What I basically said in my posting (sorry, but I don’t know how to  handle computers and probably screwed up) is that I was perplexed by Max Hurlbut’s opening line about “the rest of the story…not known to Joe Wambaugh.”  Then he refers to the disarming and kidnap of Inglewood officers who survived their ordeal unharmed.Well, not only was it known to me but I mentioned it and other similar incidents in The Onion Field book.  My point was that the disarming and even brief kidnapping of local cops had happened several times and no officer had ever been harmed prior to the onion field killing.  That time when it went terribly wrong, the blame placed on Hettinger by  second guessing LAPD brass, who were not out there on that Hollywood street, was not only  wrongheaded, it was unforgivably ignorant and incredibly cruel.

I’m sure that Max Hurlbut would agree that the overwhelming guilt inflicted on Karl Hettinger by the LAPD nearly drove him to suicide and probably led to his untimely death from cirrhosis.

The weird part of Max’s narrative had to do with the racial business involving black suspects, crime statistics, etc. The race of the suspects had nothing whatever to do with the reason that Powell and Hettinger [Update: Smith] were stopped.

Max describes Powell as being of mixed race and Smith as black.  Well, I can assure you that Jimmy Smith was the one of mixed race: white father, black mother.  And in fact, when Hettinger was rescued he described Smith as being “possibly Mexican American.”  Look at  Smith’s  photo and you will see why Hettinger was uncertain.

As to Gregory Powell, I not only interviewed him but I met and spoke with his mother, father and brother.  I can assure your readers that he is as white as Conan O’Brien or even Max Hurlbut.  There is no race card to be played here.

Joe Wambaugh