Don't Shoot

Thirty Years Ago
The final indignity, scratched by some nitwit on the exact spot where PSA Flight 182 crashed, is this: PSA 128.

Leiserson, a photographer for Channel 8, and Fitzsimmons, a photographer for the Union/Tribune, were among the first to arrive at the crash scene. They moved around the site — Leiserson with a movie camera, Fitzsimmons with a still camera — photographing the mayhem from several angles. Before 10:00 a.m. (the plane crashed at about 9:01), they were both in police custody. Leiserson is being prosecuted for “interfering with firemen or any rescue personnel.”
— CITY LIGHTS: “DON’T SHOOT,” Neal Matthews, November 2, 1978

Twenty-Five Years Ago
THREE GOLDEN retrievers, 2 foxy gentlemen, I see you every Saturday, on beach, foot of Eighth Street, Del Mar. Need you both…oooooh! Suzy Speedo.

75% OF SAN DIEGO drivers have broken turn signals, is it due to a Russian plot or crippled drivers? Observer.
— CLASSIFIEDS, November 3, 1983

Twenty Years Ago
Driving home through the dark from Los Angeles, after four hours with Pete Nicholas, a pedophile and member of the Southern California chapter of the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), we didn’t feel better — or worse — about pedophilia.

You may sigh, going out your door, ask yourself, “Why talk to scum?” Often the only answer is the answer mountain climbers give when asked, “Why Everest?”: “Because it’s there.” Maybe your answer is, “Scum talks.”

Nicholas, at the end of our interview, agreed to contact two San Diego pedophiles and ask them to talk with us. Neither San Diegan was willing to meet face to face.
— “STANDING IN THE SHADOW OF LOVE,” Judith Moore and Abe Opincar, November 3, 1988

Fifteen Years Ago
Regarding Lawrence Osborne’s cover story on El Centro, we take it from reading the article he did not enjoy his brief stay with us (“Out Here in the Middle of Nowhere,” October 21).

El Centro is not a perfect place, especially in the summer months, but neither is it a “Twilight Zone” or “the surface of the moon,” and the people who live here do not appreciate being referred to as “semi-marginals.”
— LETTERS: “SHABBY, IRRESPONSIBLE DRIVEL,” Jack Terrazas, Mayor, City of El Centro, and Larry F. Escalera, President, Chamber of Commerce, November 4, 1993

Ten Years Ago
Nine years ago today Betty Broderick entered a bedroom in Marston Hills and stared at the sleeping bodies of her ex-husband, Dan, and his second wife, Linda. When they became aware of her presence and moved, Betty repeatedly fired her .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver.

In February of 1992, a San Diego judge sentenced Broderick to 32 years to life.

Around 4:30, some of the visitors began to spot their inmates on the other side of the glass windows. Minutes later, Betty appeared. I sprang up to approach her, and once united inside, she hugged me.

“You look wonderful!” I remember exclaiming.

“I’m still fat,” she shot back.

Two fillings had fallen out, but the prison dentist wouldn’t fill or crown them. “That’s the policy,” she declared. (When I later asked prison officials about this, they denied that any such policy exists.)
— “THREE BULLETS AND NINE YEARS LATER,” Jeannette De Wyze, November 5, 1998

Five Years Ago
“Some people call us Latin rap. We don’t mind that, but we don’t want to limit our audience. Only a few Latin rappers made it, like Kid Frost on the West Coast and Big Pun on the East Coast [now deceased].”

“Major labels aren’t giving Latin rappers a chance.”

He said Latin rap lyrics frequently use “ese,” “homes,” and “vato” as part of the patois. He said the Filipino hip-hop scene “is strongly influenced by black rappers.”
— BLURT: “WE ARE THE ONLY MEXICAN/FILIPINO HIP-HOP BAND,” Ken Leighton, October 30, 2003