Within weeks of the Ronni Chasen murder this story came across my desk from a very reliable source. One might wonder if Ronni had the ability to protect herself, would she still be with us? We will never know.
There was an incident in West Hollywood involving a man driving his Jaguar – while stopped in traffic a man jumped into the passenger seat of his car. The suspect was holding a gun, demanding the driver unlock the two rear doors so his friends could get in.
The victim of this crime, instead of cooperating and facing only god knows what, accelerated through the intersection. While driving erratically he told the guy with the gun to get out. He slowed his car to about 20 mph and told him to jump out or he was going straight to the Sheriffs station. The guy with the gun did jump from the Jaguar and the victim went to the Sheriffs station to report the attempted car jacking. He was told by Sheriffs staff that this was not the first time an attempted robbery/car jacking of this type had occurred.
I can clearly remember driving down Highland Avenue in Hollywood during the very early 70s, I was driving a brand new white Pontiac Trans Am. I had the T-tops in place and the passenger side window down. I had slowed down a bit when a guy jumped through the window and attempted to grab the wheel. Back in those days car jacking was unheard of and an act such as this was way out of what to expect, even in Hollywood. I was in my 20s and was in the best shape of my life…the first fist to strike the middle of this guys face was a hint that he had made a mistake. I was moving rather fast as I was hoping to find a cop…”never one around when you need one.” My second act of defense caused this goofy SOB to eject himself from my open window just before Santa Monica Boulevard…it was like a movie as he rolled along side my car.
I went to the old Hollywood Division of the L.A.P.D. to at least make a report about being “attacked.” At the time I had been a student worker with S.O. There had been no calls for fire or paramedics in the area that this shitbird was last seen impersonating a “wheel in motion”… that was it, case closed. The rest of the facts of this incident will just remain in my memory, the good ol’ days!
My thoughts are this, what was once an oddity in our society has now become more mainstream. People being assaulted as they sit at the wheels of their cars. Bad guys are not intimidated by the cops, and when citizens can’t be allowed to protect themselves with the issuance of CCW (carry conceal weapons), this behavior will continue. At times we are at the mercy of low life criminals. With cutbacks and the firing of police in our cities, if ever there was a time to re-visit this right of self defense, it is now. Many states have these rights for the citizens and the bad guys know it, and there have never been blatant shoot outs between law abiding citizens in any of these states. California needs to wake up!