet

The trouble arrived on: See Edward Escobar’s definitive article, “Bloody Christmas and the Irony of Police Professionalism: The Los Angeles Police Department, Mexican Americans, and Police Reform in the 1950s,” 171. This incident also inspired the opening scenes of the James Ellroy book (later movie) L.A. Confidential.

From the perspective of: Said the arresting officer later, “Sure I hit him. He was kicking at me with his feet. I only used necessary force to subdue him.” “Parker Clams Up on Jury Quiz,” Los Angeles Daily News, March 27, 1952; Escobar, “Bloody Christmas and the Irony of Police Professionalism,” 187.

Christmas was a special: Author interview with Harold Sullivan, July 26, 2007. The department would later insist, implausibly, that officers at Central station were consuming only ice cream, pie and cake, and coffee that evening. “‘Cops So Drunk They Fought Each Other to Beat Us,’” Los Angeles Herald-Express, March 19, 1952.

The prisoners were taken: “6 on Trial Tell More Police Brutalities,” Los Angeles Daily News, March 6, 1952. See also “Wild Party by 100 Police Described, Youth Tells of Beatings at Police Yule Party,” Los Angeles Examiner, March 19, 1952; “‘Cops So Drunk They Fought Each Other to Beat Us,’” Los Angeles Herald-Express, March 19, 1952; “Bare Yule Police Brutality Transcript,” Los-Angeles Daily News, May 13, 1952.

Two months after the: Escobar, “Bloody Christmas,” 185. “East side” was a phrase originally used to describe the area east of Main Street.

Parker’s initial response to: “Chief Shrugs at Claim of Cop Brutality, Police Brutality Gets Brush-off by Chief Parker,” Los Angeles Mirror, February 27, 1952; “Chief Parker Hits Brutality Stories,” Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1952. In Parker’s defense, it should be noted that the particular cause of the chief’s complaint—an allegation by a Latino doctor that a police officer had fired on him—did indeed prove to be unsubstantiated.

The liberal Daily News: Los Angeles Times, March 6, 1952.

Local Democrats unanimously passed: “PARKER FORCED TO ACT ON BRUTALITY, Cop Brutality Quiz Demanded by L.A. Judge,” Los Angeles Mirror, March 13, 1952; “F.B.I. Probing L.A. Police Brutality,” Los Angeles Times, March 14, 1952.

Belatedly, Parker recognized the: See “Florabel Muir Reporting,” Los Angeles Mirror, March 14, 1953, for a column on the chief’s change of heart.

But Parker’s story had: “Florabel Muir Reporting,” Los Angeles Mirror, March 20, 1952.

“Boys Tell Police Beating,”: March 19, 1952; “An Inadequate Answer,” Los Angeles Examiner editorial, May 2, 1952, describes the initial Internal Affairs’ report, which found no evidence of abuse.

Meanwhile, more reports of: “Move for Action on L.A. Police Brutality Charges,” Los Angeles Daily News, February 26, 1952; “Parker Clams Up on Jury Quiz,” Los Angeles Daily News, March 27, 1952.

Parker’s job was in: “Police Brutality Probe Is Overdue,” Los Angeles Mirror, March 14, 1952; Webb, The Badge, 174-75.

The first threat to: “Grand Jury to Attack Police Trials System,” Los Angeles Examiner, September 7, 1949; “Law for Policemen Took,” Los Angeles Examiner, editorial, November 14, 1949.

Of course, Chief Parker: See the March 28, 1953, untitled Daily News editorial for a rebuttal of these charges.

Pat Novak took the: Hayde, My Name’s Friday, 13. See also Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pat_nuyak&equals$fur-hire.

Jack Webb had grown: Unless otherwise noted, the biographical information that follows comes from Michael Hayde, My Name’s Friday. The chronology of events that led to this job offer is not entirely clear. Owen McClaine, the casting agent for He Walked by Night, claims to have heard Webb’s “private eye plays”—presumably, Pat Novak—and then offered him the job. But Jack Webb did not start playing the lead role in Pat Novak until 1949, when the program went national on ABC—one year after he appeared in He Walked by Night.

“I doubt it, Marty,”: Hayde, My Name’s Friday, 18-19.

Joe Friday (as played: See Raymond Chandler’s essay “The Simple Art of Murder” for more on the noir hero.

The radio program’s success: “Real Thriller,” Time, May 15, 1950.

Soon after the tribute: A July 17, 1958, memo from the FBI’s L.A. SAC to Hoover described Parker as a “Traffic Officer” prior to his appointment to the position of chief of police “with whom office had practically no contact.”

Whether Parker knew about: Hayde, My Name’s Friday, 31-33. See August 2, 1963, FBI memo, Parker FBI file, for the origins of the FBI feud. See December 4, 1951, memo from SAC, Los Angeles, to Director, FBI, for Parker’s praise of Hoover.

The episode aired on: Hayde, My Name’s Friday, 46.

Parker’s initial response to: On July 18, 1959, the FBI’s San Francisco SAC sent a confidential memo to J. Edgar Hoover, reporting on a recent off-the-record confab Parker had held with Bay Area law enforcement officials about community relations that provides rare insight into the chief’s thoughts about the Bloody Christmas affair. According to the SAC, Parker stated that “certain of his men were undoubtedly in the wrong.” Parker further noted that “a number of his young officers were also wrong in ‘clamming up’ when his own inspectors attempted to investigate the beatings, and that had these officers not done this, the entire matter might in all probability have been settled within the department.” Also author interview with Harold Sullivan, July 26, 2007.

Soon after his ill-received: “Parker Hints at Crackdown, Own Cleanup May Forestall Jury Action,” Hollywood Citizen-News, March 27, 1952; “Grand Jury Indicts Eight Officers in Beating Case,” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1952; “Bloody Christmas—One Year Later,” Los Angeles Mirror editorial, December 6, 1952.

Parker went further: Webb, The Badge, 174-75; “36 L.A. Policemen Face Discipline for Brutality,” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1952; “Grand Jury Turns Heat on Parker, Report Hits Police Dept. Conditions,” Los Angeles Daily News, April 2, 1952; “An Inadequate Answer,” Los Angeles Examiner editorial, May 2, 1952. A July 29, 1952, memo from the L.A. SAC to Hoover asserted that Parker had not been popular in the department before the FBI’s civil rights investigation commenced but that Parker’s strong defense of the department had “earned him support since.” Nonetheless, the SAC claimed that Parker’s position “is still somewhat precarious” as “it is generally known that the Mayor is hostile to him, as are a number of the Los Angeles Police Commissioners.” The following month Mayor Bowron would categorically deny any intention of removing Parker. “Bowron Denies Parker Ouster,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, May 27, 1952.

Dragnet wasn’t the only: A July 18, 1952, “confidential memo” from the FBI’s San Francisco SAC to Director Hoover reports that the L.A. business community had also printed a brochure titled “The Thin Blue Line” to distribute to members of the public. Whether the phrase was first used for the pamphlet or for the TV show is unclear.

The purpose of: April 1, 1952, letter from Parker to the Police Commission, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives.

“Soviet Russia believes that …”: Parker, Parker on Police, 30. See also Charles Reith, The Blind Eye of History, 209-23, for a viewpoint that profoundly influenced Parker.

In this vital role: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 430.

Parker thought the primary: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 429.

One generation earlier, Berkeley: Parker, Parker on Police, 12.

Hoover was determined to: See memorandum to Mr. DeLoach, December 12, 1960, for summary of bureau’s relationship with Parker, Parker FBI files.

Chapter Seventeen: The Trojan Horse

“You should always have…”: Poulson, The Genealogy and Life Story, 91.

“There is nothing about …”: “Chief Parker Expected to Quit in Bowron Row,” Los Angeles Examiner, May 27, 1952; Sitton, Los Angeles Transformed, 171; Parson, Making a Better World, 112, 115.

The charge emerged from: The residents of Chavez Ravine would later be evicted for another reason—to make way for Dodger Stadium.

Bowron had no interest: Sitton, Los Angeles Transformed, 171.

In December 1952: The Cadillac soon broke down, and Poulson replaced it with a fuel-efficient Rambler, much to the horror of West Coast oil and gas companies. Parson, Making a Better World, 127; Poulson, The Genealogy and Life Story, 132-34.

“I just casually reached …”: Poulson, The Genealogy and Life Story, 144.

“They would say that…”: Poulson, The Genealogy and Life Story, 144.

the House Subcommittee on: “Verbal Battles by Lawyers Rock Public Housing Quiz,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1953. Parson, Making a Better World, 203-208, provides a complete transcript of the LAPD’s Wilkinson file.

“I talked in circles,”: Poulson, The Genealogy and Life Story, 144-45.

Chapter Eighteen: The Magna Carta of the Criminal

“The voice of the …”: Webb, The Badge, 244.

Accardo’s party proceeded to: Russo, The Outfit, 302. The Los Angeles Mirror presents a slightly different version of the incident, which features a verbal confrontation at the airport. “Chicago Hoodlum Chased by Cops, Goes to ‘Vegas,’” Mirror, January 16, 1953. See also Davidson, “The Mafia Can’t Crack Los Angeles,” Saturday Evening Post, July 31, 1965. Fittingly, Perino’s was also a famous gangster-movie restaurant, a place that featured in such films as Scarface, Bugsy, and Mulholland Drive. It was torn down in the spring of 2005 (http://franklinavenue.blogspot.com/2005/04/perinos-no-more.html, accessed July 16, 2008).

Then there were the: Parker to Rev. John Birth, director, Catholic Youth Organization, April 28, 1953, William H. Parker Police Foundation archives. See Weeks, “Story of Chief Parker, Enemy of the Criminal,” for a disingenuous attempt to explain away the “personal” intelligence files. Los Angeles Mirror, June 17, 1957, 1.

The potential for the: Poulson, The Genealogy and Life Story, 140. The Daily News was speaking out against a proposal that surfaced that summer to give the police chief even more power over the department. “Give Police Board, not the Chief, More Power,” Los Angeles Daily News, July 2, 1953; Los Angeles Times, May 12, 1953.

There was a third: Coates, “Midnight Memo to the Mayor,” Los Angeles Mirror, July 20, 1953; Poulson, The Genealogy and Life Story, 140, 147.

“Chief Parker is to …”: “Poulson Pledges War on Gangsters: Mayor-Elect Maps Plans with Parker; Shake-Up of Police Commission Indicated,” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1953.

Although he had concluded: Poulson, The Genealogy and Life Story, 147; “4 Named to Police Board by Poulson,” Hollywood Citizen-News, July 2,1953.

The message Poulson intended: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 151-52.

“Until these recommendations …”: Irey, “An Open Letter to the Mayor: Ex-Official Tells LA Police Stymie,” Los Angeles Mirror, July 13, 1953; Irey, “Police Dept. ‘Split’ Bared,” Los Angeles Mirror, July 14, 1953.

“Hardly anyone likes Parker, …”: Parker’s relationship with the press had taken a turn for the worse earlier in the year, when he shut down a poker game involving reporters and the police that had been going on since time immemorial. At the chief’s insistence, a sign was put up that read “No more card playing. By order of the Chief of Police.” Parker would later claim that he was moved to act after discovering that one unfortunate reporter had run up a $2,000 debt. The press itself seems to have viewed the crackdown case as pure vindictiveness. In a scathing story about the controversy, the Daily News complained of the chief’s “incredible inability to get along with newsmen or take criticism.” “Speaking of Snoopers,” Los Angeles Daily News, January 19, 1953.

Poulson hoped that his: Commission members received a stipend of $20 per meeting but were otherwise unpaid. Mayor Poulson’s predecessor, Fletcher Bowron, had also wrestled with this problem, when confronted with the prospect of having the ornery, independent-minded Parker as chief. His solution had been to place William Worton on the Police Commission board. Harry Frawley, “Police Board Will Use More Power—Mayor,” Valley Times, August 8, 1950. It didn’t work. Parker’s allies on the city council ferociously resisted a few early efforts by Worton to discipline the new chief. In the summer of 1951, General Worton resigned from the Police Commission and was gone. “Newman and Worton Quit Police Board,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 1951, 1.

If those weren’t constraints: In his memoirs, Poulson would later accuse Parker of deliberately undermining the mayor’s relationship with Poulson. This is probably true; however, Parker undoubtedly also benefited from an incident that occurred that very summer. Soon after Irwin joined the Police Commission, he was approached by Herbert Hallner, chief investigator for the state board, with a proposition: If Irwin would “cooperate” with a group of “citizens” attempting to win permission to open, he would be “well taken care of.” It was common knowledge that the group of citizens in question was a front for Jimmy Utley, Mickey Cohen’s sometime underworld rival. Irwin quickly informed Parker and Poulson of the approach, and with Irwin’s continuing assistance, the department arranged a successful sting operation aimed at the corrupt investigator. The incident undoubtedly heightened Irwin’s regard for the chief. See “Cal. Employe [sic] Accused as Bunco Go-Between,” Los Angeles Daily News, September 2, 1953.

Poulson struggled in his: “Responses to Questions of the Los Angeles City Council Concerning a Juvenile Gang Attack on a Citizen in Downtown Los Angeles Which Resulted in His Death, Given by Los Angels [sic] Chief of Police W H. Parker on December 8, 1953,” Police Department files, Escobar collection, Tucson, AZ.

But when Leask presented: Memorandum from Parker to the Board of Police Commissioners, “Subject: Progress Report—August 9, 1950, to January 1, 1953,” January 7, 1953, Escobar collection, Tucson, AZ.

“You talk like you’re …”: “Charge 750 Police in Office Jobs, Quiz Chief,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, May 5, 1954; Williams, “Mayor and Parker in Sharp Clashes: Poulson, Police Chief and Leask Argue Heatedly at Public Hearing on City Budget,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1954, 1.

It was classic Parker.: Gerald Woods put it aptly in his 1,310-page dissertation, “The Progressives and the Police”: “A most contentious man, he could not abide the same quality in others…. He brooked no criticism of himself, his politics or his subordinates…. Parker’s description of society provided a concise analysis of the chief himself. Americans, he said, were ‘emotional people, responsive to stimuli administered to us through communicative media; we are immature and subjective about problems, and there is an unwillingness for us to accept our mistakes.’ His enemies could not have said it better” (432).

So far, the consequences: Memorandum from Parker to the Board of Police Commissioners, “Subject: Progress Report—August 9, 1950, to January 1, 1953,” January 7, 1953, Escobar collection.

I wish it could: Parker, Parker on Police, 16.

For decades, police departments: For instance, in the spring of 1955, Judge Aubrey Irwin dismissed a case against Hollywood playboy LeRoy B. (“Skippy”) Malouf after concluding that Malouf had been framed by the police. “‘Planted’ Fur Story Acquits Malouf in Theft,” Los Angeles Times, April 7, 1955, p. 4.

See the depiction of police work as approved by the department in He Walked by Night.

Of course, not every: Parker would later argue that technically wiretapping per se was not illegal under federal statutes but rather the divulging of information from a wiretap was. Parker, “Laws on Wiretapping,” letter to the Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1955.

“[I]n a prosecution”: Irvine v. California, 347 U.S. 128 (1954); Newton, Justice for All, 338. No case was ever brought against the officers involved.

The position of: “Chance on the High Sea,” Time, August 14, 1939; Warren, The Memoirs of Earl Warren, 255; Parker, “Responses to Questions of the Los Angeles City Council Concerning a Juvenile Gang Attack on a Citizen in Downtown Los Angeles,” December 8, 1953, Escobar collection.

“Certainly society cannot expect…”: City News Service, “Parker Hits at Highest Court Ruling in Irvine ‘Bookie’ Case,” L.A. Journal, February 19, 1954.

This was a sensitive: Wirin’s lawsuit was finally rejected on May 31, 1955. “Judge Rules He Cannot Stop Police Microphones, Lacks Jurisdiction on Use of Public Funds for Installation, McCoy Says,” Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1955.

Wirin’s attempts to rein: Los Angeles Herald-Express, April 19, 1954; Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1954.

“We would if you …”: Lieberman, “‘Dragnet’ Tales Drawn from LAPD Files Burnished the Department’s Image,” Los Angeles Times, October 30, 2008.

“Far from being a …”: Mooring, “Chief Gives Opinion of ‘Bad Cop’ Films,” The Tidings, October 22, 1954; “Telephone Tap Defended by Chief Parker,” Los Angeles Mirror-Daily News, March 7, 1955. In 1968, Congress passed legislation (known as Title III) governing federal law enforcement’s use of electronic surveillance that adopted precisely that procedure. California, however, declined to follow suit. Until quite recently, California state law criminalized all wiretaps that did not have the consent of both parties, with an exception only for certain narcotics-related law-enforcement matters. See Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs9-wrtp.htm#wt2, accessed July 26, 2008.

In addition to trying: “Police Warned on Secret Wire Taps, Officers Subject to Liability for Illegal Entry, Brown Says,” Los Angeles Times, September 4, 1954.

The case of Cahan: Lieberman, “Cop Befriends Crook,” Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2008.

Traynor served notice that: Liptak, “U.S. Is Alone in Rejecting All Evidence if Police Err,” New York Times, July 19, 2008.

“Today one of the …”: “Hidden Mike Barred, Beverly Bookie Case Upset by High Court,” Hollywood Citizen-News, April 28, 1955.

“The positive implication drawn: Earlier that year the Chandlers’ Mirror had bought out Manchester Boddy’s Daily News, creating the Mirror-News. For Parker’s statistics, see “Criminals Laugh at LA Police, Says Chief. Underworld Rejoices in Ruling,” Los Angeles Mirror-Daily News, May 31, 1955.

Chapter Nineteen: The Enemy Within

“He is intent on …”: Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, Chicago.

“There is not a: “Mickey Can’t have L.A. Bar, Officers Rule,” Hollywood Citizen-News, October 10, 1955.

“When I was on …”: Cohen, Hecht manuscript, 63, Hecht Papers, New-berry Library.

Several months after: The timing of the meeting between Hecht, Preminger, and Cohen is problematic. Brad Lewis’s Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster places the meeting in the late 1940s or 1950s, well before the 1955 film was made (71). It is nonetheless possible that Preminger was reading Nelson Algren’s book, published in 1949.

On the appointed: Hecht manuscript, 1-3, 18-19, Hecht Papers, New-berry Library.

Not anymore. The postprison: Hecht manuscript, 13-14, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library. See also Cohen to Hecht, March 22, 1964, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library. Cohen, In My Own Words, 64, offers a slightly different recollection.

According to Hecht, Mickey originally brought him a 150-page typed manuscript that he said he had dictated. “Mickey Cohen Takes Manuscript to Author,” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1957, 34. The Newberry Library contains fragments of this apparent manuscript.

LaVonne thought Mickey: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 193, 196.

One night after midnight: The word gilgul means “cycle” in Hebrew and refers to a concept of reincarnation from the Kabbalistic tradition. Hecht manuscript, 16-17, 70-71, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Chief Parker would have: Lieberman, “Cop Befriends Crook,” Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2008.

By 1956, the Kennedys: The extent of Joseph Kennedy’s involvement in bootlegging is often exaggerated. Contrary to public myth, the Kennedy family fortune was not based on illegal liquor. Joseph Kennedy’s father, P. J., had owned a series of saloons and liquor distributorships well before Prohibition, but it was Kennedy’s financial prowess (and his decision to bail out before the crash of 1929), as well as a series of savvy investments in Hollywood that increased the family’s resources so dramatically in the late 1920s and 1930s. That said, even though it was hardly necessary financially, Kennedy seems to have occasionally dabbled in bootlegging. See Fox, Blood and Power, 19-20; Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 41.

Kennedy had long been: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 62-3, 71.

Soon thereafter, in August: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 72; Kennedy, The Enemy Within, 18-21.

Parker took Kennedy’s visit: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 74.

At the end of: Kennedy, The Enemy Within, 8.

One day in the: Author interview with Harold Sullivan, July 26, 2007.

The turning point came: Author interview with Joe Parker, December 1213, 2004.

Chapter Twenty: The Mike Wallace Interview

“I killed no men …”: Mickey Cohen to Mike Wallace, May 19, 1957; Wallace and Gates, Close Encounters, 49.

When Mickey Cohen: In 1950, Graham switched from describing his revivals as “Campaigns” to calling them “Crusades.” Graham, Just As I Am, 163.

Richardson responded by saying: Graham, Just As I Am, 150, 162, 174-75, 190-92.

Graham and Cohen had: See Jennings, “The Private Life of a Hood,” conclusion, October 11, 1958, for an admission from “Picked for Cohen Role in Film, Skelton Says,” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1961, 2. W. C. Jones admitted to only about $18,000 in gifts.

“He’s invited me …”: “Mickey Cohen Sees Billy Graham, Talks on Religion, Former Mobster Goes to N.Y. for Conference,” Los Angeles Times, April 2, 1957, B1.

In the summer of: Adams, “Mike Wallace Puts Out Dragnet to Line Up ‘Talent’ for His New Show,” New York Times, April 21, 1957, 105; Wallace and Gates, Close Encounters, 21-24, 32-33.

That fall: Wallace and Gates, Close Encounters, 45.

Wallace’s interviews: Author interview with Al Ramrus, March 18, 2008; Wallace and Gates, Close Encounters, 31-32.

When Ramrus contacted Mickey: Cohen, In My Own Words, 171. The claim that Billy Graham pushed Cohen to talk to Mike Wallace should be viewed with a certain degree of skepticism since Mickey himself is the sole source for this claim. Jennings, “Private Life of a Hood, Part III,” October 4, 1958, reports that Cohen also received $1,800 for expenses.

When Cohen flew: Author inteview with Al Ramrus, March 18, 2008, provides most of the account that follows. See also Wallace and Gates, Close Encounters, 48-53. Wallace recalled another companion named Arlene—presumably the nightclub dancer Arlene Stevens—and places Mickey in the Hampshire House. Wallace, Between You and Me, 160-67.

“I have a police chief”: Wallace and Gates, Close Encounters, 50; Wallace, Between You and Me, 161-63.

“Well, Mickey, you’re a …”: “Important Story,” Time, June 3, 1957; “Parker Seeks Grand Jury Action Over Cohen Blast,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1957, B1.

Mickey Cohen wasn’t: See Harnisch, “Cohen Talks,” for an interesting discussion of the controversy about whether to air the episode on the West Coast and an explanation of kinescope technology. Harnish, Daily Mirror blog (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2007/05/cohen-talks.html).

The Mike Wallace Interview: Wallace and Gates, Close Encounters, 50-51; Wallace, Between You and Me, 163-64.

Cohen was enraged by: “A.B.C.-TV Retracts Remarks by Cohen,” New York Times, May 27, 1957, 44.

Cohen, meanwhile, was dealing: “Cohen Attends Graham Rally in New York,” Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1957, 10. See also Jennings, “The Private Life of a Hood,” conclusion, October 11, 1958. Brad Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, says Cohen was paid $15,000 to attend the rally (206). There are no further records of direct encounters between the two men, although evidently Graham’s father-in-law, Dr. Nelson Bell, himself a distinguished preacher, stayed in touch.

“They can’t get away …”: “Cohen Booked for Not Signing Traffic Ticket,” Los Angeles Times, May 26, 1957, 1; “Mickey Cohen’s Traffic Trial Off to Salty Start, Policemen Who Made Arrest Testify That Defendant Delayed Autos at Intersection,” Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1957, 5.

Los Angeles-area: “Cohen Found Guilty, Gets $11 Traffic Fine,” Los Angeles Times, November 12, 1957, 5; “Cohen Jailed for Failure to Register,” Los Angeles Mirror, September 26, 1957, accessed October 12, 2008, via Larry Harnisch’s Daily Mirror blog (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/mickey_cohen/index.html); “Jury Acquits Mickey Cohen on Disturbing Peace Charge, Ex-Convict Ruling May Affect Case,” Los Angeles Times, December 17, 1957, 2.

“I didn’t know a…”: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 208. The profitability of the greenhouse business is somewhat unclear. For a positive assessment of its cash flow, see Salazar, “Violence Marks Cohen’s History,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1961.

Henceforth, Mickey would focus: “Chicago Attorney Glad to Stake Mickey Cohen, Admits $22,500 Loan; Says Ex-Gambler Stands to Make Fortune on Life Story,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1958, 19.

Back in New York: Ramrus interview, March 18, 2008; Wallace and Gates, Close Encounters, 52-53.

For the most part: Wallace and Gates, Close Encounters, 52.

“That is a big …”: Fox, Blood and Power, 325-26.

The very next day: Fox, Blood and Power, 326. For a different account of the gangsters’ response to the police raid, see Hilty, Robert Kennedy, Brother Protector, 124.

It was clear that: Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Back in Washington, Robert: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 82.

One year earlier the: Russo, The Outfit, 317.

“The results of the …”: Kennedy, The Enemy Within, 229.

Chapter Twenty-one: The Electrician

“[W]hat’s the meaning in …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 193-95.

By late 1958, Mickey: Otash, Investigation Hollywood!, 179-86.

Cohen had the temperament: Gabler, An Empire of Their Own, 152.

But in 1958, Cohn: “A Star Is Made,” Time, July 29, 1957.

There’s another more plausible: There are many versions of this episode in Davis’s life. See Fishgall, Gonna Do Great Things, 114, for the most convincing.

Whatever version: Jennings, “Private Life of a Hood,” part two, September 27, 1958, 117.

In this, he was: Cohen, In My Own Words, 187.

The day after Stompanato’s: See, for instance, “Lana’s Romance with Stompanato Cools: Star Asks to Be Left Alone,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 10, 1958, 8.

Renay was a sometime: Renay, My Face for the World to See, 129-32.

Meanwhile, Cohen and Hecht: “$200,000 Tax Writeoff Offer to Cohen Told,” Los Angeles Times, June 8, 1961, 29.

On the whole, though: “Lawmen Blast High Court Order to Identify Informants in Arrests: Ruling Termed Crippling in Drive on Dope,” Los Angeles Mirror-News, October 2,1958; “Poulson Cuts Police Budget by $6 Million, Commissioner Promptly Warns Mayor that City Faces Criminal Invastion,” Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1959.

“It won’t be long,”: Woods, “The Progressives and Police,” 446.

“Anything she says is …”: “Mickey Cohen Proud of Actress in Murder Quiz, Admits Liz Renay, Questioned in Anastasia Case, Loaned Him $10,000 He’s Repaying,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 1958, C12.

“Her red hair was …”: “Girl Friend of Mickey Cohen Quizzed Again, Won’t Tell Treasury Agent About Gifts from Bodyguard of Slain Anastasia,” Los Angeles Times, September 10, 1958, B1.

The next day, Cohen: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 244. See also http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=166332&cat=boxer, accessed10/25/2008.

To celebrate the thumb: Cohen, In My Own Words, 193-97.

Chapter Twenty-two: Chocolate City

“We are all members …”: Webb, The Badge, 244.

The polite word was: To his credit, Parker recognized that this was a problem soon after he became chief and set to work on curbing this unfortunate tendency. “Ex-Sergeant Strange Praises Chief Parker, Remembers Sincerity,” Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1996, C12.

As the 1920s progressed: Bass and Donovan, “The Los Angeles Police Department,” 155.

As a policeman, Parker: During Chief Davis’s tenure as chief, Parker might also have dealt with Lt. Homer Garrott, an African American lieutenant whom Davis made an acting captain. Lomax, “Bradley Makes ‘Loot’ Just in Time for the Vote on the Police Pay Raise,” Los Angeles Tribune, October 31, 1958.

The primary draw: Parson, Making a Better World, xi.

Los Angeles even: Escobar, Race, Police, and the Making of a Political Identity, 186-203. PBS’s American Experience documentary The Zoot Suit Riots also provides an excellent account of the era (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/index.html; accessed 2/21/2008).

“I feel that when …”: David Williams to Herb Schurter, April 1, 1959; Parker to Williams, April 13, 1959; Williams to Parker, April 21, 1959, LAPD records, CRC.

Williams wrote back to: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 471. See also Williams’s July 9, 1959, letter to Councilman John Holland, Council File No. 89512, CRC.

The spat soon went: “Parker Hits Influx of Parolees to L.A.: Tells City Council of Huge Rise in Crime,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, March 13, 1959.

The black press: Memorandum to the City Council from the Police Commission, “Subject: Council File No. 89512,” August 6, 1959, CRC. See also FBI September 4, 1959, report, captioned “Top Hoodlum Program,” Parker FBI file.

One of Parker’s first: This approach dates back to at least the early 1920s, when August Vollmer had pioneered the use of crime maps as a guide to deploy his elite “crime crushers” unit during his year as chief of police in Los Angeles. Today’s LAPD uses the computer-mapping tool COMPSTAT in a strikingly similar fashion.

The LAPD deployed: Civil Rights Congress, “Is the Police Department Above the Law?” pamphlet, Southern California Library, Los Angeles.

Anyone who’d spent: See Wambaugh, The Blue Knight, for an excellent (if fictitious) description of the mind of a beat cop in the 1960s.

“Any so-called …”: “Police Investigation Points Up Brutality In Minority Community,” California Eagle, June 30, 1949.

Strange may (or may not): It is worth noting that Strange, like Parker, was a devout Roman Catholic, a fact that undoubtedly elevated her in Parker’s estimation. Nor did Sergeant Strange’s promotion put her in a position to command white officers. She worked in community relations, in effect as a liaison to the black community. “Ex-Sergeant Strange Praises Chief Parker, Remembers Sincerity,” Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1996, C12.

This represented a failure: “Responses to Questions of the Los Angeles City Council Concerning a Juvenile Gang Attack on a Citizen in Downtown Los Angeles Which Resulted in His Death, Given by Los Angeles Chief of Police W H Parker on December 8, 1953,” Los Angeles Police Department files, CRC.

“The local juvenile gang …”: January 29, 1954, Parker letter to Don Thompson, 1953 county grand jury foreman, in response to a letter from him asking about rat packs, Escobar collection.

In 1955, Tom Bradley: See Lomax, “Bradley Makes ‘Loot’ Just in Time for the Vote on the Police Pay Raise,” Los Angeles Tribune, October 31, 1958, for a glowing account of Bradley’s early career.

Bradley got the kind: In an August 18, 1955, letter to Seattle police chief H. J. Lawrence, Parker described Bradley’s work in the following terms: “In our Public Information Division, we have a Community Relations unit which is staffed by a Negro sergeant and a Mexican officer. The outstanding job that these men have done in dealing with the minority elements of the community has created respect and confidence in this Department. Some of their most valuable contributions have been working with the minority press to prevent the publication of unsubstantiated reports which tended to arouse animosities in the community. They have also developed a close personal liaison with influential leaders in the minority communities. A copy of their job outline is also enclosed.” Los Angeles Police department files, Escobar collection.

“Parker told me the …”: Gates, Chief, 66.

Parker was also buffeted: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 441. According to Bradley’s authorized biography, Bradley was out fishing when Parker called, and wife Ethel answered the phone. Characteristically, the sphinxlike Bradley had not informed her that he had taken the exam for lieutenant. (He had also neglected to tell her he was joining the police department or, later, taking the bar exam.) Ethel decided to turn the tables on Bradley this time. She ordered a lieutenant’s uniform and let Bradley discover it when he opened his closet. Bradley was so excited that he forgot about the fish in the car. Ethel found them there the next morning. (Payne and Ratzan, Tom Bradley, the Impossible Dream, 53.)

This homey anecdote may be untrue. Press accounts from the time state that it was acting chief Richard Simon who promoted Bradley to lieutenant while Parker was away on a fishing trip. (See Lomax, “Bradley Makes ‘Loot’ Just in Time for the Vote on the Police Pay Raise,” Los Angeles Tribune, October 31, 1958.) It is possible that Bradley, who was always attuned to the need to reassure white voters of his crime-fighting credentials, changed the story for his biographer in an attempt to claim support from Parker where none had existed. Bradley’s strikingly respectful treatment of Parker in his biography lends further credence to this interpretation.

Mr. Bradley spoke first: Lomax, “Bradley Makes ‘Loot,’ Just in Time for the Vote on the Police Pay Raise,” Los Angeles Tribune, October 31, 1958, reports Bradley’s move to Wilshire as a new position befitting Bradley’s promotion.

“We don’t tell him,”: “Police Board Member Flays Parker, Quits,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1959; Woods, “The Progressives and Police,” 465-66.

Chapter Twenty-three: Disneyland

“[Have] gangsters taken over…”: “The Elemental Force,” Time, September 28, 1959.

Earlier that year, President: “Parker Plans Security for Khrushchev Visit,” Los Angeles Times, September 7, 1959; “Keep Cool with Mr. K, Chief Parker Tells L.A.,” Los Angeles Mirror-News, September 7, 1959, 1.

Khrushchev was greeted at: In fact, LAPD officers had escorted dignitaries to Disneyland before, including former President Harry Truman. See “Parker Rejects Mr. K. Gripe, Russ Police OKd Ban on Disneyland Tour,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, September 21, 1959, A6.

“We have come to …”: “The Elemental Force,” Time, September 28, 1959.

Instead of going to: Sherman, “Mr. K Hurls Hot Retort at Poulson,” Los Angeles Times, September 20, 1959, 1.

Chief Parker was offended: “Parker Rejects Mr. K. Gripe, Russ Police OKd Ban on Disneyland Tour,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, September 21, 1959, A6.

The commission’s interest in: Sherman, “L.A. Negroes Only Part of Over-All Minority Problem: Concentration of Race Here Is Fifth Largest in United States,” Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1961, 2.

The commission’s staff was: “Brutal Tactics Told at Hearing,” Los Angeles Mirror, January 26, 1960.

By the time Chief: Of course, this hardly explained the crime surge, as Los Angeles had been severely underpoliced even before 1950 (and, according to the police complaints dating back to the 1930s, besieged with criminal vagabonds).

Parker insisted that there: “Parker Angrily Denies Racial Discrimination: Presents Charts of City Districts, Tells of Undesirables Shipped into Los Angeles,” Los Angeles Times, January 27, 1960, B2. See also Becker, “Police Brutality on Coast Denied: Los Angeles Chief Answers Charges of Anti-Negro Tactics by His Force,” New York Times, January 27, 1960, 18. Parker’s testimony provoked the following sarcastic letter from Beavers:

Dear Mr. Parker:

Reference is made to your statement to the Civil Rights Commission, as published in the newspapers.

Your expressions to the effect that opportunities for promotion within the Police Department are based upon qualifications without regard to race, color or creed, encourages the hope that certain discriminatory practices in existence as of July 10, 1959, have been eliminated. It is common knowledge that there are several Negro officers whose educational backgrounds, characters and years of service fully qualify them for assignment to various divisions in the Police Department in which no Negroes were serving seven months ago.

We note your denial of racial bias did not include an explanation as to why no Negro officers are assigned to the following seven divisions: central Detective Bureau—Homicide—Robbery—Forgery—Auto Theft—Burglary—Narcotics—Administrative Vice and Internal Affairs.

Your supplying this additional explanation or giving information as to steps being taken to more fully utilize the talents and skills of this group of officers in these various divisions of your organization will be deeply appreciated.

Very truly yours,

George Beavers

Parker was becoming more: Fumed Parker, “They [the police] were being blamed for all the ills of humanity; they were constantly being bombarded, and I have been nothing but harassed by these elements since I was chief of police. I have been sued repeatedly. I have a suit pending now in the Federal court under the Federal Civil Rights Act.”

Sitting in the audience: In response to a question from Commissioner Johnson about integration in the department, Parker insisted, in effect, that the department already was integrated—but in a very sly fashion. “Officers may be assigned together and sometimes they are, but not as a matter of discrimination, no …” the Chief replied. Consciously mingling partners would be nothing more than “reverse discrimination.” Parker attempted a similar move when asked to name the highest-ranking black officers in the department. Parker pointed to Lt Roscoe Washington and said the only thing holding him back was his performance on the written exam—this despite the fact that black officers routinely received low oral evaluations. By insisting the problem was a written exam—no bias there!—Parker was, with lawyerly skill, deflecting attention away from the problem of orals scores.

Never slow to respond: “Racial Bias Accusations False, Says Chief Parker. Explains Police Problem,” Los Angeles Mirror-News, January 27, 1960, A.

It didn’t. Forced to: “Council Hears Parker’s Recording on ‘Wild Tribes,’ Chief Denies Slur, Refuses to Apologize,” Los Angeles Times, February 3, 1960. See also “Demagoguery Loses a Round,” Los Angeles Times, February 5, 1960.

Chapter Twenty-four: Showgirls

“Girls very often like …”: Hecht manuscript, 39 Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

The rules were strict: “Lid Off L.A.!” Coates, Los Angeles Mirror-News, February 15, 1952.

Candy Barr was striptease: Shteir, Striptease, 297.

Ordinary women were a: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, xii-xiii.

By the spring of: Ryan, “Dot-dot-dot—It’s Just Like Downtown,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1959, B5.

Renay had long been: “Liz Renay Indicted on Perjury Charges: Mickey Cohen’s Actress Friend Accused of Lying About Raising $5,500 in Loans,” Los Angeles Times, March 13, 1959, 4.

Inwardly, Mickey grieved: Hulse, “Mickey Cohen to Wed Striptease Dancer, 22,” Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1959, 4.

On December 2, 1959: “Cohen Suspect in Slaying, Restaurant’s Guests Flee After Shooting,” Los Angeles Mirror-News, December 3, 1959; Cohen, “Cohen’s Own Story of Cafe Shooting,” Los Angeles Herald, December 3, 1959. For more background on Whalen, see also Lieberman, “Cop Befriends a Crook,” Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2008.

“A man walked in …”: Korman, “Hoodlum Shot to Death, Victim Ripe for Killing, Police Report,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 4, 1950, 14.

“Obviously, he is,”: “Shooting Takes Place Six Feet from Mickey,” Los Angeles Mirror-News, December 3, 1958.

The police then got: “Mickey Cohen Jailed in Murder of Bookie,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1959, 1.

Six days later: “Slayer of Bookmaker Surrenders to Police,” Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1959, 1.

Brown called in Chief: “Witnesses Deny They Saw Whalen Shooting,” Los Angeles Times, March 11, 1960, B32. See also Lieberman, “Noir Justice Catches Up with Mickey Cohen,” Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2008; “Admits Slaying Bookie, Claims It Was ‘Self Defense,’” Los Angeles Examiner, December 9, 1959.

Prosecutors tried to put: Lieberman, “Noir Justice Catches Up with Mickey Cohen,” Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2008.

The Whalen shooting quickly: Blake, “First Such Convention in City Brings With It Host of New Problems,” Los Angeles Times, May 30, 1960.

The convention began under: “Kennedy’s ‘Pad’ in L.A.—Dirty Shirts and Disorder,” San Francisco Call-Bulletin, July 15, 1960.

From the start, Parker: “Noise, Cheers, Applause, Songs—and 3 Candidates,” Kansas City Times, April 11, 1960; “Big Squeeze Boosts Police for Kennedy,” Los Angeles Mirror, July 11, 1960.

The LAPD also proved: Fleming, “Stevenson Supporters Try to Invade Arena, Extra Police Rushed to Entrance as Chanting Crowd of 600 Mills About,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1960.

By all accounts, the: See, for instance, “The Bright Badge of the L.A.P.D.,” Los Angeles Times editorial, August 9, 1960, B4.

“Eating out of the …”: Russo, The Outfit, 407.

Parker was delighted.: “Parker Hails Kennedy as Crime Foe,” Los Angeles Times, December 17, 1960, 12; “Chief Parker May Head US Crime Probers,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, December 22, 1960.

To the sixty-six: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 114.

“I have a high: “Chief Parker May Head US Crime Probers,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, December 22, 1960; White, “Parker Takes Swipe at FBI,” Los Angeles Mirror, December 22, 1960.

Ethel was a prankster: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 117.

To Mickey Cohen, the: More specifically, prosecutors charged Cohen with evading roughly $30,000 in taxes between 1956 and 1958 and also with avoiding another $347,000 in taxes (plus interest and penalties) between 1945 and 1950, in addition to several other infringements of the law. See Korman, “Convict Cohen a Second Time Tax Offender: Guilty of Beating U.S. out of $400,000,” Chicago Tribune, July 1, 1961, 3. Cohen’s previous tax conviction had been for avoiding $130,000 in taxes between 1946 and 1948. The decision to charge Cohen with concealing even more income in the immediate postwar years reflected new discoveries about Cohen’s gambling income from that era.

“There’s no question about…”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 195-96.

The first investor appeared: “Cohen’s Story Contract Presented at His Trial,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1961, 30; “$9,000 Advance for Cohen, Screenplay Told,” Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1961, 11; Korman, “2 FILM COMICS ADD SPICE TO COHEN’S TRIAL: Jerry Lewis, Skelton on Witness Stand,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 25, 1961, A7; “Ben Hecht Sees Cohen as Top Book Material,” Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1961, B2.

The next witness after: “Candy Barr Tells About Being Cohen’s ‘Sweetie:’ Jailed Stripper Testifies How Ex-Hoodlum Helped Her Flee U.S. to Mexico Hide-way,” Los Angeles Times, June 3, 1961, 12.

The answer was yes: Caen, “Another World: Search for the Prize Topper,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1960, B5; “US. Rests Cohen Income Tax Case,” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1961, 9.

“I feel it’s now …”: “Cohen Defense Claims He Was Losing Money,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1961, 11.

Mickey responded by instructing: Cohen, In My Own Words, 205.

Reporters noted that he: “Mickey Cohen Jaunty Again—in Volkswagen,” Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1961, 26.

Then, two weeks later: “Mickey Cohen, 4 Others Indicted in Murder Plot, All Accused in Dec. 2, 1959 Slaying of Jack Whalen in Sherman Oaks Cafe,” Los Angeles Times, November 1, 1961, 2.

Chapter Twenty-five: The Muslim Cult

“‘Civil disobedience’… simply means …”: Manion, “Anarchy Imminent,” May 30, 1965.

Police lieutenant Tom Bradley: Indeed, Bradley’s promotion and appointment to Wilshire Division was widely seen as a promotion in the black community. Lomax, “Bradley Makes ‘Loot,’ Just in Time for the Vote on the Police Pay Raise,” Los Angeles Tribune, October 31, 1958.

Poulson, meanwhile, struggled with: Los Angeles has nonpartisan primaries. Any candidate who wins more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary automatically wins election to the office in question. If no candidate wins an outright majority, then the two top vote-getters meet for a rematch in the general election. The top vote-getter in that election then claims the contested office.

In his public appearances: See “All Elections Promises Kept, Yorty Asserts. But Black Leaders Flat Contradict His Claim That He Never Promised to Fire Chief Parker,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, July 9, 1962.

In fact, Yorty did: Ainsworth, Maverick Mayor, 129, 132-33.

The next day, newspapers: Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1961. See “Two Cited Under Lynch Law After Park Riot,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1961, for an account of the case. See also “This Is not Alabama,” Los Angeles Times editorial, June 1, 1960.

“I have confidence in…”: Gottlieb and Wolt, Thinking Big, 364-65; “Yorty, Parker Clash: Chief Denies Charge of Ballot ‘Gestapo,’” Los Angeles Examiner, June 9, 1961.

Rumor had it that: The rumor seems to have started with councilman Carl Rundberg, who after the mayor and police chief’s meeting, expressed a desire to know “what Parker had on Yorty.” Parker denied the allegation, but Rundberg rejoined that he personally had heard Parker play back recordings of negative remarks made by Yorty about the police. See Hollywood Citizen-News, February 18, 1963.

Daryl Gates would later categorically deny that Parker collected dirt on Yorty and other politicians. Perhaps this is true (although Yorty’s allegations seem similar to those leveled by Norris Poulson in 1952). What is striking, though, is that most observers at the time believed he did and feared the chief accordingly. Author interview with Daryl Gates, December 10, 2004.

The officers had heard: “Six Muslim Suspects Held in Row at Market,” Los Angeles Times, September 3, 1961; Branch, Pillar of Fire, 4-15.

Malcolm X’s efforts put: Branch, Pillar of Fire, 11. See Los Angeles Sentinel, May 17, 1962, for a slightly different account.

In early June, a: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 476.

“The Negro community here …”: “Parker Assails Bishop’s View of Negro Policy,” Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1963, A1.

“This city can’t be …”: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 475-76.

Chapter Twenty-six: The Gas Chamber

“Don’t worry”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 214.

Cohen’s indictment arose from: Reid, Mickey Cohen, 69; “Officers Out to Get Cohen, LoCigno Says,” Los Angeles Times, March 22, 1962, A2.

Although he was willing: “Under Table, Didn’t See Slayer, Cohen Says,” Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1962, 30.

Cohen’s attorneys did not: “Cohen’s Defense Closes Murder Trial Argument,” Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1962, 34.

“This is a crazy town…”: Coates, “A Cool Customer in a Hot Spot,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1962, B7.

“Although much testimony of…”: “Mickey Cohen Murder Charges Dismissed,” Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1962, 2. LoCigno’s earlier conviction had been vacated by an appeals court. However, he did not go free. Later that fall, he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to one to ten years’ imprisonment. “Lo Cigno Rules Guilty of Manslaughter,” Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1962, B8.

Cohen had dodged the: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 278-79, 280-81.

“Don’t worry about me,”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 214.

In October, Cohen was: “Mickey Cohen Sues U.S.,” New York Times, February 18, 1964, 22; Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 284-86.

“Violence in Los Angeles …”: “An Analysis of the McCone Commission Report,” California Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, January 1966, LAPD official records box 84638, CRC.

“I doubt that Los …”: “Police Chief William H. Parker Speaks,” a compilation of Parker statements prepared by the Community Relations Conference of Southern California, 2400 South Western Avenue, Los Angeles, California, available in Parker’s FBI file, 62-96042-109.

Chapter Twenty-seven: Watts

“This community has done …”: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 475-76.

Minikus told Marquette that: My account of the beginning of the riots comes from Robert Conot’s Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness (6-29) and from the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots report (the so-called McCone Commission), issued December 5, 1965, reprinted in Robert Fogelson, ed., Mass Violence in America (10-23). Frye would later challenge this account, claiming that the Highway Patrol officer had been preparing to release him until other officers arrived with a nastier attitude. See Horne, The Fire Next Time, 54.

It was a sweltering: Conot, Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness, 6.

Gates had enjoyed a: Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, June 2, 1965, CRC scrapbook.

What he saw was: Gates, Chief, 90.

The police had regrouped: In fact, thanks to the strike at Harvey Aluminum, L.A. County sheriff Peter Pritchess had also placed a sizable number of deputy sheriffs on alert near the area—roughly two hundred. Nothing prevented Deputy Chief Murdock from calling them in as assistance. Yet no calls were made that night to the sheriff’s department. Conot, Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness, 50, 65.

This characterization of the early morning comes from the McCone Commission report, cited above. Gates, Chief, 90-91, portrays events of the first morning in a less positive light.

Chief Parker did not: “‘Pseudoleaders Who Can’t Lead,’ Blamed by Parker,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, August 15, 1965; “Los Angeles Police Chief William H. Parker 3d,” New York Times, August 14, 1965.

Around midnight, the comedian: Gregory, Call On My Soul, 111.

They didn’t. By 4: Gates, Chief, 99.

At 9:45 a.m., Parker: Parker would later claim that Colonel Quick, the National Guard liaison present at the 9:45 LAPD staff meeting, had received the request and promised the chief to submit it immediately. Colonel Quick, in contrast, would recall a more general conversation, one that did not include a direct and specific request for the Guard.

At 11 a.m., Governor Brown’s: Anderson did order the Guard to marshal forces at local armories at 5 p.m. Friday afternoon, in the event a call-up was necessary. Anderson would tell the McCone Commission that he had been advised that a five o’clock call out was the earliest time feasible for a guard deployment. Unaware of the location of the Third Brigade, the lieutenant governor thus felt that he had the afternoon to investigate and deliberate.

To Parker, it was: Gottlieb and Wolt, Thinking Big, 378.

The other important freeway: Author interview with Harold Sullivan, July 26, 2007.

Friday night brought something: Horne, Fire This Time, 72.

Desperate to restore order: According to the McCone Commission, the maximum deployment of the LAPD during the riots was 934 officers; the maximum for the sheriff’s department was 719 officers. For an account of Parker’s television appearance, see Conot, Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness, 348-49.

To groups like: Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, xv

Still, King tried to: Horne, Fire This Time, 183.

To Mayor Sam Yorty: Parker’s concerns about communist agitation would at one time have been quite understandable. According to Horne, during the 1940s, Los Angeles “had one of the highest concentrations of Communists in the nation,” with roughly 4,000 card-carrying members. However, by 1965, the power the party once held over Hollywood’s unions and the city’s trade unions—and in L.A.’s African American community—had been broken. In comparison, the Nation of Islam (which Parker insisted on viewing as some adjunct of the party) emphasized an almost Booker T. Washington-like ideology of black self-sufficiency. Horne, Fire This Time, 5, 11. See also Hertel and Blake, “Parker Hints Muslims Took Part in Rioting,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1965.

At 2 a.m. on the: LAPD informant Louis Tackwood would later claim that he had instigated the call at the department’s behest. Horne, Fire This Time, 126; Erwin Baker, “Mills Tells Parker to Explain Raid: Chief Denies Councilman Has Right to Quiz Him on Muslims,” Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1965, 3. Parker later agreed to testify. “L.A. Councilmen to Hear Parker,” Valley-Times, September 11, 1965.

The following day, the: Horne, Fire This Time, 127-28.

On August 29: “Chief William Parker Speaks,” Parker FBI file.

California governor Pat Brown: Fogelson, “White on Black,” 114.

The testimony of many: Fogelson, “White on Black,” 124, quoting testimony of Mervyn Dymally, “statement prepared for the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots,” October 11, 1965, 2.

Parker, Ferraro, and Yorty: Fogelson, “White on Black,” 126, quoting testimony of Mervyn Dymally, “statement prepared for the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots,” October 11, 1965, 2.

Civil rights leaders attacked: See Rustin, “The Watts ‘Manifesto’ and the McCone Report,” 147, for the typical reading of this statement.

“I have my suspicions”: “Riot Hearings Boil, Parker, Bradley in Row Over ‘Mystery Man,’” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, September 14, 1965. See also Dallas Morning News, September 14, 1965.

Parker’s combative appearances belied: Memorandum from Acting Chief Richard Simon to Police Commission, “Subject: Request for Five Additional Positions of Lt of Police to Be Community Relations Officers,” October 12, 1965, CRC.

But the commission raised: See the section of the McCone Commission report entitled “Law Enforcement—the Thin Thread;” Rustin, “The Watts ‘Manifesto’ and the McCone Report,” 153.

“I think they’re afraid: Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1966.

Parker’s popularity dissuaded the: von Hoffman, “L.A. Chief Overlooked a Bad Heart to Serve,” Washington Post, July 18, 1966, A1.

Privately, however, many recognized: FBI memorandum to Mr. Felt from H. L. Edars, “Subject: NDAA Midyear Meeting, Tucson, AZ,” March 4, 1966, Parker FBI file; “Parker Out of Hospital, Will Rest,” Hollywood Citizen-News, March 15, 1965.

The memo concluded by: It should also be noted that Parker believed that, after rising 130 percent in nine years, crime had “plateaued.” Newsom, “Men Efficient, Vigilant, Brave, Chief Relates,” Hollywood Citizen-News, June 20, 1965.

On the evening of: West, “Chief Parker Collapses, Dies at Award Banquet, Stricken During Standing Ovation by Marine Veterans,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1966.

His death will be: Houston, “Police Chief Parker’s Death Mourned in City and State, Meeting May Be Today to Name his Successor,” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1966; “Friends, Critics Praise Parker,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, June 18, 1966.

At the funeral home: “6000 Pay Last Tribute to Parker, Chief Eulogized in Congress,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, July 21, 1966, A16.

Chapter Twenty-eight: R.I.P.

“I don’t want to …”: Lewis, Hollywood’s Gangster Celebrity, 318.

“The notions in it,”: Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 155-56; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 502.

Four LAPD patrol cars: Gates, Chief, 147-53. Information about the LAPD’s secret policy of providing police escorts to visiting dignitaries comes from an author interview with former police commissioner Frank Hathaway, February 17, 2008.

“I’m gonna use you …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 233.

“I got a definite …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 234-36.

Once again, a crowd: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 307.

Then it was on: Cohen, In My Own Words, 238-43.

In September 1975, Mickey: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 325.

Epilogue

“This city is plagued …”: Mydans, “‘It Could Happen Again,’ Report on Los Angeles Riots Blames Police and City,” New York Times, October 25, 1992.

In 1969, LAPD: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 504.

Just before: “Politics and the LAPD,” Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1969, C6.

Reddin’s decision to step: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 505; Cannon, Official Negligence, 88.

It took Bradley: Dominick, To Protect and to Serve, 160, 294.

In January 1978, after: Cannon, Official Negligence, 90. After his resignation in 1978, Davis did run for office, winning election as a Republican to the state senate in 1980.

Mayor Bradley didn’t want: Gates, Chief, 174.

“You know,” Gates replied: Gates, Chief, 176.

There were three passengers: Lou Cannon’s Official Negligence provides a convincing—and strikingly revisionist—account of the Rodney King beatings. For anyone interested in the history of Los Angeles, the LAPD, or policing in general, Cannon’s book is a must-read.

The LAPD hierarchy was: Gates, Chief, 316, 318.

The Police Commission, whose: Gates, Chief, 340.

Three months later, on: Cannon, Official Negligence, 142-44.

One of the commission’s most: Gates, Chief, 348-49; Cannon, Official Negligence, 139.

Gates immediately recognized that: Gates, Chief, 351.

At least, that was: Cannon, Official Negligence, 264.

The mood at police: Cannon, Official Negligence, 300.

Gates did not return: Cannon, Official Negligence, 305, 341.

On June 2: Cannon, Official Negligence, 356; “Final Election Returns,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1992, A20. See also Sahagun, “Riots Transform Campaign on Police Reform,” Los Angeles Times, May 31, 1992, B1; and Berger, “Elections ’92 LAPD Disciplinary System to Undergo Major Restructuring Police,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1992, B3.