Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Onion Field

I know some folks here don't care for LEs but Gregory Powell the main killer just died in prison. Sure messed up a lot of lives.
It made big changes in LE training and still good men and women die needlessly. I still have my copy of Pierce Brooks book.

Great news.Read those books too

POS

+1 Good riddance, way too late...

Good riddance to that POS.

hope the maggots are feasting on his eyes and testicles now.

Should have been executed decades ago.

If you've not read "The Onion Field," by Joseph Wambaugh, you should get a copy and read it. Aside from being a very good writer, he was an LAPD officer when that shooting went down.

I have a friend, now retired, who was on the job with LAPD at that time. He told me that afterward, a lot of the officers had small hidden pockets sewn into both front and back of their uniform trousers at the belt line where they secreted a handcuff key. He also said that many officers then also started carrying back up guns (BUGs), which was not common before the onion field incident.

Glad that Gregory Powell is dead but too bad the taxpayers of Calif. had to pay his keep for all these years.

L.W.

Good Bye to a POS, hello Hell!

There's a movie by the same name that was made perhaps 30 years ago or so, with James Woods. Don't know how true it was to the actual events, but seeing it as a kid it was somewhat disturbing.

The evil that men do...

As a rookie cop when the Onion Field came out, I hated James Woods for 10 year. Testimony to his acting skills I guess.

In academy we studied the Onion Field. What we were taught is to never allow ourselves to be kidnapped, and never give up our guns.

I have never carried a second gun. Second guns take time to deploy. While I knew a lot of cops that did, I had resigned myself to never giving up my gun. If a dirt bag wanted it, he was going to die getting it. While I might have traded my life for his, which is not a desirable outcome, it was better than my dying and his living.

If a dirt bag wanted to kidnap a cop, it would end right there. No getting in a dirt bag's car. If a dirt bag wanted our guns, it ended right there. If we're gunna, die the dirt bag is going to hell right there. I wasn't going to give a dirt bag my gun to be murdered with it.

I carried a cuff key in my waist band at the back, front and in one boot. Had a .25 auto in a shirt pocket and a Gerber Guardian knife in my left boot. That incident scared the crap out of me.

Although I never read the book I did see the movie starring James
Woods when it came out and at that time I was in my late 20's and considered the the movie pretty damn chilling.
What I do not fully understand,and perhaps the LEO's here can give me a clue as to why Hettinger was so villified??
If someone has the drop on you with a gun there is not much chance of surviving a gunfight by trying to do a Dodge City draw and shoot out with the bad guy at nearly point blank range.
Strangely enough,Hettiger was the survivor.

Yep.....its good news to me too...

Texas Hunter,

It is very possible to survive an attempted kidnapping & robbery of a cop's weapon. I was trained in methodology to survive such an encounter.

For me and only for me, had anyone ever attempted to kidnap me and rob me of my weapon, I was thoroughly committed to tactical training I had received that was designed to assure, but not guarantee, my survival. However, I was willing to die right there taking the bad guy with me before I was going to surrender my weapon and be driven to a location where my chances of surviving would have been miniscule or less. However, I did accept the fact that other cops have different philosophies to assure their survival. What was right for me might not have been/be right for them.

I carried only my duty weapon. For me and only for me, I did not want to rely upon what would have been a difficult-to-grab second gun. While I did not want to die, for me dying would have been far worse were I to be murdered with my own weapon. Therefore, were I to die, the bad guy was going with me.

Survival tactics are crucial, so is practicing them with cops with whom a cop shares a beat. A cop knows how to respond to such incidents (the only Onion Field positive outcome).

I am retired now and rarely carry a weapon although I legally can. That's because I live in a very safe city. But were I to see a brother or sister cop from any agency in peril, I will help. If I didn't and a brother or sister cop from any agency were to be murderer, I couldn't live with myself.


Stay safe,

R

Any idea of the types of training that was used for this kind of eventuality in the early 1960's police work??
As I understood the case the deceased officer did not go for his weapon either.
My guess is they were hoping for a chance to get the jump on the bad guys.
Sadly this was not the case but again I personally think Hettiger got a raw deal on treatment from his fellow officers that were not in these two guys shoes.

we use to tape cuff keys on the inside of the belt at the small of the back on the duty belt, and on the pants belt. Every time i am up around williams az i remember a guy that was a reserve for the coconino s.o. like i was for yavapai. I was part of the honor guard at his funeral. He checked on some campers one day got overpowered, and they cuffed him to a tree. At which point he received a full mag from a a.r. 15. Never forgot it.

As to the state of california, I don't know if the following is true as to california. We at the time were mostly carrying model 19 s&w's loaded with .357mag ammo. One day was called into the station and was issued some .38+P ammo. We were told not to use .357any more. The reason? A court case where some slug got shot by a cop using .357ammo, and it was determined that was excessive force. This of course was in california. I never forgot that either. Course most of us later quietly switched back to .357. I had those 18 rounds of .38special for years.

Well, I'm glad to hear that he has appealed to a Higher Court.

I think he was 79yrs old. Too bad he didn't get a speedier appeal... delievered at approx. 1250 fps.