Read A Sniper in the Tower Online

Authors: Gary M. Lavergne

Tags: #History, #United States, #General, #State & Local, #Southwest (AZ; NM; OK; TX), #True Crime, #Murder, #test

A Sniper in the Tower (60 page)

 
Page 203
top of the elevator an officer could climb through the shaft to the very top, a columned area above the clocks. The team, consisting of Officers McCoy, Conner, Moe, Shoquist, Shepard and the civilian Holden, entered the elevator and went directly to the twenty-seventh floor.
The men stood shoulder to shoulder in the crowded elevator, and as the car went up Officer McCoy took no chances. He pointed his shotgun directly at the seam created by the two sliding doors. No one knew what they were going to find when the doors opened. Earlier, while still crawling through the tunnels below the Main building, McCoy had taken his shotgun off safety and chambered one of four 00 shells. As the elevator car stopped, McCoy raised his shotgun to eye level. When the door opened, the men in the elevator gasped; they saw a gun pointed directly back at them. Jerry Day, pointing his revolver at the same seam in the door, came face-to-face with Houston McCoy Slowly, the two men lowered the barrels of their weapons, breathed, and as McCoy would later say, "We gave each other a shit grin."
7
First, the officers decided to clear the twenty-seventh floor and remove the wounded. They also collectively rejected the idea of using tear gas. Later McCoy would say, "You don't fire tear gas at a killer. You kill the son-of-a-bitch. No matter how much tear gas you shoot at him, he can still fire that rifle." Day introduced McCoy to a "peculiar-acting gray-haired man," M. J. Gabour, still clutching Mary's shoes. Gabour caused a stir when he demanded a gun to go after the sniper. "They've killed my family," he said. Jerry Day was forced to remove Gabour and had serious difficulty keeping him downstairs.
Officer Moe remembers seeing a much quieter William Lamport holding Marguerite's purse. Although Lamport's clothes had been splattered with blood, Moe thought he was a university employee. As Day brought Gabour and others to the ground floor, the other officers searched the twenty-seventh floor for more civilians.
Day had not told McCoy that Martinez and Crum had moved on towards the twenty-eighth floor and the deck. For a second time Crum had insisted on going. "No sir, buddy, you are not going by yourself," he told Martinez, who thought Crum was a campus security officer and had no objection. After all, Crum had a pocket liner in his shirt pocket like many policemen used, he was with two offic-
 
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ers Martinez knew, and more importantly, he had a rifle. Why would a civilian be up there with a rifle?
8
At this point, Mike Gabour was telling his mother to play dead. He did not know who was coming. As the officers approached, Mike peeked and saw Ramiro Martinez in his police uniform. Using his right arm, he waved Martinez and Crum over. The men reached Mike by stepping over the other family members. Martinez asked how many gunmen were there. Mike said there was only one. Martinez then asked, "Where is he?"
Mike replied, "Outside." When Martinez and Crum started to go up the stairs Mike asked them to move him out of the line of fire of a possible gunfight, but he screamed in agony as they moved him. They then moved Mary, who was facedown on the floor. Martinez saw so much blood surrounding Mary's face he actually feared she would drown in it. Mary was relieved when Mike was finally taken off her. The blood stains on Officer Martinez's white shirt later caused onlookers to mistakenly conclude he had been wounded.
9
Martinez and Crum proceeded up the stairs, Crum suggesting that they assault the stairs "service style." Both military veterans knew what that meant; as one moved up the other watched and covered. Upon reaching the top landing, they found Edna Townsley's desk lying on its side, along with a chair and a metal trash can, blocking the doorway. They moved the heavy desk only enough to get into the room, about two feet. Then Crum asked, "Are we playing for keeps?"
"Damn right we are!" Martinez answered.
"Then you'd better deputize me."
"Ok, consider yourself deputized."
They were on the twenty-eighth floor in the reception area. Crum kicked the metal trash can across the room to see if anyone would respond. Nothing happened. They immediately saw a trail of blood streaked across the room from the southwestthe "goo" that Cheryl Botts had warned Don Walden not to step in. They also saw Edna Townsley's glasses on the floor, right where they had landed when Whitman assaulted her. They noticed that wires leading to the phone mounted on the east wall had been ripped, and knew there would be no communications from the reception area. Martinez and Crum then moved to the west window in an attempt to attack Whitman
 
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from a covered position. They could not see him, but they could see his footlocker and the vast array of supplies Whitman had carried to the deck. It was an awesome sight.
10
After leaving Mr. Gabour on the ground floor, Jerry Day returned to the twenty-seventh floor to join the other officers, who had decided to remove the wounded before storming the deck. As McCoy entered the stairway he, too, came across the Gabours and Marguerite Lamport. Mike, now energized by the help around him, asked McCoy for his shotgun, "Let me shoot the son-of-a-bitch!" The officer replied that he'd shoot the bastard for him. Mary did not appreciate that kind of language at all. McCoy assured her that they would get her to the hospital as soon as possible. Officers Moe, Shepard, Conner and Shoquist moved Mike and Mary to the twenty-seventh floor as Houston and Jerry Day provided cover. The men, nearly all of them prior service veterans, were horrified at the gruesome scene. George Shepard estimated that the Gabours lay in about two inches of coagulated blood. Phillip Conner, a former medic in the military, was charged with administering first aid. He later said the blood on the floor was so deep it oozed over the top of his penny loafers.
As Houston McCoy gazed at the door of the reception area, Day mentioned, almost in passing, that a civilian with a rifle was with Martinez. It probably saved Allen Crum's life. Had McCoy entered the reception area earlier, or if Crum had returned to the landing, he likely would have been shot on the spot. McCoy was looking for a civilian, in plain clothes, with a rifle. If the first person he saw had been Allen Crum, he would have "blown him away." McCoy's first thought was that they needed to get Crum out of there. Houston was now even more convinced that he had better get up there as soon as possible.
11
Houston still hoped for a plan. He thought it was a good idea to go to the very top and storm the sniper, or snipers, from above. But things were moving too fast and everyone had to improvise. Only minutes earlier, when entering the receptionist area, Martinez and Crum had discovered the body of Edna Townsley. She was still alive, but barely She moaned and groaned during her struggle against death. Martinez and Crum heard shots from the northwest corner. They looked through windows on the southwest and south sides and could
 
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see "a lot of stuff" out there. As Crum stood against the interior south wall he covered the west window. Martinez went for the glass-paneled door on the south side but Whitman had wedged the Austin Rental Service dolly against it. As Martinez struggled to open the door, McCoy and Jerry Day entered the room. Day covered the window on the west side; Crum moved towards the south door to join Martinez. Phillip Conner would join them shortly. Martinez began kicking the door, making enough noise to concern the other officers in the room. Finally, the dolly fell, making even more noise. McCoy, Crum, and Day gazed at the windows, waiting for the sniper to appear. Martinez gazed at the glass-paneled door.
12
IV
In defense of his department, Police Chief Bob Miles said, "In a situation like this, it all depended on independent action by officers." Other than some coordination at 21st Street and Speedway there was no plan. No documentation exists of Chief Miles's actions during the crisis. Neither are there any accounts of his going to the campus. That is not to say that he should have been there. The fact is that the Austin Police Department was not prepared for the incident. Whether they should have been could be forever debated. No other city had ever been faced with a crime such as the one Charles Whitman inflicted on Austin from his perch at the University of Texas Tower.
The bulk of APD officers responded first by clearing the area. Traffic was cut off at various intersections, forming a large circle around the campus. Other officers on the campus ran through the grounds getting people into buildings and behind barricades and out of the line of fire. More than one hour after the firing had begun, APD had to dispatch an officer to a restaurant several blocks from the Tower to restrain a civilian from returning fire with a high powered rifle.
The record does show that some Austin policemen actively took part in getting people out of harm's way. Officers Still and Baylor, for example, risked gunfire to help the wounded. Other witnesses told of people being led to safety by policemen. Jerry Day, Bob Day, Ramiro Martinez, Houston McCoy and others ran through open
 
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areas to do their jobs. Billy Speed died in the line of duty. Of all of the policemen on the campus, most were off-duty and not in direct communications with headquarters. Walkie-talkies used by a few of them were of poor quality anyway. Communications had to be conducted by telephone at a time when Austin's phone lines were jammed with a record number of incoming phone calls. Without the luxury of being able to prepare, an effective coordination of the police response would have been a virtual impossibility. Chief Miles was right. Progress did depend on the individual actions of each policeman.
One of the more famous and daring but completely unsuccessful attempts to get at Charles Whitman came about from the air. The use of helicopters was considered by the APD but rejected as too dangerous, as choppers were thought to be too vulnerable to gunfire. After receiving a call from Tim's Airpark, however, APD did decide to try to assault Whitman from a small plane. APD sent sharpshooter Lieutenant Marion Lee to the small air strip north of Austin near a little town called Pflugerville. There, Lee and a flight instructor and a part-time Williamson County Deputy Sheriff named Jim Boutwell boarded a very small Champion Citabria airplane and took off for the Tower. The Champion Citabria was a cloth-covered aircraft and, like the rejected helicopters, wholly unsuited for an assault involving gunfire. As Boutwell put it, his only protection was "the fabric side of the airplane and a blue shirt." Before takeoff Boutwell turned to Lee and asked, "In case I got hit could you land this airplane?"
"Sure I could. Let's go," replied Lee, who had never landed a plane in his life.
13
Circling 1,200 feet above the ground, Lee and Boutwell were able to confirm that there was only one sniper. Unfortunately, the lack of communications throughout the campus meant that this timely information never made it to the men on the twenty-eighth floor. As Boutwell approached the concrete jungle, the light airplane began to bounce, making it nearly impossible for Lee to aim. The turbulence was caused by "thermal lift," or a convectional system of hot air rising from the pavement. Lee had to be concerned about the consequences of missing Whitman, and possibly the entire Tower. His rounds could have eventually hit the ground near the Tower, possibly injuring or killing an innocent bystander. Boutwell watched
 
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for other aircraft and other snipers. He would later remember: "We kept his [Whitman's] attention but then he kept ours too. The plane was bouncing too much for Marion to get him in the scope. But we had the best seat in the house." The little plane did catch the attention of Charles Whitman. Looking up, he fired at least two rounds that went completely through the fabric-covered plane. Whitman came dangerously close to shooting an aircraft out of the sky. Surely, had he been successful, at least two more people would have been killed and possibly many more on the ground. Whitman would have liked that. Wisely, Boutwell backed off and awaited instructions. And then they saw men walking onto the deck through the glass paneled door.
1 Files:
SOR
s by G. Shepard, Phillip Conner, H. Moe, M. Shoquist, M. Ferrell, and Houston McCoy, 1 August 1966,
McCoy Statement
, n.d.
2 Ramiro Martinez; APD Files:
SOR
s by J. Day, R. Martinez and B. Day, 1 August 1966,
Allen Crum
, 2 August 1966.
3 APD Files:
SOR
s by J. Pope, 4 August 1966 and H. F. Moore, 5 August 1966.
4 APD Files:
SOR
by L. Janetzke, 3 August 1966;
Newsweek
, 15 August 1966;
Daily Texan
, 1 August 1991;
Texas Monthly
, August 1986;
Austin American-Statesman
, 3 and 4 August 1966, 1 August 1976.
5 Chief Miles quoted in
Austin American-Statesman
, 7 August 1966.
6 Houston McCoy;
Austin American-Statesman
, 1 August 1986.
7 Houston McCoy; APD Files:
McCoy Statement
, n.d.
8 Ramiro Martinez; APD Files:
SOR
s by R. Martinez, H. Moe, J. Day, 1 August 1966;
Newsweek
, 15 August 1966;
Austin American-Statesman
, Allen Crum quoted on 7 August 1966, Houston McCoy quoted on 1 August 1986.
9 Ramiro Martinez; APD Files:
Allen Crum
, 2 August 1966,
SOR
by R. Martinez, 1 August 1966; Lamport Interview;
Austin Citizen
, 1 August 1977; Spelce Tapes.
10 Ramiro Martinez; APD Files;
Allen Crum
, 1 August 1966,
SOR
by R. Martinez, 1 August 1966; Allen Crum.
11 Houston McCoy; Phillip Conner; APD Files:
SOR
s by H. McCoy, P. Conner, H. Moe, M. Shoquist, and G. Shepard, 1 August 1966.
12 Houston McCoy; Ramiro Martinez; APD Files:
McCoy Statement
, n.d.,
SOR
s by H. McCoy, R. Martinez, J. Day, 1 August 1966,
Allen Crum
, 2 August 1966.

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