IN YOUR FACE: GUN CULTURE RUSHES INTO FOCUS

2021 SPRING-SUMMER

IN YOUR FACE:

GUN CULTURE RUSHES INTO FOCUS

BY JOHN JOHNS

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNSPLASH.COM On the night of my 18th birthday, I discovered that my life and my “enemy’s” life were worth more than the minimum wage of $1.35 or a case of beer.

I had just graduated from high school and was working graveyard shift in my brother-in-law’s convenience store in San Jose, CA.

Let it be noted here, the term “graveyard shift” is not an exaggeration.

I was asleep around 3 p.m. when the phone rang.

I don’t remember much, except my brother-inlaw saying, “Oh, by the way, the Quick Stop on El

Camino Real was robbed last night. It’s the fifth robbery this week by the same guy, so be on the alert.”

Oh, great. What am I supposed to do? Get a grenade launcher? Somewhat troubled, I went back to sleep.

At 11 p.m., I reported to work. I wore my sky-blue polyester uniform jacket with company logo — sharp, really sharp. OK, my brother-in-law, like your brother-in-law has bad taste — really bad taste, even though he thought it was chic. He also liked Muzak and Ripple. After he visited Vegas, he was confused about Liberace.

It was a hot Friday night in August. It was also payday. The store was busier than normal because dozens of fun-loving guys needed to slacken their thirst with copious amounts of suds.

This night brought a rush of customers trying to beat the clock by 2 a.m., when alcohol sales ended

Business was almost too much for me to handle until about 1 a.m., when strangely the store emptied out and was suddenly quiet. With no customers to snoop, I dropped all but $50 into the safe.

There was always a weird feeling of isolation and loneliness on the graveyard shift when midnight turned into early morning. The store was brightly lit inside, but the parking lot outside could have passed for the dark side of the moon.

‘This Guy is Going to Rob Me’

At about 1:30 a.m., the peace and quiet was broken when a small man opened the door and walked in. He looked like hell. I thought to myself, ‘This guy is going to rob me.’ And then, I forgot the thought as I rang up his “purchase.”

He wore a dirty, tattered T-shirt and faded, holey blue jeans, with cowboy boots that looked like they originated on skid row. He weighed about

2021 SPRING-SUMMER

105 pounds, with the edginess of someone on amphetamines who forgot to eat, comb his hair or shave or bathe all week.

He went straight to the cooler, picked out a sixpack of Coors and brought it to the counter. I bagged his beer and rang it up. It totaled $1.47.

I will never forget what happened next.

Standing two feet away from me, he put his hand down his pants and pulled out a .357 Magnum. He was a shrimp, but he was menacing with the gun. The handle and trigger seemed huge, and the black barrel even larger. How it could have been concealed in his jeans remains a mystery.

I had never met him prior, nor had he cause to do me harm. I was stunned and in a state of shock if not outright panic.

“Empty out the cash register and put the money in the bag,” he said.

Facing the business end of his gun, feeling, and knowing I was not in control of my fate, my brain and adrenal system went into overdrive. Everything — every movement, every word, every sound in real time — seemed to be happening in super slow motion.

In this moment, my mind was able to record to memory, every pore on his face, every bad tooth in need of a dentist, every hair on his arm, even every dirty fingernail. In a sensation never felt before or since, my adrenal glands flooded my system. It was on overload. I didn’t become jittery. Instead, I felt like my heart was pumping molasses into my arteries.

After I emptied the cash register and dumped the money in the bag with the beer, he tucked his gun back in his pants (cowboy style) and lurched to the front door. He abruptly turned around, pulled the gun out again and waved it in the air. “If you call the cops, I’ll blow your fu----- brains out!” he yelled.

And with that, he bolted out the door and into the night to enjoy his life.

I locked the store and called the cops and my brother-in-law. They straggled into the store over the next hour.

I was not impressed when the cops said they had been canvassing the area and “just missed him.” My brother-in-law was most concerned about the amount of money stolen. No one inquired about me.

In the hour following the robbery, my system returned to normal, but my memory became photographic. For the next 24 hours, I could remember every visual detail about the gunman. When the detectives came to take fingerprints, I could point out every single place that he touched without fail.

Trouble Comes in Threes

The next morning at 3 a.m., I was robbed again. This time, it was a strong-arm job carried out by a local high school football team. They demanded I sell them beer and wine even though it was too late, and they were not old enough to buy alcohol.

At the time, I looked like a 12-year-old myself and couldn’t even strike fear in the cheerleaders. After a short standoff, they got their way. They threatened me with school pride, team spirit and a sledgehammer.

When the police came, they said the same thing as last time. “We were looking out for you, and darn it, we just missed ‘em.”

I announced my retirement later that week, thus aborting my retail career. I did not get a gold watch nor a dinner with speeches or gratitude for my long service. Instead, over the next several weeks, I looked at albums full of mug shots. None ever matched or even came close to the handsomeness of the gunman. I also gave endless interviews to the detectives describing him repeatedly. Still, they had no leads. Then the police officers stopped calling for information.

After a few weeks, I fell into a depression, submerging my anger inward after the violation of my agency. Call it PTSD lite.

Guilty Verdict Does Not Guarantee Justice

Six months after the armed robbery, I got a call from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.

“The SJPD found your guy. Everything matches up and we want you to testify in court against him. He pleaded not guilty. Your positive ID of him will help send him away.”

Great. The D.A. says this guy has been charged with a dozen counts of armed robbery, mostly of small convenience stores in the San Jose and Salinas area. Sounds like the guy. Maybe there is justice after all.

Then, maybe not.

I arrived at the courthouse an hour before my scheduled testimony. I expected to be briefed, shown some proof-like matching fingerprints or provided evidence like pictures of his gun or clothes. Anything.

Instead, they told me to just go along with everything because he’s our guy.

While on the witness stand, I spotted the defendant, a man wearing a repp tie, the repetitive pattern type you wear with a tweed jacket. He was well-groomed and weighed 30 pounds more than my gunman. To top it off, he smoked a pipe. He could have passed for a tenured professor at Stanford; not at all like the underweight speed freak who pointed a gun at me and threatened my life just months before.

Bothered by this, during a recess I told the assistant D.A. that the defendant did not look like the guy who robbed me.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “He’s the guy. This is what a month of jail time does for an amphetamine user. They put on weight quickly between being off the pills and getting three squares a day.”

The public defender did a great job representing his client. He proved to me that positive identifications by eyewitnesses can be faulty. Although I went ahead and positively identified the defendant under oath, the public defender picked up on my doubt and correctly challenged my testimony.

The defendant was still found guilty.

I have often felt uncertain as to whether he was the person who robbed me. The behavior of the police officers during the time I was being robbed, and later the investigation and my part in the trial felt like a line from the movie, “Casablanca.”

“Round up the usual suspects.”

I don’t know if justice was truly served. It was all disquieting.

Angst and Anxiety Come Rushing Back

I had long since filed away those unpleasant memories from my 18th summer until 1991. It all came back the moment I saw security camera footage on local TV news of the homicide of Latasha Harlins. She was the 15-year-old Black girl who was shot by Soon Ja Du, a 51-year-old Korean American convenience store owner in South Central L.A.

The grainy film brought back the old feeling from that summer when I felt like a plastic duck in a shooting gallery. If I had been armed on the second night of being robbed, I could very easily have been Du.

I abhor violence by anyone. Yet, I understand the emotions, even the irrationality that wrongly propelled Du to shoot an innocent teenager. When the subsequent trial convicted Du of voluntary manslaughter, it reaffirmed my feelings about gun ownership or usage.

Even after my experience of facing death, a gun would only have diminished me to the level of a coward with a teenager’s death on my conscience for the rest of my life. All for a gallon of wine and a case or two of beer. Or in Latasha’s case, a 12-ounce bottle of orange juice. ∫

THE SJPD FOUND YOUR GUY. EVERYTHING MATCHES UP AND WE WANT YOU TO TESTIFY IN COURT AGAINST HIM. HE PLEADED NOT GUILTY. YOUR POSITIVE ID OF HIM WILL HELP SEND HIM AWAY.