EXCLUSIVE: Shootout In Bakersfield. Discussing The Autopsy Photos Of Leon Anderson Jr.
September 21st, 2008by N.L. Belardes
BAKERSFIELD, CA-
The man’s eye had been shot out. That’s something I couldn’t easily get over.
Minister Wesley Crawford was on all fours in the ABC23 television newsroom. Some people call him the Al Sharpton of Bakersfield. He’s dramatic. He’s passionate. He even claims to know Sharpton. He brought autopsy photos, and I’m sure I’m one of very few people who saw them as they were downloaded at my desk.
The news director stood over him with a grimace. Crawford was speculating on a shooting, playing the part of a supposed ex-gang member killed in an alleged shootout with the Bakersfield Police Department earlier in 2008.
He showed how he thought Anderson might have been on the ground during part of the shooting.
I’m still confused about details regarding the story Crawford was trying to convey. Police said they saw the man while on patrol on a notorious drug-filled Bakersfield street. They said they chased him because of routine questioning. Why did the man supposedly shoot at police? And did he have to die?
Officer Dennis Eddy lost part of his leg as a result of the shootout. He’s been branded a hero. But there may be more to this tale since the words ‘friendly fire’ have been thrown around.
Bakersfield, like other Central Valley cities, has become a haven for gang activity. There are gang suppression units and a current program to nail many high profile gang members. It’s a war. I think any Bakersfield policeman would state such.
And while Leon Anderson Jr. died, the question remains whether he was still a gang member and did he shoot at police.
I sat staring at the autopsy photos before my attention was completely taken by Crawford’s display on the newsroom floor.
He was still on all fours. He pleaded to be heard. The news director had a point by asking Crawford what evidence he had in the version of the story he was telling. Crawford kept talking. He wanted to make a point. I had a fairly good idea why the news director seemed disinterested. You have to have a pretty strong case if you’re going to take on the local police department regarding taking a man’s life with a gun.
The news director stepped back. He started to walk away while Crawford said he thought Anderson had been injured, was down on the ground, and then shot while trying to give up. He said that Anderson had lost his gun while running from the police. He said it had fallen out of Anderson’s pants. “You know, he was wearing these pants and he put the gun in his pants like this,” he gestured. The news director wanted to know how Crawford could possibly know.
I wondered about Crawford’s statements too. How could he know?
“There are witnesses,” Crawford said. “People are scared to talk.”
The news director still grimaced.
That was it, then. If people don’t talk, then that’s an empty case. Or is it? After all, Officer Dennis Eddy was lauded a hero. He risked his life in the line of duty. No question that he took a bullet and lost part of himself that day.
Recently there’s been talk of friendly fire. I’ve read nothing but denials about police shooting police and accusations that Anderson was still a gang member at the time of the shooting.
“He turned his life around,” Crawford said. “He was no gang member.”
I was skeptical. I was trained to be that way in graduate school. “Question everything,” I taught my own students. Even question me, your professor. Anderson was seen on a dangerous city street. Why was he there?
I had just downloaded photos taken of the autopsy of Anderson. And while I was finding Crawford’s statement hard to believe because he wasn’t at the crime scene, I was shocked by the photos. Were they telling me something?
Was it OK to question police actions based on such violent pictures?
The world is desensitized to violence, film, TV, video games, television news. Occasionally I’d seen violence in the news that couldn’t be shown. There were the traffic accidents, suicides, murders. But this was different.
How hard was it to shoot out an eye? Did such accuracy mean close range? Was it an exit wound or entry wound? Was the man down on the ground, starting to get up, unarmed, and shot on the top of his head?
Was this some racially motivated defense by Crawford, a leader in the black community taking on city police for no other reason than to play the victim?
Let’s face it, the police seem to be portrayed as bad guys in pop culture and good guys via the media these days. Which is the truth? Both? Execution, cover-up? Gang activity? Black vs. White? These are harsh words. And I don’t have answers.
All I can say is I saw the autopsy photos. But I wasn’t at the scene of the alleged shootout. Entry and exit wounds do tell a story. So do witnesses if they talk and are credible. And I don’t even remember if the shot-out eye was an entry or an exit wound. I’d have to talk to someone, see the photos again. If Anderson was shot on the top of his head would that mean his head was down? And if his head was down, could he see to shoot? That’s an important point regarding what happened that day.
And how could he shoot if he didn’t have a gun or dropped one while running?
I was on Anderson’s MySpace tribute page. On the page it says, “It’s a blue, blue world.” There are pictures of Anderson, a news video link, lots of comments and one other video that caught my attention. It’s a bit of dark humor for such a site—a Michael Moore video lambasting the New York police. The video is aimed at the Bakersfield Police Department as a protest against their use of force on a black man who possibly had no gun.
I don’t have any answers. And all I know is that in Bakersfield, a city of gangs and police, is I’m not getting over the violence of it.
Tags: Bakersfield news, bloods, crips, friendly fire, gang activity, Gang Suppression Unit, Leon Anderson Jr., Officer Eddy, police, Wesley Crawford
Such a sad situation. We’ve made a mess of things with prejudice and stereotyping. Some say, “if he was in a gang he was bad and deserved it.” Some say, “the police are all corrupt.”
There are no easy ways to classify people in judgment, no matter how hard we try.
The truth is the victim coulda been a really bad man innocent at the time or the cop coulda been a really great upstanding guy who messed up or vice versa on both counts…
I mean at this point in the gang vs. cops war, everything is speculation - even the evidence and final reports.
A man died though, and another man killed him.
Whatever ’side’ you’re on, its a sad situation.
Josie, that’s a great comment. You’re right, it’s so speculative it’s hard to know what to believe. There is a lawsuit now in the works as the victim’s family is claiming friendly fire…
That all sounds suspicious. I already have a hard time trusting authority due to personal reasons but to read this and know that a guy (innocent or not) has lost his life is just disturbing.
Honestly, as controversial as this piece is, do you expect many people to comment? Or do you think people will be afraid to express themselves about a topic like this?
I don’t know if many people will comment, chingpea. It really depends on if the word gets out in Bakersfield about this article and how passionate people are about it. I don’t think people will be afraid to talk about the topic whether they are supportive of the police or the deceased man.
Nick, is this a rerun or am I missing something. Oh, before, you said somebody with some kind of power or authority (media?) got cold feet and didn’t want anything to do with this action. What’s changed? Are the autopsy pictures the property of the city. Does “the city” keep them from the media, or are the media caught up in a “what side are you on” issue so they don’t reveal them to the public? Would the pictures be inflammatory to people in the “pop media’ circles and therefore viewing of them is suppressed? You can tell I’m pretty ignorant about these kinds of things.
Originally I was asked to write this piece for a print magazine. It was too controversial. So I pulled the piece off the Web. I felt that the time was right to relaunch the article with some minor rewrites…
I think you might have seen the original just before I yanked it from the web…it was online just a few hours…
Obviously, from the article, the television station wanted nothing to do with the photos or the pastor’s version of the story.
I think it’s good to give people a gimpse of a newsroom now and then.
What’s sad is that this story sounds so similar to other police vs. the public stories of late where someone ends up dead without explanation. Usually that dead person is someone of color leaving people to speculate whether or not they were truly in the wrong or innocently “attacked.” I think it’s sad really.
On a sidenote, so glad the cross-dressing-sombrero-wearing-lipstick-smudged avatar is gone and this ultra fab new one is up.
You’re right, this seems to be Bakersfield’s version of what’s going on across the country. At the same time, we need to worry about social conditions for people of every color. There’s an anger building in society that makes it just plain dangerous to even go to the grocery store… Is 9/11 long forgotten? By most, yes, it seems.
Police shoot to kill. Not to wound or slow the perp down. If the man shot once they would have to assume that he would shoot again. So maybe he did drop a gun. That doesn’t mean he is unarmed. I’m of the belief that policemen do what they have to do to protect the general public. Most of us don’t want to know the extent they have to go to make that happen.
I’m not saying that there are no ‘bad’ policemen. There are bad apples in every profession. I will say that if I were in a dark alley in Bakersfield I’d rather run into a policeman than a gang member. Wouldn’t you?
Kissa, I agree with you. Gang members are ruthless. It’s tough to get their trust even when just being a member of the media. As for alleyway meetings. If a cop were standing in an alley I’d wonder too. But I see your point. A gangster might rob you and leave you for dead.
What Kissa says is true– Policemen, as a group and as a theory, are trained to do what’s necessary for protection and safety. And to expand on the eternal stuggle of “a few bad apples”, I can’t help but think that even the good apples might occasionally lose their cool and succumb to that ever-present evil of human-animal instinct and (literally and figuratively) hair-trigger reaction.
Being someone who spends only short stints of time in Bakersfield, it’s hard to grasp some of the more localized relevance. However, it’s clear to me that this smacks of disinformation. But, then again– doesn’t everything, “these days”??
I find myself, more often than not, struggling with the concepts of media and information, government and corporations, profit and truth. These thihngs should be synomoous, indeed. However, the distance is widening and it’s becoming harder and harder to imagine how to bridge the gaps. This may seem off topic, but I guess I was ruminating over the idea that, even with the information we DO have (and without the knoweldge of it’s validity and integrity), it’s hard to piece together these types of puzzles.
I agree. I think there has been a lot of corruption of authority across the board–not just police–that leave people wondering who they trust and where the truth lies. Which is unfortunate. So when things like this come up, people speculate and the only people who know the truth are God, the dead man and those involved.
Unfortunately 9/11 is a cloudy past due to it being a catch all for war. I won’t forget it though. Those images are embedded in my mind and the emotion I felt that day have scarred my soul.
Oops my reply was to NL.
Corruption. It’s a disease isn’t it? Affect media, politics, gangs, etc…
Off the subject, there was a respected doctor in Bakersfield allegedly just busted for running a drug organization of some type. Who can you trust? It hurts credibility. I’ve known some darn good doctors and policemen though. It’s just a scary world all around.
First off I am biased because of past history with Mr Crawford, professional dealings I had with him in a past career, and also things I remember seeing about him on the news, I doubt his credibility greatly. I remember one Sunday afternoon on Channel 23 when the late Ron B Fineman nailed him to the wall and called him a liar about his past history and he was speechless and I was cheering.
It seems every time something happens to like this, immediately the family and friends come out and say “ohh noooo, they weren’t in a gang anymore, they quit..blah blah blah” Then MASK comes out and makes a statement and holds a vigil and talks about how hard they are working to end the violence. I am very sorry this gentleman was slain, and equally sorry the officer was injured, but I have a hard time believing that once you are in a gang, you just walk away from it.
I do hope the truth comes out in this situation, although if it does turn out to be a police coverup, I doubt it ever will.
A question I want to ask though. Where was MASK when Ezequiel Jimenez was beat to death. Doesn’t that qualify as a senseless killing? Or was it because he wasn’t the right color?
Great blog Nick…
Julz
There are far too many senseless killings in Bakersfield: beatings, shootings, stabbings. Too many to even start naming. I see your point Julz. People start screaming justice even from the people screaming justice. It’s a blue-in-the-face situation. You scream, you hold your breath, and you hope the truth somehow trickles out. The likelihood is low.
This is just controversial every way you look at it. Colorful characters, a characterization from the newsroom, gruesome photos, and perhaps no justice for the dead and injured.
I think Hayjulz summed it up pretty well.
In my opinion, anyone bragging about an affiliation to Al Sharpton has automatically shredded any claim of credibility. Guys like Crawford make a living by playing victim. God forbid Obama get elected and some of them have to look for a real job (not to diss on Obama, I think he’s awesome).
Further (and as Hayjulz pointed out), every time a gang running scumbag gets dropped, his family is quick to start a lawsuit, and go on the news talking about what an innocent little boyscout they were. Shows how the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree…
We’re talking about an extremely violent and selfish subculture in our society that has made “personal responsibility” a four letter word, and it drives me insane to think about it.
Gang members (and their equally depraved families) tend to think that they can do whatever they want, to whomever they want, and that they shouldn’t have to suffer any of the consequences. I personally don’t care whether the gangster had a gun or not…there’s only one kind of “good” gangbanger… I personally believe that anyone engaged in organized crime should be shot on sight.
The only victim in this case is the police officer.
A strongly put argument John B., with a passionate opinion I might add. Makes me think of the possibility that if this were some kind of execution of a gang member, we’d probably be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing. But we’re not. But then we don’t know what the relationships are like between cops and citizens on certain Bakersfield streets. I’d love to do some ride-alongs with police just for a better perspective.
Be careful what I wish for, right?
Personal opinions aside, with credibility issues, Crawford and the families involved will have a tough time finding a reputable lawyer to take their case, even if they’re in the right. Talk about an uphill battle.
I realize that there will be instances of “being in the wrong place at the wrong time”, and it isn’t lost on me, the fact that cops probably wouldn’t always be so nice to me if I were a different color. But every time I see these family members trying to pretend that their little degenerate was a regular Beaver Cleaver, it really gets my blood boiling.
I had a counselor in high school who told me “it’s ok if you want to break the rules, AS LONG as you’re ready to face the consequences if/when you get caught, then rock on..”
Live by the sword….
Admittedly, I’m a little biased. A few years ago my niece offended a coworker who also happened to be a coke dealer. In a coke fueled bender, he sent some of his distributors (who happened to be gangbangers) over to my apartment while I was out of town, and they broke in and savagely beat my niece.
I realize that the problem is as complicated as the socio-economic situations that breed these type of people…but I have no sympathy for those who have no empathy.
It pains me that justice has to be so passive, so reactive. I wish they would re-write the RICO act to allow the police to shoot these people on site. When cops play by the rules, the bad guys are inevitably allowed to victimize many many people before they happen to get caught in the act.
I don’t pretend to have a perfect solution…I’m just tired of seeing scumbag after scumbag turned into a faux martyr after they have to pay the piper.
A few years ago one of my college students wasn’t coming to class. When she finally showed up I gave her a good razzing just like every college student deserves. Her ex-boyfriend had been executed by gang members who gouged out his eyes. He was a good kid. Star football player type. I’ll never forget that day. Poor girl. She was never the same in class. He was the nephew of DW of the Buckaroos. I remember talking about it with him down at Dagny’s coffeehouse…
I have some hope that non-murdering gang bangers can be reformed. It takes a willingness to change. Same thing for addicts or criminals of any kind.
I don’t have a lot of hope though. Just some.
In the case of Anderson: why was he where police found him? There’s a whole story there we’re not getting. And that’s what I want to know.
Did they get the people who did that to your niece?
No the cops weren’t very interested in investigating the case. At the time we lived in a rather poor section of downtown, and my niece (while actually Asian) looks Hispanic, so the cops didn’t concern themselves too much. To them it was just another case of brown on brown crime. They told my niece that they believed that she was either assaulted by her boyfriend, or that the attack must have been meant for me, since I was the man of the house.
Interestingly enough, my niece and the coke dealing coworker both worked at a prominent downtown restaurant, whose back room had a reputation as a secret VIP club. All sorts of local power players (including judges and lawyers, city officials, etc..) would go back there to drink, party, and buy drugs. Her coworker was their dealer. Whether or not this had anything to do with the cop’s apparent reluctance to investigate is speculative.
I had to do my own footwork to piece it all together. I gave the investigator the names, the details, even a credible witness, but he didn’t even file it.
As of a year ago, the guy who actually attacked my niece was still known to sell coke and to prostitute women. My niece immediately left town and is probably never coming back. For the next 2 years she would call me 3 to 5 times a week sobbing, certain that she was being followed by the same guy who attacked her. Like I said before, I realize that I’m biased.
Thanks for (inadvertently) letting me vent. It’s nothing something I can really talk about with my friends.
PS- Like everyone’s pointed out…the new pic is money, straight Dan-Freaking-Rather. That pic befits the kind of journalist that has Stone Phillips for a butler, hires Ted Koppel to cut the grass, and keeps Anderson Cooper around just to fetch his martinis. Are you going network on us or something?
Burglaries, beatings… It’s pretty sad here in the new old west when there’s so much of it that the law can’t handle it all, or won’t.
And if there’s scandal or corruption involved? Fuggetaboudit.
It’s like an old mafia guy once said to me: “We takes care of our own.”
And he was an old mafia guy for sure.
Oh and thanks for the compliment on the photo. Maybe I shoulda worn a hat for a sort of sensationalist Drudge style… Nah…
Even worse, at one point Mr Crawford was calling himself Wesley X Muhammad and aligning himself with Farrakhan. Talk about your white hating rabble rousers. Mr Crawford makes himself the spokesman for the black community. Sometimes I get the feeling that the black community wishes he would just shut up and go away. They don’t need that kind of bad publicity.
Sorry I’m so late to reply, I was in the Berkshires. It was hard to come back, the Massachussetts countryside is like another world.
Well I hope you were having some good times!
Oh yeah, visiting family, checking out the beautiful countryside. You can’t see anywhere for all the trees. Everything is hidden by trees. And all the buildings and cemetaries are so OLD! It seems weird that there are buildings from the 1700’s mixed in with new ones and most of the cities are from the Revolutionary War days. And their tallest mountain is about the size of Breckenridge..lol
I think viewing autopsy photos of a murder would be very disturbing. I don’t know how you did that as part of your job at the news station. How do you recover from seeing such images?
As for who shot who and what the real story is… only the two involved, the dead man and the hero cop really know what happened. And obviously small towns love their heros especially when gangs are involved. If there was foul play, a cover up would be the obvious thing.
Corruption abounds every where…
It would be interesting to know the real story… and autopsy photos do talk to the right people. Where is CSI when you need them?
I think there is a separation, a distance you put into seeing such photos… Writing this article helps. And my reaction to the photos isn’t nearly like what everyone went through: the shooting victims, the families, the officers who were there, the recovery of Dennis Eddy…
There were more than two people there. People know the story. It’s just not being told to the fullest.
I think writing my piece helps me to understand and is good for community discussion. Too many times these incidents happen and the only discussion is a brief mention during the 5 and 6 pm news.
Every chance people get, they should talk about community — good or bad.
Love your new gravitar.
Matches the gravitas of the story.
I just realized I was having reverse discrimination.
I’m sitting here in Nashville where I have to explain to visitors that not everyone here wear a ten gallon hat and carries a guitar and I found myself thinking -
Bakersfield?
THere’s no gangs in Bakersfield. That’s the land of Yokum and Haggard and Buck.
Same thing here. Even though L.A. is only 100 miles away from Bakersfiled, there’s a huge disconnect with California’s Southland understanding the culture and peoples of the Great Central Valley. While, sure, it’s a lot like Texas here, there’s also a diverse multiculture. That multiculture includes an influx of various gangs that have launched major campaigns in all of the major cities between L.A. and Sacramento. That includes Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto and all the smaller cities like Tulare, Delano, Merced and more. It’s beyond rough. The Old West is a new west with just as many guns and not enough sheriffs to corral them all.
Country music is a dying breed in Nashville West. Just watch my documentary, “The Last Band” for a taste of that…
First off - love your new pic. Very handsome and dignified. But what I love more is how you keep us guessing. What will we get next? Dancing skeleton? Cross-dressing bug? I can hardly wait!
Now - about your story - great insight into the newsroom. Autopsy photos. Just the thought - and yet, why am I wishing I could see them, too, so that I can help hypothesize about what happened? I think I must be fairly well demented. Also, I cannot help but feel rather distanced from violent crime. We don’t get much in our 9 square miles surrounded by reality that is Boulder, CO. (Jon Benet, aside, of course) I’m grateful for this. Since I know nothing about this case, I won’t even begin to speculate as to who was at fault here - but it makes me sad, all the same.
I don’t think you’re too demented. Writers are curious creatures. And you have an extra dose of curiousity in you.
I didn’t keep the photos though. If I had I might have released one with parts boxed out…
As for the gravatar. I guess I just thought the sombrero pic would have been tasteless in regards to this piece. Thanks for the complement.
First let me say I am pro-law enforcement. I’ve have relatives and friends in law-enforcement. As an author of two series mystery series with both heroes and bad-guys on both sides of the law, I know that no one is perfect. Sometimes in the heat of the moment, even those who are supposed to be our protectors get carried away.
We recently had the same sort of thing happen in Porterville, where a young man (white) had stolen a motorcycle and the officer stopped him–supposedly they grappled and the suspect ran–he got shot three times in the back because he had his left hand in his pocket (this was after the officer had asked for his license.) I wasn’t there so don’t know how much of this is true or false. Witnesses attest to the three shots. Bad thing is the sheriff’s dept. is doing the autopsy–probably should be done by someone outside.
The young man who I knew during his school years was a nice kid–but had a wild side. I know nothing about the officer.
Anyway, I think you always have to wonder in these cases. We have all seen too many incidents where someone took a video where officers did things they shouldn’t have.
It’s a tough job–I know I couldn’t do it. Do I have any answers? No.
Marilyn
Marilyn, I think you summed up how I feel. It’s not like these things happen in slow motion. And damn, I can’t think of a tougher job and more stressful one. Let’s hope the story you’re following reveals truths as well. Most of these types of stories end up in a series of finger-pointing scenarios…
The real tragedy here, is that nobody but Wesley Crawford is talking.
Someone could dismissively say the witnesses subsribe to the “no shitches” policy and they’re sticking to it - but Crawford says they’re scared. If they’re scared, it’s certainly not a fear of anyone but BPD. So why then, are we comfortable living with a law enforcement model that could (in theory) displace corruption investigations this well?
Wait…*Crawford* said there are witnesses.
Too bad he’s the only one talking.
\Active Law Enforcement Supporter
\\Suspicious of everyone in power
That’s the rub, isn’t it, Sevin?
I say let everyone talk and let the media sort out the mess. Readers can make up their minds then. It’s all just talk on the news and in the blogs anyways, right??
People want to know what happened whether good, bad or ugly…
Unless of course there is a the suit that the family has mentioned…then there’s money involved.
When I was 10 years old I stood at the end of a long dirt road that ended on a main roadway that lead into the city. I stood waiting for the sirens I heard in the distance to pass by our old dirt road. As the whole police chase came into my 10 year old view I watched in horror as the suspect car being chased by the police spun in a circle and came to a hault a few yards away from me, young men began piling out of the car and a tall thin man around 19 exited the car with a gun in his hand, the young man was spinning and pointing the gun, all the while cops were yelling for him to throw the gun down.
The young man spun around one last time and stopped with the gun pointed in my direction, the look on his face was one of confussion, his eyes were saying to me, where did this little girl come from? I heard a shot and watched in horror as this young mans left eye burst out of its socket. He fell dead to the ground a few feet in front of me. A cop had shot him in the back of the head and the bullet exited through his eye.
The other young men in the car with the now dead gun toting youth had ran in all directions. Two cops escorted me back down our dirt road and ordered my mother and sister and infant brother from our home so they could search the place to see if any of the young men had hidden in or under our home.
Apparently the young men had dropped LSD and decided to go ramsack homes in an upper class neighborhood suffering from frozen power lines after an ice storm had passed through. The home owners had to leave due to the extreme weather conditions and lack of heat.
I guess my point in relaying this story to you, is that a man can have his eye shot out in an instant while standing upright.
The subject matter in this Post of yours I am affraid to say is becoming a familar story all across the Nation.
Sistersheree…
You are a woman of many stories. I would never have imagined that to have come out of you though. Such a tragic event for any kid to see.
Thanks for sharing that about the eye, too. I figured that could be done. And I do know that all I have to go by is what Crawford said, some photos I saw, and knowing that it was a shootout that happened in the dark.
I’m no expert that’s for sure. And I wonder if that family even has a case.
It’s an imperfect world. I would agree with Kissa that police do what they do to, among other thinngs, to protect the public. Operative here is: among other things. The other things include, depending on the cop, getting revenge, and protecting, in a generic sense, the rich from the poor. Regarding this latter activity, the wider the gap between the rich and the poor, the dicier the job becomes and police regulation may go down. In communist china the crimes were done by government. No one was mugged, or raped, or robbed or shot on the street by another plain citizen. Capitalism unfortunately produces crimes of violence in the streets. The more predatory the capitalism, or lets say the wider the gap between rich and poor, the more street crimes come into play. When cops don’t protect the poor in their neigborhoods (the cops in New orleans didn’t go into the projects I was told when my car was stolen the and I reported it to police) the mob or gangs assume the role along with committing profitable crimes that are made profitable by criminalizing drugs. I don’t know if I’ve made any points here. No one in Holland will be shot this year because they sell marijauna, although the immigration situation there could get some politicians shot I guess. Its an imperfect world!
Hey, we’re just having a conversation here. So you can say whatever is on your mind… Always appeciate all your thoughts, Joe.
I know Wesley Crawford. He has always been an over the top drama queen. The man has never (to my knowledge) held a “real job”, he and his family have always lived on the dole and any other monies they could glean from the freebie coffers. Is this a person I would believe? Hell no. The man screams “the sky is falling” every time something happens to a black person whether warrented or not.
My understanding is that Leon Anderson was on probation which means NO CONTACT with anyone from his gang related neighborhood. So if he was doing as he was supposed to and “turning his life around”, why was he in that neighborhood ‘chatting’ with known gang members? Why did he run?
As far as I’m concerned it should be open season all year long on gang people, whether white, black or brown. I’m fed up with them and their irresponsibility, tagging, drive-bys and general snubbing of the rules of a civilized society.
B.J., I wonder if this year’s declaration of war on gangs by the DA to go after certain members will really have an impact?
I also agree. Something should be done about gangs not just in Bakersfield, but all over the Central Valley. Is it too late?
It’s sad that this story has to be repeated over and over in towns and cities across the nation. When I moved to Las Vegas from Vancouver, I was amazed at the amount of killing and that most of it was not front page - or even first section - news. There were more killings by cops than the the total number of murders in my former home town.
Also a lot of Police departments do their own investigating when there’s a killing by one of their own. This may work for some cases, but not all. And not one Las Vegas officer has been found to be in the wrong over a death.
To make matters worse, the victims of these cop-shootings mostly involve Blacks, and more recently Latinos. That in itself leads to charges of racism and injustice.
Is there an answer to all of this? No, not likely. There will always be criminals and there will always be people around to chase them. I think this has more to do with culture and what’s ‘acceptable’ than anything. And that’s the worst part. As a country, we accept it. It’s acceptable that millions live in poverty while we waste billions on wars. We accept that there is little hope for many, while we gush over celebrities.
Your article is good in that it doesn’t supply an answer. It actually makes people think, which is something lacking in today’s media. Life isn’t 60 minute cop drama - things do not end happily every time. Thanks for reminding us of that fact.
I used to live in Las Vegas. There were allegations of corruption against the Metro police all the time. I’m thankful I moved away from Sin City…
One thing for sure, the cops there have a lot to deal with. There was constant crime downtown near where I worked at the Fremont Street Experience/Golden Nugget.
well, when he turned to shoot there was a burst of gunfire from alot more than one gun , thats what police are trained to do , and you dont have to be “in a gang” to have a gun . so in all , if he didnt have a gun without a ccw , and he wouldnt have pulled it on the police , and he wouldnt have shot a cop , he would be still alive ,but as of now sounds like a degenerate piece of shit got shot. try talking to the officer that was shot , i have.
DON’T PULL A GUN ON POLICE OFFICERS
I agree. Never pull a gun on an officer.
There are many questions and few answers. I read the PDF files,both the autopsy and the police reports. I suppose I am just soft hearted…..but the fact the dead body was cuffed,hands behind his back in the morgue haunts me. An ex-policeman remarked( on another blog) that was because a dead rattlesnake can still bite.
It is all terribly sad~ life is so swift and so brutal for most.
Not sure if a dead person can still bite…
WOW, has anybody here bothered to look at his rap sheet , 32 arrests , yes he was a felon, he should have never had a gun,and as od 2/11/08 he was still selling drugs , arrested and convicted . doesn’t much sound like he was on his way to a PTA meeting . here ya go
http://www.co.kern.ca.us/courts/crim_index_case_info_cal.asp
search by defendants name
glad im not paying for another 1 more day in court for him !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will look again, but when I plugged in the name Leon Anderson Jr., I found four cases, the last was in 1994.
OK, found 24 on the second search. He had marijuana in his 2008 arrest. Shoot, my unruly neighbors are marijuana dealers who the police won’t do anything about and my landlord won’t evict.
I did see he had some pretty serious charges in 2003: firearm, street gang, hit and run, dui…
But did he reform? Was he still in a gang?
The marijuana arrest this year doesn’t indicate to me he was still in a gang. Maybe he was.
It will be interesting to see if the family’s case gets anywhere.
look it up again , there are actually 36 but i didn’t count the ones that are him that did not have the Jr on them , and i bet if the cops came to your neighbors house and they came out pointing a gun, well, they would most likely be shot. i have been in trouble with the law. i know what turning around is , if you are a convicted felon and have a handgun on you , you are blatantly disrespecting the law and when a cop asks you to stop , thats what you do , if you run from a cop there is a great chance you will take a hostage at some point , instead , he went for a shoot out. our system has a very serious flaw that goes beyond crooked cops . people who believe OJ was innocent , 27 billion to 1 odds against what was found at the house and the bronco , ( that is re populating the earth over 4 times )and people still saw doubt. this was a bad guy and was not on his way to being a great guy if he had a gun on him ( being there alone was another felony) . why did he need a gun , was he a peace officer NO he was a convicted felon running from police ,and if he would have grabbed anybody here or anybodies kid on here as a hostage , or if anyone innocent was shot by him everybody would be calling him a piece of shit, but since the cops unloaded ( as trained ) while being shot at , the criminal was a victim , that is a major prob in our society. when can the police do there job , obviously not right after getting there leg blown off. the officer that was shot was still able to pull off 3 rounds. good for him, sorry to sound like an asshole but this time they did the right thing. and yes they will run up and cuff an assailant after shooting him , first thing they should do.
I don’t think you sound like an asshole. You’re just expressing your opinion on the matter. I appreciate what you have to say. It helps me as a citizen/journalist to understand the matter.
While there are aspects of this particular case that aren’t clear to me, I have admiration for people like you who can express your opinion on a subject that is tough for some to swallow.
I thought this was a really good point that you made: “if you are a convicted felon and have a handgun on you, you are blatantly disrespecting the law and when a cop asks you to stop , thats what you do.”
Sure made me think more deeply about the matter…
thank you, i just have a hard time with people being so PC that we watch criminals walk out of prison or walk free to kill , rape , sell dope to our kids ( look at kern county ) , all the other crimes out there . i now have a child ,and the type of guy that was shot was a danger to our society , or , once again , he would not have had a gun , thats not turning your life around . if he would have possibly been at a job ( one portion of turning your life around ) , this might not have happened. i thank you for hearing my words and not trying to crush my words because i am a realist. maybe after 36 arrestes , the police new he was dangerous , the police do get to know you in this town , and as i said , your not turning your life around ( in a good way ) when you hold a gun up at an officer.im sure we will talk again .
Nick as usual you’ve raised some interesting discussion.
We spend a TON of money writing blank checks to the Industrial Military Complex, money that would be better spent on civil programs and infrastructure. In that regard I’ll always admire our last president, he saw through the fear mongering and refused to keep throwing money at protecting us from non existent boogymen, and instead directed those funds towards programs that could ultimately help protect us from domestic problems that are all too real.
It took less than a year after 9-11 for us to surpass cold war era defense spending (in terms of budgetary percentages). I agree with Art, the fact that we spend so much on defense is absolutely deplorable, so much money wasted on killing and intimidating third worlders, when our one house is clearly not in order.
Back to the here and now. Although it’s a shame that so many children are raised in conditions that would make gang life appealing in the first place, I don’t think that’s a good reason to coddle monsters in the name of political correctivity. Two wrongs don’t make a right, ya know? Most of us have gone through things that could’ve easily put us on the wrong path, towards a life of crime, etc… except for the ability to empathize, you either have it or you don’t. Gang culture doesn’t seem to place any value on empathy, they mistake decency for weakness.
Should we invest more in raising good communities than making war? Absolutely.
For those who we can’t save because we reached them too late…kill em all and let God sort them out.
Lastly, I hold these so called “parents” of gang bangers equally responsible. We’ve all seen this play enough times to realize that gang bangers almost exclusively have trash for parents. These parents don’t seem to have any use for their kids until the kids have been shot, and they think they might cash out with some easy lawsuit money. Every time I see Suzie B Crackhead on the news, talking about how the cops “murdered her baby”, I think about how backwards things are, and I can’t help but wish death on the parents too.
I realize that my views on crime and punishment are a little archaic, maybe that just makes me part of the bigger problem. Maybe you know some sociologists who would like to chime in?
John B. I can’t condemn you for wanting a decent world. After reading through your comments I don’t know if I wouldn’t have similar beliefs were I to have confronted the same problems you have.
I don’t personally know any shrinks or sociologists who can explain this whole mess to us any better than we can get from a few college courses, a decent upbringing and our own family discussions of the nightly news. I mean, it’s pretty common sense. In general, people want a good life. Criminals take that away.
With that said, police aren’t going to ever go around killing all the gangs. So how does the problem get solved? Bigger jails? More spending on the poor? But then, how do you educate the classes of people who hate the decent people? How does that even begin to happen? How do you get people to stop hating people? Seems impossible.
Is it better to have hope? Or is it better to not and just avoid the hopeless and the hopelessness that is in society?
Yes, I’m definitely jaded. I had much more of a Kum Ba Yah attitude before my niece was attacked. Something about hearing her sob on the phone so many times, knowing that gang culture had embedded a fear in her that will probably never go away…makes your eyes grow dim. They took something precious away from her, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I was quite sure then as now, that somehow the cops would be far more interested in pursuing me if I were to retaliate, which makes me feel even more hopeless.
That and working in mining for years, seeing so many of these thugs come and go at my company (just long enough for them to violate parole and go back into the system), and sit there in the lunch room listening to these scumbags displace responsibility onto the cops that arrested them ,and even the VICTIMS whom later identified them…makes one feel more than a little hopeless.
You’re right, our society probably wouldn’t tolerate an all out declaration of war against gang culture. It will always be a half-assed game of cat and mouse where the cops have one arm tied behind their backs.
I would say that bigger jails clearly aren’t the answer, we’ve tried that method for decades, and the only ones who seem to benefit are the prison guard unions.
The only thing that gives me a little peace is my recent paradigm shift. Growing up Mormon, I was taught that humans are basically good, and that selfishness / evil is the exception.
I’ve been watching alot of programs on primates lately, and I realized something…
There is virtually no difference between our “culture” and that of the “lower” primates. All of the sickest, most depraved parts of human nature are alive and well in monkey societies.
We give ourselves far too much credit, we really are just monkeys with higher technology..our basic nature hasn’t changed since the days when we scampered around in the trees. Altruism and empathy aren’t the norm, they ARE the exception.
Realizing this helps me sleep at night…the world hasn’t gone mad…when we look around and see such horrible things, it’s just humans acting naturally.
Somehow this helps me sleep at night. And when you do see people who possess empathy, it makes it that much more special. I realize that there is no magic bullet, biology is a cruel unfeeling bitch. We’ll never be able to legislate human nature out of the humans.
John B. I’m thinking you just revealed something pretty amazing. You’re the sociologist. Yessir. Watch enough Discovery channel, live enough years, have a little common sense. Hey, I’m telling you. That’s an honorary degree right there. I’ve known some academics in my years that didn’t have common sense worth a damn and thought they were so high and mighty that you just want to knock them down a size. Tells you something about academia, doesn’t it?
I tell you, I always told students that professors are just people obsessed with education. They’re no smarter than anyone.
I always took the John Gardner approach. He was a professor who said that if you wanted to become a writer you didn’t need a formal education, just the ability to educate yourself. Education was just guidance for people who didn’t have the committment to do it on their own.
All these kids who are so messed up. If they just gave a damn about education, even educating themselves about something. Well, the world would be a hell of a lot better.
I don’t know why I ever cared about education and learning. My parents weren’t educated. My mom read a lot. So did my dad. But school didn’t mean much to their poor dead souls.
I don’t know if this ramble means anything to anyone on here, John B., but at least we’re a little more aware of the problem by sharing our thoughts…