The Lawbreakers

Himself - Host:
This is the harbor leading into the port of Baltimore - passing historic Fort McHenry scene of the birth of our national anthem. Ringing the city on three sides is the county of Baltimore, an urban metropolis of over 500,000 population. One hundred twenty-five miles of harbor: heavy industries such as ship building, defense plants, automobile assembly and steel works; light industries... such as cat burglars.

[first lines]

Himself - Host/Narrator:
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, President of the United States, was assassinated. Two days later his alleged assassin was also shot down. A thousand miles away, in the intelligence unit of the Miami Police Department, a routine check was made to see if there were any indicates whether a particular penitentiary inmate had ever been associated with Lee Harvey Oswald. Their apparent political ideologies were at opposite poles; their backgrounds widely dissimilar. The routine investigation proved negative, but why was it made? The inmate had previous spoken of hatreds and violence and assassinations, but he was only a meter reader not a dangerous man. Another man who spoke of those same hatreds and violence was also not a dangerous man - just a paperhanger [cut to archive footage of Adolph Hitler making a speech before thousands of followers]

Himself - Host/Narrator:
If our story were fiction, perhaps we could borrow a title from Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities". Berlin and Miami, separated by four thousand miles and twenty years of history - but maybe not separate enough.

[first lines]

Himself-Narrator:
Boston, Massachusetts, home of a hundred different landmarks linking this city to the birth of our nation. The U.S.S. Constitution, still standing tall and proud, out in the open where everyone can see. Another landmark is the state penitentiary at Norfolk, Massachusetts. Within its walls there's another man who can't stand out in the open proudly or otherwise. He's a convict.

[first lines]

Himself - Host:
Buffalo, New York, the second largest city in New York state - one of the largest manufacturing cities in the nation and a study in contrasts between the old and the new and the ever-present conflict between the law and the lawless.

Himself - Host:
"Bread" - in the jargon of the underworld, money... and these men were hungry.

[first lines]

Himself - Host:
Burbank, California: immediately adjoining Los Angeles, part of that mythical community called Hollywood - motion picture sound stages, television studios, home of a great aircraft industry that helped to win a war and preserve the peace. Bordering on the Verdugo Mountains... several airplanes are still in those mountains - the bodies have long since been brought out. A strange jurisdiction for a city police department, but some of those mountains belong to Burbank and to the police department. This story does not come from a Hollywood studio; it comes from the Verdugo Mountains. It concerns a critically injured boy in an inaccessible canyon. You will meet the actual victim - and some of the police officers who very nearly became victims themselves.

Himself - Host:
Have you ever reflected on the events of your childhood - the dangerous games you played, the dares you accepted, the risky chances you took? It makes you wonder how you survived. Well, today's boys are no different - they're still taking chances and still surviving. In John Casagrande's case - barely.

[first lines]

Himself - Host:
[narrating] Chicago, Illinois - famous for many things, among them one of the largest and most advanced law enforcement agencies in the world. Headed by Superintendant O.W. Wilson, the Chicago Police Department is equipped to act instantly when any crime is committed including the most terrifying crime of all. This is a copy of the Congressional Record dated February 6. A kidnapping occurred in Chicago and the police action that followed was so outstanding that a detailed account of the case was read into the Congressional Records of the United States.

Himself - Host:
The legal history of kidnapping goes all the way back to the 16th Century It's no more successful today than it was then. Not one kidnapper in 700 ever succeeds in his crime, yet every now and then someone is foolish enough to try it.

[first lines]

Himself - Narrator:
[narrating] Chicago, Illinois - a great city of great mixtures. Mixtures of the old and the new; mixtures of architecture, the streets and the people. Streets like 18th Street and people like Crazy Tony - to some people, just a name on the wall... to others he still remains a symbol of viciousness.

Himself - Narrator:
This week, something special from Chicago addressed to young people everywhere. Each of the programs in this series is selected by a different police force from their own documented records. Each week, you will see a different police force in actual; meet the actual participants - witnesses, criminals and their victims. In a minute, you'll meet Joab David Gonzalez - witness his crimes and wonder why they happened and hope with us that this program will help keep them from happening again.

[first lines]

Himself-Narrator:
[narrating] Cincinnati - an old and beautiful city on the banks of the Ohio River... beautiful, busy, hard to ruffle, likely to lose its calm only when its baseball team, the Reds, is in a close race for the championship. But a number of Cincinnatians, including the police department, were far from calm on September 7th. They were looking for a man. He had to be found in a matter of a very few hours and no one knew his whereabouts.

[first lines]

Himself - Host:
Culver City, California, home of motion picture studios and television stages: a fiction factory weaving miles of film since pictures learned to talk. But Culver City isn't all make believe - it's real, like our case in point. There's no part of it that says, "Let's pretend." No one dreamed it up. But it is unusual - it's about a boy and a wild imagination.

Himself - Host:
Most boys have hobbies. James Gordon has one - he makes bombs.

Himself - Host:
The wall - what is it, a structure, a symbol - or perhaps just a line that we look at and decide on which side we're going to walk?

Himself - Host:
Denver, Colorado long known for its high altitude and rarified air; more recently known for its lower crime rate and modern police department. Our story not only takes us to Denver, but to Canon City, the site of Colorado State Penitentiary. Inside those walls are all kinds of men just as outside of those walls are all kinds of men. On both sides men plan, hope, dream and ultimately make decisions that not only effect the entire course of their lives but those lives of many others - on both sides of the wall.

[first lines]

Narrator:
What you're witnessing is not a childish prank. It happened - it was frightfully real. The lives of everyone in that tavern hung by a narrow margin of fate and the courage of an off-duty police officer. The cause, the reasons... only the man behind the mask can tell us that, because only he truly knows. In the next half hour, we'll try to take a look behind that mask and see what forces are at work that make a man put on another face.

[first lines]

Himself-Narrator:
This is the story of a town. It could be any town, but we picked Greenburgh, New York - suburb of New York City - last stop for hundreds of commuters rushing home each day. The citizens of Greenburgh are rightfully proud of their town. It looks peaceful, healthy. Yet gnawing at this community, a blight that affects hundreds of towns like Greenburgh: juvenile delinquency. If left unchecked it can be fatal.

Himself-Narrator:
A professor once said that the history of man could be traced in his weapons. [holds up a switchblade] This is the modern version of an ancient weapon - crude, but effective - and if it falls into angry hands it can be deadly. But how do you fight it - bigger and better knives? Or do you use the best weapon of all - intelligence.

Himself-Narrator:
An American city - modern skyline, civic parks, war memorials and the buildings that say "state capitol." This, to the world, is the face of Hartford, Connecticut, a thriving, bustling community - but like all communities - deeper, under the surface - there's another world... not nearly as large, not nearly as distinctive - but it, too, has a face - sometimes referred to as the faceless face of crime.

[first lines]

Himself - Host/Narrator:
Houston, Texas: a present day city with a pride-filled past and a space-aged future. The Houston Police Department: modern, efficient, streamlined - lives the past to the historians, the future to the scientists and devotes all its energies to the very realistic present.

[first lines]

Himself - Host/Narrator:
The most famous 24 hour period in Indianapolis happens every year - May 30, the Memorial Day Classic, the Big 500. The second most famous period in Indianapolis happened only once: the 24-hour period in which crime took a holiday and not one single police officer was off duty.

[first lines]

Himself - Host:
Long Beach, California - well known as a harbor for ships; equally well-known for its international beauty contests and soon for its World's Fair. Not so well-known except to the police, a criminal offense that feeds on despair and leaves in its wake mutilation, misery and death.

Himself - Host:
Car theft, armed robbery, abortion, murder - a criminal ring whose style starts with, "Can I help you?"

[the police are searching for a missing woman believed to be pregnant]

Himself - Long Beach Chief of Detectives:
I think we might have something on the Margaret Vincent csse. I got a call from a Vicki Nessick. She gave us the name of a bartender on Eighth Street.

Himself - Long Beach Police Sergeant:
Hmm. A woman wants an abortion, she goes to a bartender on Eighth Street?

Himself - Long Beach Chief of Detectives:
I guess that's what we do, too.

[first lines]

Himself - Host:
Los Angeles County - almost 4000 square miles of unincorporated area located in and around the city of Los Angeles, including the famous Sunset Strip. No other section of the country has experienced the phenomenal population and industrial expansion as the county of Los Angeles and as once open fields become shopping centers, farm lands become industrial zones so does the geographical scope of criminal activity expand. Combating and containing this criminal activity is the responsibility of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Occasionally, they get some very welcome help from the citizens.

Himself - Host:
Louis Puckett is a guard in a trading stamp merchandise house. He is not an actor in the professional sense of the word, but actor enough to deceive a very discerning audience - a band of criminals.

[first lines]

Himself - Host:
The city of Milwaukee, founded on the shores of Lake Michigan in the southeast section of Wisconsin, the Dairy State - population: over 750,000, most of them old line, stable, industrious citizens - some of them young, restless, unstable.

[one girl shoots another with blank ammunition]

Himself - Host:
A joke - if you're on the right end of the gun. The three girls in the booth, ages 18, 20 and 22, share in the fun. They also share the same apartment and they will share the same bleak future after the fun stops.

Himself - Host:
These are not Hollywood props... they'e the actual pistol used in the robberies in this case. They're very aptly named - starter pistols.

[fires one gun into the air]

Himself - Host:
They can start a man on his way to breaking the four-minute mile...

[aims and shoots the other gun at the camera]

Himself - Host:
Or they can start a young girl on the way to breaking the laws of society.

[first lines]

Himself - Host:
Minneapolis, Minnesota - a modern community living in modern times and like most of us the citizens have come to accept that the unforeseen can happen to anyone at any time: a child is lost, a window broken, cars collide or a stranger appears with a gun. Usually we say these words and feel a lot better - call the police. Ever stop to think of what it takes to give us this security 24 hours a day, 365 days a year? In a moment, we'll bring you Part One of a story selected by the Minneapolis Police Department that will bring you startling answers to that question.

Himself - Host:
Officer Robert Folsom was killed instantly. Officer Ward Canfield was struck by a .45 caliber bullet. He was run over by the getaway car and left for dead. He spent 14 months in Minneapolis hospitals, underwent 25 operations, lost a leg and an arm was partially paralyzed. That's part of what it takes to bring you that security.

Himself - Host:
A breed of men who defy the law even at the risk of their lives; another breed of men who risk their lives to defend it - simply as that, the battle line is drawn.

Himself - Host:
One police officer commented, "These men will be stopped. It won't be easy and it won't be without violence."

[first lines]

Himself-Narrator:
Historic New Orleans - stretching from the Mississippi River to the Shores of Lake Pontchartrain, home of the gala Mardi Gras, its festive parades circumnavigating the streets through the French Quarter on what is known once each year as Fat Tuesday. New Orleans - homes, parks, playgrounds. This is a playground, the common denominator that stretches around the world. Someday, one of these kids is going to grow up to be the President of the United States, another the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Fifty will be governors at the same time. One will discover a cure for cancer, another will plant the first potato on the moon. That makes them pretty important. Meanwhile, they're growing up, their potential endless - unless, perhaps, they get hooked on narcotics.

Himself - Host:
Oakland, California - located on the eastern section of San Francisco Bay, the point on which Fremont looked out and named this vista and called it, "The Golden Gate" through which came ships from every port in the world. Oakland, California - builder of these ships during the war; builder of men to keep the peace.

Himself - Host:
A doctor studies for twelve years so, at the end of that time he can say yes or no. A juggler practices keeping four clubs in the air so, when he's in front of an audience, he doesn't drop one. Experts - and today's police officer must be an expert also - in law, the use of his body, guns, the vehicles he drives. One slip - just one - and lives will be lost... sometimes his own.

Himself - Host/Narrator:
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - like other major cities, in the midst of an urban renewal program - removing the ugly, restoring the revered... reaching forward into the future of a rejuvenated central city. The police department is modern; the headquarters building is new - the fight against crime is timeless.

[first lines]

Himself-Narrator:
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - an industrial giant: born of coal and iron, bred on steel. Our story grew out of two other tough materials - gun metal and lead.

[first lines]

Himself-Narrator:
Providence, Rhode Island: capital city of the nation's smallest state... but size has very little to do with the amount of energy a group of people can bring to the progress of a community. A problem not confined to Providence is the subject of our story today. It was selected by the Providence Police Department from its case files. The story is true; the people real. You probably never heard about it or read about it. Stories like this don't get much publicity.

[first lines]

Host/Narrator:
Rochester, New York: a modern city of industry and structure, known as "The City of Flowers". Abundant with nurseries, parks, woods and fields - a great place for any child to live and grow up. A great place for any child to grow up - except Pamela Ross.

[first lines]

Himself-Narrator:
Seattle, Washington - home of Century 21 and the World's Fair. And towering above the city, the Space Needle - a symbol to man's progress. While this symbol was still under construction and happening practically in its shadow, was the type of savagery that makes you wonder if we're making any progress at all. On March 28, the Queen Anne Killer was unidentified; but now we know who he is, what he looks like and even how he talks.

Himself-Narrator:
This is the actual record of what happened, as it happened, where it happened. What we don't know is... why it happened.

[first lines]

Himself - Host:
Old Man River or The Mighty Mississippi - the legendary river that forms the eastern boundary of St. Louis, Missouri - Gateway to the West, a city beginning its two-year celebration of its bicentennial birthday. In a huge arch surrounding the city of St. Louis is St. Louis County, an area encompassing 700,000 residents... also a lot of visitors, some of them undesirable.

[first lines]

Himself - Host:
Seattle, Washington - home of Century 21 and the World's Fair. And towering above the city, the Space Needle - a symbol to man's progress. While this symbol was still under construction and happening practically in its shadow, was the type of savagery that makes you wonder if we're making any progress at all. On March 28, the Queen Anne Killer was unidentified; but now we know who he is, what he looks like and even how he talks.

Himself - Host:
This is the actual record of what happened, as it happened, where it happened. What we don't know is... why it happened.

Himself-Narrator:
Scarsdale in Westchester County, New York: a warm autumn day. The night may be warm, too - warm, serene and peaceful. One of the reasons - Westchester County is justly proud of its 41 separate police departments - separate, but not separated.