Fred Fuller
Moderator Emeritus
While ST&T is here primarily for the edification of armed citizens, the entire community of those who go about armed has learned important lessons from pivotal events that loom large in our collective past. One of those influential events happened at a place known as The Onion Field, and the events which transpired there in 1963 continue to touch the lives of trainers and students today.
From trainer John Farnam:
http://www.defense-training.com/quips/29Aug12.html
The Onion Field
29 Aug 12
The last "Onion Field" perpetrator now dead!
In 1963, I was a high-school senior living in the Chicago suburb of Wheaton, and I well remember the dreadful event that would later be canonized in Joseph Wambaugh's classic 1973 record, "The Onion Field." Waumbaugh was uniquely qualified to comment, as he himself had once been an officer with the LAPD. Today, he is seventy-five.
Late on 9 March 63 (Saturday), two LAPD officers, Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger, were outflanked during a traffic-stop and ultimately disarmed and kidnaped by two desperate armed robbers, Gregory Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith. Both Powell and Smith were both in their early thirties at the time, but Powell, a career violent criminal even then, was the more dangerous of the two. Smith was just a six-time loser, tagging along.
The two officers were taken at gunpoint to a (then) isolated farm field near Bakersfield (onion field). There is little doubt Powell at least intended to murder both officers. He succeeded in Campbell's case. Campbell was precipitously shot in the face by Powell and died more or less instantly. Hettinger then broke loose and ran, dodging Powell's bullets, and successfully eluded his captors, ultimately reaching a farmhouse and safety.
The two suspects were located and arrested within a day. Both were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Both death sentences were later reduced to life imprisonment after lengthy re-trials. Lead investigator was Pierce R Brooks, whom I met years later, after he authored the first widely-circulated book on individual police tactics, "Officer Down, Code Three," a classic, even today, and I still quote from it often! Pierce and I lectured, side by side, at The Traffic Institute at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL in the early 1980s. He was a wonderful mentor and friend and greatly influenced me and the way I teach . He died in 1998 at the age of seventy-five.
Karl Hettinger, though he lived through the incident, was thereafter a tortured soul until his untimely death at age fifty-nine in 1994. Forced to testify multiple times, he painfully recounted details of that fateful night, over and over again. As a result, his mental health suffered severely. Like Mark Reno at the Little Big Horn when he became the scape-goat for Custer's debacle, Hettinger was unfairly blamed by many for Campbell's death. No LAPD officer in 1963 had ever received any training in kidnap procedure, and, when Hettinger precipitously ran away after his partner was shot, he only did what I'm sure I would have done! In 1963, LAPD officers, including Campbell and Hettinger, did not carry back-up guns. Today, the wise among us do!
Jimmy Lee Smith was paroled in 1986, but repeatedly violated and was re-arrested on unrelated charges, mostly drugs, multiple times. Back in prison, he died of natural causes (heart attack) in 2007, at the age of seventy-six.
Powell became eligible for parol in 2010, but was repeatedly denied, partially because of passionate testimony on the part of Ian Campbell's daughter. Late on 12 Aug 12 (Sunday), Powell succumbed to prostate cancer in a prison hospice, having spent the last fifty years of his life continuously incarcerated. He was seventy-nine. When he murdered Campbell, he was just thirty.
Powell and Smith had no contact with each other while in the CA Prison System.
All four main Onion Field characters, so meticulously and painstakingly described by Wambaugh in his book, are now dead. That chapter in police/criminal history has finally come to a close!
At Campbell's funeral, his family arranged for bagpipes to play, as Campbell was himself a bagpipe enthusiast. Bagpipe funerals, in honor of |Campbell, have since become a tradition with LAPD, and many other departments.
The 1979 film version of Wambaugh's book starred a young Ted Danson, playing the role of Ian Campbell. It was Danson's first major role and launched his acting career.
When I became a police officer in WI in 1971, fresh out of the Marine Corps and back from Vietnam, the Onion Field was a hot topic of discussion, even two years before Wambaugh's book was published. I surely remember thoughts of the incident haunting me many times as I was out on patrol.
Whether in the police business or not, you have to be alert, prepared, and always have a plan. The world has not improved since 1963! The Onion Field Incident is now just a milestone, among so many others. We forget important lessons, learned at such great cost, at our peril!
"Opportunity knocks, but seldom nags!"
/John
From trainer John Farnam:
http://www.defense-training.com/quips/29Aug12.html
The Onion Field
29 Aug 12
The last "Onion Field" perpetrator now dead!
In 1963, I was a high-school senior living in the Chicago suburb of Wheaton, and I well remember the dreadful event that would later be canonized in Joseph Wambaugh's classic 1973 record, "The Onion Field." Waumbaugh was uniquely qualified to comment, as he himself had once been an officer with the LAPD. Today, he is seventy-five.
Late on 9 March 63 (Saturday), two LAPD officers, Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger, were outflanked during a traffic-stop and ultimately disarmed and kidnaped by two desperate armed robbers, Gregory Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith. Both Powell and Smith were both in their early thirties at the time, but Powell, a career violent criminal even then, was the more dangerous of the two. Smith was just a six-time loser, tagging along.
The two officers were taken at gunpoint to a (then) isolated farm field near Bakersfield (onion field). There is little doubt Powell at least intended to murder both officers. He succeeded in Campbell's case. Campbell was precipitously shot in the face by Powell and died more or less instantly. Hettinger then broke loose and ran, dodging Powell's bullets, and successfully eluded his captors, ultimately reaching a farmhouse and safety.
The two suspects were located and arrested within a day. Both were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Both death sentences were later reduced to life imprisonment after lengthy re-trials. Lead investigator was Pierce R Brooks, whom I met years later, after he authored the first widely-circulated book on individual police tactics, "Officer Down, Code Three," a classic, even today, and I still quote from it often! Pierce and I lectured, side by side, at The Traffic Institute at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL in the early 1980s. He was a wonderful mentor and friend and greatly influenced me and the way I teach . He died in 1998 at the age of seventy-five.
Karl Hettinger, though he lived through the incident, was thereafter a tortured soul until his untimely death at age fifty-nine in 1994. Forced to testify multiple times, he painfully recounted details of that fateful night, over and over again. As a result, his mental health suffered severely. Like Mark Reno at the Little Big Horn when he became the scape-goat for Custer's debacle, Hettinger was unfairly blamed by many for Campbell's death. No LAPD officer in 1963 had ever received any training in kidnap procedure, and, when Hettinger precipitously ran away after his partner was shot, he only did what I'm sure I would have done! In 1963, LAPD officers, including Campbell and Hettinger, did not carry back-up guns. Today, the wise among us do!
Jimmy Lee Smith was paroled in 1986, but repeatedly violated and was re-arrested on unrelated charges, mostly drugs, multiple times. Back in prison, he died of natural causes (heart attack) in 2007, at the age of seventy-six.
Powell became eligible for parol in 2010, but was repeatedly denied, partially because of passionate testimony on the part of Ian Campbell's daughter. Late on 12 Aug 12 (Sunday), Powell succumbed to prostate cancer in a prison hospice, having spent the last fifty years of his life continuously incarcerated. He was seventy-nine. When he murdered Campbell, he was just thirty.
Powell and Smith had no contact with each other while in the CA Prison System.
All four main Onion Field characters, so meticulously and painstakingly described by Wambaugh in his book, are now dead. That chapter in police/criminal history has finally come to a close!
At Campbell's funeral, his family arranged for bagpipes to play, as Campbell was himself a bagpipe enthusiast. Bagpipe funerals, in honor of |Campbell, have since become a tradition with LAPD, and many other departments.
The 1979 film version of Wambaugh's book starred a young Ted Danson, playing the role of Ian Campbell. It was Danson's first major role and launched his acting career.
When I became a police officer in WI in 1971, fresh out of the Marine Corps and back from Vietnam, the Onion Field was a hot topic of discussion, even two years before Wambaugh's book was published. I surely remember thoughts of the incident haunting me many times as I was out on patrol.
Whether in the police business or not, you have to be alert, prepared, and always have a plan. The world has not improved since 1963! The Onion Field Incident is now just a milestone, among so many others. We forget important lessons, learned at such great cost, at our peril!
"Opportunity knocks, but seldom nags!"
/John
