(FL) Mass murderer gunned down by citizens 10-14-03 (20 YEARS LATER)
Date: Oct 14, 2003 1:11 PM
Address:http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/7000714.htm
Changed:12:41 PM on Tuesday, October 14, 2003
MULTIPLE MURDER
Gunman's killer: Taking his life `a terrible thing´ A businessman who
killed a multiple-murderer speaks out for the first time in two decades
and wonders whether he did the right thing. BY LUISA YANEZ
[email protected]
Earlier this year, Mark Kram revealed to his two teenage children a
secret he had kept for two decades: He killed a man.
That man was Carl Brown, who killed more people in one day than anyone
else in Miami-Dade's history.
On a Friday morning in August 1982, Brown, 51, fuming over a $20 repair
bill, marched into a Miami machine shop and shotgunned 11 employees,
killing eight.
Within minutes, Brown -- a schoolteacher on psychiatric leave -- was the
ninth person to die.
Kram, at work in a nearby machine shop, and another man set out to stop
Brown, who fled the scene on a bicycle. They ended up fatally shooting
Brown and running him down with a car, essentially dealing the mass
killer a dose of street justice -- no arrest, no trial. Instant
retribution for eight innocent lives.
Some people called Kram a hero; others a vigilante.
''I never felt like a hero. I did what I thought was right at that
moment, but the truth is I set out to stop Brown, not kill him,'' Kram
told The Herald recently in his first interview about the case in two
decades.
''Taking a life this way is a terrible thing. Unless you've done it or
served in Vietnam or something like that, you don't know what I'm
talking about,'' Kram said.
Kram, now 52, said his children were surprised to learn of the media
avalanche that engulfed their father 21 years ago.
''I took out my scrapbook and let them read all the newspaper articles
from the time,'' said Kram, president of All Florida Scrap Metal, a
company his father started 40 years ago, just yards from where the mass
murder took place.
They read about how Brown had pedaled his bike away from the carnage at
Bob Moore's Welding and Machine Shop -- a straw hat on his head, a
12-gauge shotgun slung over his left shoulder and a fistful of live
shells in his pocket.
And they read how Kram stopped Brown from using that shotgun again with
a bullet and a swerve of his car.
CHILDREN'S REACTION
'My 17-year-old daughter said: `You did the right thing, Dad -- it
sounds just like you. You don´t like to see people hurt.´ ´´
He said his 14-year-old son was more nonplussed: ``Dad, you did
that?´´
Kram is painfully aware he killed a father -- Brown had three children
-- but Kram thought it inappropriate to contact them. They declined to
be interviewed for this story but said they had no hard feelings toward
Kram.
For years Kram has refused to be interviewed.
This year, he agreed to talk in his second-floor office, above his
scrap-metal yard.
''Maybe I am going through something, I don't know,'' Kram mused.
``It´s been long enough. It´s part of Miami´s history and whether
I like it or not, I was part of it, too.´´
At the center of his reluctance is the question that has haunted him all
these years:
Did he do the right thing in playing judge and jury?
Kram's dark wavy hair and the Hawaiian shirt he wore that day prompted
tabloids to give him the very '80s moniker of ''Magnum PI.'' Today his
hair is gray and short-cropped, but he's still animated and
youthful-looking in jeans and a red polo shirt. He sports a shiny stud
in his pierced ear and has black-and-white photographs of John Lennon
and the Fab Four hanging in his office.
Still fearful of retribution from those who believe he sinned by taking
a life and meting out justice, Kram declined to be photographed, or
offer specific details about his life now.
''If you had received the letters full of venom I did, you'd
understand,'' Kram said. ``I took the law into my own hands and some
people have a big problem with that, and I understand it.´´
But through the years, many others have patted him on the back.
HIS OWN ANSWER
Kram said he has found his own answer in the way his life has turned
out. He has been married for 20 years, has healthy children and a
successful business.
A believer in the maxim: ''What goes around, comes around,'' he said:
``If what I did was wrong, I figured I would have been punished. But
I´ve had a good life.´´
But the shooting did mark him for life. ''I never forget about the
shooting; it's always there with me,'' he said.
Kram, whose shop moved across the street and a few doors down, has spent
most of his professional life in the same industrial riverfront
neighborhood, where today he is pushing city officials to open a
homeless shelter.
Born and raised in Miami Beach, Kram said he has always felt compelled
to speak up for the underdog -- the reason he stepped up that day, he
thinks. ``But I also have a temper.´´
It was lunchtime on Aug. 20, 1982, when gunshots rang out inside Bob
Moore's in the enclave of scrap metal shops off North River, near Miami
Jai Alai.
Kram stepped out of his shop. A hysterical Ernest Hammett, who worked
across the street, ran toward him, crying: ``A bunch of people just got
killed at Bob´s!´´
Kram ran into his office and grabbed two guns, one for himself, one for
Hammett. He jumped into his Lincoln Continental. Hammett got in the back
seat.
Six blocks away, he saw Brown, still bicycling at a leisurely pace. As
he pulled up alongside the teacher, Brown made a shoulder motion as if
he were about to bring his loaded shotgun around and open fire.
ONE SHOT
Hammett, from the back seat, pointed the .38-caliber revolver out the
driver's window.
Kram said he grabbed the gun to steady Hammett's hand and fired what
they meant to be a warning shot.
''I have to tell you that both our hands were on that gun when it went
off. I don't know whose finger was on the trigger,'' Kram said.
The bullet pierced Brown's back and severed his aorta, but Brown gave no
clue he had been mortally wounded. ''He just kept going on the bike,
that's why I swerved my car into him,'' Kram said. Brown went flying
into a concrete utility pole.
Not until hours later did the Miami-Dade medical examiner's office
announce Brown had died of a gunshot wound.
The minutes after the shooting were chaotic, Kram remembers.
``I stood in the middle of the street waving the guns over my head so
they could see we were the good guys.´´
Arriving officers handcuffed Kram and Hammett and drove them to the
office of then-Miami-Dade State Attorney Janet Reno.
They missed the pandemonium back at Bob Moore's as body after body --
six men, two women -- were found. The youngest was 29, the oldest 78.
Three employees survived the carnage.
Their offense: They had refused to accept Brown's traveler's check for
the repair of a lawn mower motor.
Bob Moore, who ran the shop with his mother, was in the Bahamas on
business that day. But among Brown's victims were Moore's mother
Ernestine, 67, and his uncle Mangum Moore, 78.
''If I had been in the office that day, I would not be talking to you
today,'' said Moore, now 66.
END OF BUSINESS
The shooting spelled the end of the family business. By 1987, it was
closed and liquidated. Its insurance company paid millions to relatives
of those killed by Brown.
''I'm glad Mark did what he did. He should have gotten a bunch of
medals,'' Moore said. ``I would have hated to have that guy sit in
prison costing taxpayers money.´´
The media frenzy was overwhelming. Brown had left more victims than
Danny Rowling in Gainesville, the Charles Manson gang in Los Angeles, or
David Berkowitz -- the Son of Sam -- in New York.
''And we killed him,'' Kram said. ``Ernest and I were living in a
fishbowl.´´
Vigilante killings had been glorified in the 1974 movie, Death Wish, but
Bernhard Goetz's shooting of four black teens who asked him for $5 on a
New York subway -- the definitive act of vigilantism -- was still two
years away.
''That was one of the first vigilante killings,'' Kram said.
As Reno weighed whether to charge the men,
Hammett, a black man, was particularly concerned about being involved in
the death of a white man: ''They're gonna fry me,'' he kept telling
Kram. ''Those were very scary days,'' Kram said.
Hammett died in 1989.
Eventually, Reno ruled the homicide justifiable because it was necessary
to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to others.
But Reno stressed that it should not be construed as ``a green light for
civilians to shoot down suspected criminals.´´
Bruce Winick, a University of Miami law professor, said Reno's decision
turned on the issue of whether Kram and Hammett used reasonable or
excessive force to subdue Brown -- and whether Brown could have killed
more innocent people.
''To shoot to subdue is OK; to shoot to kill is excessive force and it's
murder,'' regardless of how many people Brown had killed, Winick said.
Today, Kram still wonders about the state of mind of an isolated,
twice-divorced man whose middle school students had given him a
''weirdest teacher'' award.
Brown's autopsy revealed he had three mysterious chemicals in his brain
and may have been an undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
If he found himself in the same position today, would Kram react the
same way?
''That's too hard a question,'' Kram said. ``I can´t answer it.´´
Date: Oct 14, 2003 1:11 PM
Address:http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/7000714.htm
Changed:12:41 PM on Tuesday, October 14, 2003
MULTIPLE MURDER
Gunman's killer: Taking his life `a terrible thing´ A businessman who
killed a multiple-murderer speaks out for the first time in two decades
and wonders whether he did the right thing. BY LUISA YANEZ
[email protected]
Earlier this year, Mark Kram revealed to his two teenage children a
secret he had kept for two decades: He killed a man.
That man was Carl Brown, who killed more people in one day than anyone
else in Miami-Dade's history.
On a Friday morning in August 1982, Brown, 51, fuming over a $20 repair
bill, marched into a Miami machine shop and shotgunned 11 employees,
killing eight.
Within minutes, Brown -- a schoolteacher on psychiatric leave -- was the
ninth person to die.
Kram, at work in a nearby machine shop, and another man set out to stop
Brown, who fled the scene on a bicycle. They ended up fatally shooting
Brown and running him down with a car, essentially dealing the mass
killer a dose of street justice -- no arrest, no trial. Instant
retribution for eight innocent lives.
Some people called Kram a hero; others a vigilante.
''I never felt like a hero. I did what I thought was right at that
moment, but the truth is I set out to stop Brown, not kill him,'' Kram
told The Herald recently in his first interview about the case in two
decades.
''Taking a life this way is a terrible thing. Unless you've done it or
served in Vietnam or something like that, you don't know what I'm
talking about,'' Kram said.
Kram, now 52, said his children were surprised to learn of the media
avalanche that engulfed their father 21 years ago.
''I took out my scrapbook and let them read all the newspaper articles
from the time,'' said Kram, president of All Florida Scrap Metal, a
company his father started 40 years ago, just yards from where the mass
murder took place.
They read about how Brown had pedaled his bike away from the carnage at
Bob Moore's Welding and Machine Shop -- a straw hat on his head, a
12-gauge shotgun slung over his left shoulder and a fistful of live
shells in his pocket.
And they read how Kram stopped Brown from using that shotgun again with
a bullet and a swerve of his car.
CHILDREN'S REACTION
'My 17-year-old daughter said: `You did the right thing, Dad -- it
sounds just like you. You don´t like to see people hurt.´ ´´
He said his 14-year-old son was more nonplussed: ``Dad, you did
that?´´
Kram is painfully aware he killed a father -- Brown had three children
-- but Kram thought it inappropriate to contact them. They declined to
be interviewed for this story but said they had no hard feelings toward
Kram.
For years Kram has refused to be interviewed.
This year, he agreed to talk in his second-floor office, above his
scrap-metal yard.
''Maybe I am going through something, I don't know,'' Kram mused.
``It´s been long enough. It´s part of Miami´s history and whether
I like it or not, I was part of it, too.´´
At the center of his reluctance is the question that has haunted him all
these years:
Did he do the right thing in playing judge and jury?
Kram's dark wavy hair and the Hawaiian shirt he wore that day prompted
tabloids to give him the very '80s moniker of ''Magnum PI.'' Today his
hair is gray and short-cropped, but he's still animated and
youthful-looking in jeans and a red polo shirt. He sports a shiny stud
in his pierced ear and has black-and-white photographs of John Lennon
and the Fab Four hanging in his office.
Still fearful of retribution from those who believe he sinned by taking
a life and meting out justice, Kram declined to be photographed, or
offer specific details about his life now.
''If you had received the letters full of venom I did, you'd
understand,'' Kram said. ``I took the law into my own hands and some
people have a big problem with that, and I understand it.´´
But through the years, many others have patted him on the back.
HIS OWN ANSWER
Kram said he has found his own answer in the way his life has turned
out. He has been married for 20 years, has healthy children and a
successful business.
A believer in the maxim: ''What goes around, comes around,'' he said:
``If what I did was wrong, I figured I would have been punished. But
I´ve had a good life.´´
But the shooting did mark him for life. ''I never forget about the
shooting; it's always there with me,'' he said.
Kram, whose shop moved across the street and a few doors down, has spent
most of his professional life in the same industrial riverfront
neighborhood, where today he is pushing city officials to open a
homeless shelter.
Born and raised in Miami Beach, Kram said he has always felt compelled
to speak up for the underdog -- the reason he stepped up that day, he
thinks. ``But I also have a temper.´´
It was lunchtime on Aug. 20, 1982, when gunshots rang out inside Bob
Moore's in the enclave of scrap metal shops off North River, near Miami
Jai Alai.
Kram stepped out of his shop. A hysterical Ernest Hammett, who worked
across the street, ran toward him, crying: ``A bunch of people just got
killed at Bob´s!´´
Kram ran into his office and grabbed two guns, one for himself, one for
Hammett. He jumped into his Lincoln Continental. Hammett got in the back
seat.
Six blocks away, he saw Brown, still bicycling at a leisurely pace. As
he pulled up alongside the teacher, Brown made a shoulder motion as if
he were about to bring his loaded shotgun around and open fire.
ONE SHOT
Hammett, from the back seat, pointed the .38-caliber revolver out the
driver's window.
Kram said he grabbed the gun to steady Hammett's hand and fired what
they meant to be a warning shot.
''I have to tell you that both our hands were on that gun when it went
off. I don't know whose finger was on the trigger,'' Kram said.
The bullet pierced Brown's back and severed his aorta, but Brown gave no
clue he had been mortally wounded. ''He just kept going on the bike,
that's why I swerved my car into him,'' Kram said. Brown went flying
into a concrete utility pole.
Not until hours later did the Miami-Dade medical examiner's office
announce Brown had died of a gunshot wound.
The minutes after the shooting were chaotic, Kram remembers.
``I stood in the middle of the street waving the guns over my head so
they could see we were the good guys.´´
Arriving officers handcuffed Kram and Hammett and drove them to the
office of then-Miami-Dade State Attorney Janet Reno.
They missed the pandemonium back at Bob Moore's as body after body --
six men, two women -- were found. The youngest was 29, the oldest 78.
Three employees survived the carnage.
Their offense: They had refused to accept Brown's traveler's check for
the repair of a lawn mower motor.
Bob Moore, who ran the shop with his mother, was in the Bahamas on
business that day. But among Brown's victims were Moore's mother
Ernestine, 67, and his uncle Mangum Moore, 78.
''If I had been in the office that day, I would not be talking to you
today,'' said Moore, now 66.
END OF BUSINESS
The shooting spelled the end of the family business. By 1987, it was
closed and liquidated. Its insurance company paid millions to relatives
of those killed by Brown.
''I'm glad Mark did what he did. He should have gotten a bunch of
medals,'' Moore said. ``I would have hated to have that guy sit in
prison costing taxpayers money.´´
The media frenzy was overwhelming. Brown had left more victims than
Danny Rowling in Gainesville, the Charles Manson gang in Los Angeles, or
David Berkowitz -- the Son of Sam -- in New York.
''And we killed him,'' Kram said. ``Ernest and I were living in a
fishbowl.´´
Vigilante killings had been glorified in the 1974 movie, Death Wish, but
Bernhard Goetz's shooting of four black teens who asked him for $5 on a
New York subway -- the definitive act of vigilantism -- was still two
years away.
''That was one of the first vigilante killings,'' Kram said.
As Reno weighed whether to charge the men,
Hammett, a black man, was particularly concerned about being involved in
the death of a white man: ''They're gonna fry me,'' he kept telling
Kram. ''Those were very scary days,'' Kram said.
Hammett died in 1989.
Eventually, Reno ruled the homicide justifiable because it was necessary
to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to others.
But Reno stressed that it should not be construed as ``a green light for
civilians to shoot down suspected criminals.´´
Bruce Winick, a University of Miami law professor, said Reno's decision
turned on the issue of whether Kram and Hammett used reasonable or
excessive force to subdue Brown -- and whether Brown could have killed
more innocent people.
''To shoot to subdue is OK; to shoot to kill is excessive force and it's
murder,'' regardless of how many people Brown had killed, Winick said.
Today, Kram still wonders about the state of mind of an isolated,
twice-divorced man whose middle school students had given him a
''weirdest teacher'' award.
Brown's autopsy revealed he had three mysterious chemicals in his brain
and may have been an undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
If he found himself in the same position today, would Kram react the
same way?
''That's too hard a question,'' Kram said. ``I can´t answer it.´´
is just stupid.
