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Tag: Seal Beach Police

  • April 15th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1965, the Orange County district attorney’s office charged Larry Doyle Lyons, 20, and John Warren Hilliard, 18, of conspiracy to prevent Alan M. Lennot, 17, from going to combat duty in Viet Nam. Lennot, a paratrooper stationed at Ft. MacArthur, was scheduled to go to Viet Nam on April 21st.

    Seal Beach police office Philip Bettencourt responded to a call reporting that two men were trying to murder a third man at the west end of Ocean Avenue. When Bettencourt arrived on the scene, the three men were in a car. The third man was unconscious, and the other two were trying to remove his boot.

    The initial story was that the unconscious man was very drunk and injured his foot stumbling over a rock, but the story changed later when they were questioned further at the police station.

    The new story was that Lennot did not want to go to Viet Nam, and Lyons and Hilliard decided to help him.  They considered shooting him in the leg, but instead choose to give him whiskey and a sleeping pill and then drop a fifty pound rock on his ankle. They insisted to Bettencourt that they acted out of friendship for the victim.

    Lennot remain unconscious throughout the ordeal and was taken by ambulance to Ft. MacArthur and then transferred Camp Pendleton. Lyons and Hilliard were later released from Orange County Jail on $1,100 bail each with a hearing set for April 27.

    Both Lyons and Hilliard have passed on, and I can find no trace of Alan M. Lennot beyond this story to confirm whether or not he went to Viet Nam or if he returned to live a fruitful life. There’s also some blunt doubt as to whether Philip Bettencourt was a police officer or a worker for the Seal Beach city administration, and I have a couple lines out to verify his position and see if more can be added to this story.

    It’s possible that the original Long Beach Independent story was written by the city desk based on notes or a call from a field reporter, and that there were assumptions and errors made in name spellings and job positions. I’ll update if I get more information.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • April 9th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1971, John Shelby Burrows, fifty-eight, of 1201 Marlin Avenue, was sentenced to 5-to-15 years in prison after pleading guilty for the murder of Claude LaBean, thirty-nine, of 459 Galleon Way.

    The murder occurred on October 22, 1970 at the Red Candle in the Seal Beach Shopping Center on Pacific Coast Highway. Burrows had been escorted out of the restaurant’s bar by LaBean and another man after a barroom brawl. Burrows returned twenty minutes later after retrieving a .38 pistol from home and shot LaBean three times in the chest as LaBean was leaving through the rear exit. Burrows re-entered the Red Candle where bar patron disarmed him. Burrows then fled the scene and was arrested a short time later a block from his home by Seal Beach Police.

    Karen Russell commented on the original version of this post in 2015:

    “…I lived across the street from Mr. Burrows and still live at the same address. He had a political argument in the bar with someone and went home and got a gun, went back and found the bartender in the parking lot that broke up the fight between him and the individual who he had the argument with. He shot the bartender in the parking lot.”

    The murder wasn’t the only source of notoriety for the Red Candle Bar. A month before the murder, a two-week investigation into a prostitution operation at the Red Candle Bar resulted in the arrest of three women and a man.

    Perhaps this notoriety motivated Joseph M. Beard, the new owner of the Red Candle Inn, to rename it The Red Velvet Inn in February 1971. The only crime on record for the Red Velvet Inn was how tempting chef Ernesto Brock’s new menu was — offering New York steak superba, abalone stuffed with crab, and pan-fried abalone with a choice of soup or salad, hot garlic toast, baked potato or potatos au gratin.

    One oddity to this story is that Mr. Beard had represented the previous owner, Peter Trama, in a dispute with the city over a variance to serve liquor that lasted throughout 1970 and into early 1971. It appears that the change of ownership (and chef) resolved the liquor issue, but the Red Velvet Inn didn’t last far into 1971. By late October, the address was occupied by Pat’s Electric and Lighting.

    John Shelby Burrows was out of jail and living in Huntington Beach by 1977. He died on March 6, 1990 at the age of seventy-six.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • March 26th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1968, job seekers interested in local law enforcement careers probably circled this ad in the classified section of the Long Beach Independent:

    March_26_1968_Police_Officers_Personnel-3Adjusting for forty-seven years of inflation, a $592 monthly salary in 1968 is roughly the equivalent of $4,100 in 2015.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • March 25th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1937, Dr. W. W. Chandler, chief inspector of the Orange County Health Department, imposed a ninety day quarantine on Seal Beach dogs in response to three diagnosed cases of rabies. Police Chief Lee Howard instituted a door-to-door canvass to notify residents that their pets should be confined during the quarantine.

    When the quarantine was launched, eight people had been bitten by dogs diagnosed as rabid. The bite victims, John Burkhart, John Rainey, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Kobernik and their two children, Eldridge and Carolyn, Mrs. Gladys Curtis and Bill Lucas were  instructed to take Pasteur treatments. 

    The three rabid dogs belonged to families living on Main Street. One, a small black dog was suspected of attacking other dogs before being captured and put down. The second rabid dog, a mother with a litter, had been killed when she ran amok several weeks before the quarantine. The third dog, a small white-haired pup from her litter, was still at large.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • March 3rd in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1930, Seal Beach Police Officers C.L. Mitchell and Kenneth Blackburn expanded beyond their law enforcement job description to dabble in firefighting. While making rounds, the two officers noticed flames from the roof of a home at 2200 Electric Lane. They rushed to the fire station, returned in the fire truck, and extinguished the fire before any serious damage was done.

    Nothing was said of Mr. and Mrs. F.J. Miesson, the owners of the imperiled home, except that they were asleep when the Officers Mitchell and Blackburn noticed the flames. Their house and the entire neighborhood would disappear when the U.S. Navy took over Anaheim Bay in 1944.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • February 28th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1951, the the News-Journal in Mansfield, Ohio carried a story about fifty-nine year old grandmother Dagmar Schmidt who was holding the office of constable in Seal Beach as an interim appointment since the death of her husband. The “gray-haired widow” was looking for another American woman holding the same position.

    “Until I find another lady constable, I’ll go on calling myself the only one in action,” said Mrs. Schmidt, who had a gift for quotable turns of phrases.

    The job consisted mostly of serving papers and handling correspondence. Mrs. Schmidt worked out of her home, carried a badge, but wasn’t issued a firearm. The position paid $125 a month.

    Why is this local Seal Beach story running in an Ohio newspaper on February 28th? It’s due to a journalistic practice from an earlier newspaper era when the news cycles, especially for human interest stories, had a much longer tail. The story that ran in the News-Journal was not written by anyone working for that paper — it was a syndicated United Press story that ran in at least twenty-five newspapers spread across twelve states, starting in late November, 1950.

    In fact, Dagmar Schmidt actually received her constable appointment on September 13, 1950, and was covered locally by the Los Angeles Times and the Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram. The UP story that was reprinted across the country appears to be based on a more detailed article by L.A. Times correspondent in which Dagmar expressed her hope to keep the job and her belief that she was the only woman constable in the country. (A letter to the Times on November 14 refuted this claim). 

    Left out of the UP story was that Dagmar and her husband, Hans, had moved to Seal Beach from Pasadena to open a grocery store on Main Street in 1929. The store collapsed to rubble during the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, but the Schmidts stayed in town. Dagmar and Hans were very active in the Anaheim Landing American Legion throughout the 30s and the 40s. Dagmar also volunteered for the Seal Beach Woman’s Club and the local PTA. Hans and Dagmar were also parents of Marge Ordway, a well-known Seal Beach resident for many many decades.

    Another fun tidbit left out of the UP story is that among the letters of congratulation for her appointment in September was a letter from singing cowboy Roy Rogers that included a Roy Rogers badge for her 8-month grandson, Gary Ordway.

    On January 10th, 1951, the Orange County Supervisors extended Dagmar Schmidt’s appointment for the full four years of her deceased husband term.

    Eight months later, on September 14th, 1951, the Battle Creek Enquirer in Michigan became the last newspaper to run the UP story about Dagmar without mentioning that she had been appointed over a year earlier. 

    Sometimes the currents in current events run a little bit slow.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • February 21st In Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1964, Seal Beach Police issued a warrant charging 33-year old Frank Silone with two counts of grand theft-felony.

    Silone and his 25-year old wife, Joan, managed Larsen Hall, a Long Beach State College approved off-campus coed dormitory located in a Seal Beach apartment building located at 1310 Electric Avenue. Thirteen students had registered there for the spring 1964 semester.

    Unfortunately, no background check had been required for Silone, and he was approved as dorm manager after a personal interview and being vouched for by the previous owners of Larsen Hall and Silone’s father-in-law, a USC professor (Go Trojans!). This is sad for the thirteen students, since Silone had served a prison sentence from 1960 to 1963 and had even escaped from Chino Minimum Security Prison before being recaptured and sent o San Quentin. Perhaps not the best candidate for a coed dormitory manager.

    Silone was charged with “misapplying in excess of $200” in funds received from two girls for room rent. He and his wife had skipped town shortly after February 17, the electricity had been turned off by the Edison Co., and the student manager of the hall had to convince the bank to cash a check so food could be bought for the hall.

    Frank Bowman, the Long Beach State College housing coordinator, quickly removed Larsen Hall from the list of approved housing and wrote a letter to the parents of the Larsen Hall coeds informing them that their offspring would need to move to approved housing. The college would aid students without rent money, Bowman assured.

    You can read about Larsen Hall in a happy post from October 1963 here.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • February 18th In Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1959, the Long Beach Independent dropped the curtain on the finale of a typical show biz story.

    We’ve all heard weepy tales about a young, first-time actress, just bursting with natural talent, getting cast in a play and then outshining the more experienced actors and actresses playing the lead roles. And then it all goes sour, the young actress takes her success for granted, misses performances, and is finally replaced. The actress plunges back into her hum drum everyday life, never to step into spotlight again. It’s happened hundreds of times.

    Don’t worry we’ll get to the Seal Beach connection in a moment.

    Over the years, many Seal Beachers have probably seen a play or two at the Long Beach Community Playhouse on Anaheim Street in Long Beach. The playhouse hit its sixty-ninth anniversary at that location earlier this month, but The Long Beach Players have performed since 1929, first putting on shows at the Union Pacific’s Long Beach depot and then at the Unitarian Church on Lime Street when the depot was condemned. 

    Visit_to_a_small_planet_ad-3

    Back in September, 1958, the playhouse held try-outs for a production of Gore Vidal’s “Visit to a Small Planet,” a cold war satire about an outer space tourist who visits Earth and ends up staying with a 1950s newscaster and his family in their suburban Virginia home. (Yes, “My Favorite Martian,” “Mork and Mindy,” and “Alf” borrows a lot from this play.) The visitor is a smug and arrogant fellow with telepathic abilities and superpowers, including the ability to converse with the family’s pet cat, Rosemary. 

    This is when our actress and the Seal Beach connection finally makes an entrance into our tale. Cast as Rosemary was a year-and-a-half old, silky black, half-Siamese cat named Gregarious, owned by Seal Beach police officer Alfred Chafe. Gregarious was trained to meow on cue, had her own dressing room with her name on it, and developed a rapport with actor Salvatore Mungo, playing the alien Kreton. The two wowed playhouse audiences by having “conversations” about hunting mice and the propriety of shooting dogs as punishment for chasing “Rosemary.”

    Gregarious as Rosemary with Salvatore Mungo as Kreton

    Alas, the tale does not end with Gregarious becoming a star. Between the show’s opening on November 14, 1958 and closing on January 17th, 1959, the Chafe family moved to a different part of Seal Beach, and Gregarious was too fond of her old neighborhood and kept returning to the old house. Towards the end of the show’s run, it became more and more of a challenge to find Gregarious in time for the opening curtain. Ultimately, she couldn’t be found in time, and a white Persian played Rosemary in the last three performance.

    According to the Long Beach Independent, Gregarious was still having trouble adjusting to the move a month later and seemed to prefer the life of a small town free range kitty to the glamour of the stage. There are no reports of other Seal Beach pets ever being cast in any other Long Beach Community Playhouse production, but that’s certainly just a coincidence and not their judgement on the reliability of Seal Beach critters created by the flakiness of a diva cat named Gregarious.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • February 2nd In Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1954, two Marines, Leroy Grant and Sgt. Jack Yasser, entered the Motorome motel office at Twelfth Street and Pacific Coast Highway and demanded money from owner Luke W. Purdue at gunpoint. When they forced him into a second room where the money was kept, Purdue’s wife, Bertha ran from the room.

    Motorome MotelOne of the gunmen started after her, but Purdue blocked their way. “You’ve gone far enough,” he said.

    The two would-be robbers turned and fled. Purdue grabbed his .38 revolver and shot four times. Yasser fell and dropped his .45 automatic before getting to his feet to escape with his partner.

    Hours later, Grant and Yasser were arrested at the Santa Ana Lighter-Than-Air Base after Yasser visited the base dispensary for treatment of bullet wounds to his right elbow and hip.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • February 1st In Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1929, S. B. Ablis of Long Beach and Clide Maupin of Maywood were detained in the Seal Beach city jail for driving while intoxicated. Displeased by having their Friday night adventures cut short, the two men set fire to a pile of magazines and papers that were left in the jail for prisoners. They also turned on the water faucets and flooded their cell. After the smoke alert officers in the jail to the situation, the fire was extinguished and the faucets were tightened shut.

    Once again, the two drunks were left alone to sober up, but before that could happen, they set fire to the bedding and the mattresses in their cell. After this blaze was doused, the police officers wisely confiscated tobacco and matches from the two prisoners.

    The next day Mr. Ablis and Mr. Maupin not only suffered from what were probably terrible hangovers, but they were also fined for their antics by Judge Wilson.

    – Michael Dobkins

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