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Officer Lee Newton Bunch During World War II, every U.S. citizen was expected to play their part in the war effort. Those who weren't serving in the armed forces were urged to do their part at home -- buy war bonds, grow your own food in home "victory gardens," and volunteer and sacrifice in any way possible to help support the troops. And that included making sure that the military had all the materials and supplies it needed for the war effort.
Shortly after the U.S. entered the war, the federal government instituted mandatory consumer rationing on many products. Critical supplies, including gasoline,
The government came up with a system of giving every family a "ration book," containing tiny stamps which were required to be handed over to the retailer whenever buying certain restricted products.
The first raw material to be rationed, starting on Jan. 5, 1942, less than a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, was rubber. Japan's invasion of Southeast Asia cut off the U.S. supply of natural rubber from the region, and the military needed a huge supply of rubber, for vehicle and aircraft tires, gas and oxygen masks, raincoats, pontoon bridges, medical supplies, boots and other items.
The synthetic rubber program had just begun in the U.S., but it didn't produce enough to meet civilian and military needs. And military needs were the national priority.
Because of the rubber rationing, civilian drivers were allowed to have only five tires for each vehicle for the duration of the war (four on the vehicle and a spare). If necessary, drivers could have their tires patched or treads replaced -- which required an application and an approval certificate from the local Tire Rationing Board.
Drivers were also limited on how much gasoline they could purchase, depending on their car usage and needs. The primary purpose of gas rationing and lower national speed limits was to extend the life of tires and save rubber. All auto racing was banned for the duration of the war.
Certificates for new tires could be given for vehicles used for public health and safety, essential trucking and public transportation -- police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, mail trucks, trash trucks, buses, etc. -- but those certificates also had to be reviewed and approved by the Tire Rationing Board.
As was the case with the consumption of alcohol and Prohibition two decades earlier, when the public demand for a product exceeds the legally available supply, criminal activity and black markets attempt to meet those demands.
Tire thefts became so prevalent during World War II that Tire Rationing Boards advised auto owners to keep track of the serial numbers on their tires in case they were stolen. Tires were being stolen across the country, and resold.
Like many other states, California made wartime tire theft a felony rather than a misdemeanor. The FBI reported that, in the first few months after the wartime tire restrictions, tire thefts across the country increased by more than 26 percent. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover urged citizens to "be on the alert to protect their property," and "take the initiative in reporting such thefts to their local police without delay."
In short, tire theft became a major and expanding crime, and was considered to be a direct threat to national security. Tire thefts had become a national law enforcement priority, and police departments across the country took it very seriously.
With the increase in cars being stolen, stripped of their tires, then abandoned in Los Angeles, LAPD Officer Lee Bunch, 45, who was a member of the department's car theft detail and had a network of connections and informants, was tasked in early March 1942 with tracking down the car thieves. Bunch was a 20-year veteran of the department, and he was planning to retire within the next few weeks.
Bunch received a tip that area car thieves, who likely had been making a lot of money on the sales of their stolen tires, might go to Gardena, south of Los Angeles, to gamble with their ill-gotten gains at one of the city's many card clubs.
In addition to his police training and experience, and connections in the car-theft underworld, Bunch was also a skilled poker player. He was the ideal officer for the investigation.
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Lee Newton Bunch was born Jan. 23, 1897, in Indian Territory near what is now Hugo, Oklahoma, a tiny city in the southeastern part of the state, less than 10 miles from the Texas border. Oklahoma didn't become a state until 10 years after Bunch's birth, the 46th state to enter the union. (In some U.S. Census and other official documents, including his World War I registration, Bunch's birthplace is listed as Hugo, Texas, which isn't an actual place.)
Bunch's parents were Nathaniel Newton Bunch, an Arkansas-born farmer, and Alice Fields Bunch, a native of Alabama. Bunch was the second of seven children born to Nathaniel and Alice Bunch.
In 1918, according to his World War I military registration, Bunch, 21, was living in Kansas City, Kansas, and working for the Union Pacific Railway.
After his military service, Bunch moved to Los Angeles, and joined the LAPD on Jan. 20, 1922.
On March 3, 1925, Bunch, 28, married Kansas-born widow Edith La Von Stewart, 42. Stewart, who went by her middle name, was first married in 1907 to George S. Cooper, and they had a son, Dale, born in Colorado in 1908. George Cooper died in 1921, at the age of 44.
Five years after their marriage, according to the 1930 Census, Lee and La Von Bunch were living at 2736 Fruitdale St., in Los Angeles, just west of the current location of the I-5 freeway and northwest of the freeway's intersection with State Route 2. At the time, Lee Bunch was working for the LAPD, and La Von Bunch was working for the city of Los Angeles as a stenographer.
By 1940, the Bunches moved to 5155 Ithica Ave., northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
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Bunch, who was working undercover, went to the Twin Palms Cafe, and sat at a table in the card room, in hopes of getting some information about suspects in a series of car tire thefts. In the card room, 15 men, including Bunch, were playing poker at three tables.
Although he was not in uniform and didn't identify himself as a police officer,
In the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, March 8, 1942, three men entered the card room at the Twin Palms Cafe, brandished weapons, and announced a robbery. One of the men -- later determined to be the leader of the gang of robbers -- held a 12-gauge, sawed-off shotgun, while the other two carried handguns.
The would-be robbers ordered the 15 card players to line up against a wall, with their hands in the air.
One of the bandits found the operator of the card club, Hulin N. Griffin, 50, in a restroom, and demanded his money. After he was pistol-whipped, Griffin handed over $640.
As the gunmen started to search and rob each of the card players, Bunch was afraid they would search him and discover that he was a police officer. He pulled his gun, turned, and emptied his weapon at the man holding the shotgun and one of the other gunmen.
The man with the shotgun was hit in the stomach and fell to a knee, but he was able to return fire from about 15 feet away, hitting Bunch in the left side of his face with a shotgun blast, killing him. Bunch hit the other gunman in the right side and right wrist.
Two other card players -- Benjamin Baylis, 52, of Long Beach, and Charles Piercy, 51, of Los Angeles -- were hit by the gunman's shotgun pellets. Both were taken to local hospitals, treated and released.
The three gunmen quickly scrambled out of the card club, jumped into a waiting getaway car, and sped off west on West Redondo Beach Boulevard.
Police quickly identified the four members of the robbery gang -- the three armed men and their getaway driver, who was the younger brother of one of the gunmen. A search for a doctor to treat the two robbers injured by Bunch led police to their hideout at 110 West 48th St. in Los Angeles, where all four were arrested the next day. All four had lengthy criminal records, primarily for robbery.
Based on statements from the gunmen, police recovered the sawed-off shotgun used in the crime, which had been dumped in a vacant lot at Fletcher and Riverside drives in Los Angeles, just west of the I-5 freeway -- nearly 20 miles north of Gardena, but only a few hundred feet from where Officer Bunch and his wife lived on Fruitdale Street less than five years earlier.
Three other people at the address were arrested and held on charges of suspicion of harboring fugitives, and six other suspected members of the robbery gang were arrested the same day at an apartment building at West Sixth and Witmer streets in Los Angeles.
The gang leader shot by Bunch -- a 33-year-old North Dakota native with a lengthy criminal history -- died two days later at L.A.'s General Hospital. The second gunman hit by Bunch was initially hospitalized in critical condition, but he eventually recovered from his injuries.
Although none of the three surviving robbery gang members fired the shot that killed Bunch, all three were charged with first-degree murder for their roles in the attempted armed robbery.
During pre-trial hearings, two members of the robbery gang pled guilty to their role in Bunch's murder, and were sentenced to death by Judge William R. McKay. The third surviving member of the gang -- the getaway driver, who was unarmed and didn't enter the card club -- pled not guilty and opted to stand trial.
Following a bench trial, during which the surviving two gang members described him as an unwitting "stooge" in the attempted card club robbery, the getaway driver was also found guilty of murder for his participation. But McKay sentenced him to life imprisonment because "he obviously was a pliable tool in the hands of his older brother."
Although the getaway driver wasn't inside the card club during the shoot-out, two witnesses said he was at the card club the night before, and was asked to leave after he spent most of his time watching the players.
The judge also noted that Officer Bunch's action in shooting the armed gunmen while they had 15 card players lined up against a wall with their hands in the air prevented what could have been another St. Valentine's Day Massacre, in which seven members of George "Bugs" Moran's North Side Gang in Chicago were lined up against the wall of a garage in 1929 and shot to death.
The death sentences were later changed to life sentences, after the gunmen successfully argued that their attorney had promised them that, if they pled guilty, they would avoid the death penalty and receive life sentences.
Bunch was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. He was joined there nearly 28 years later by his wife, La Von, who died on Feb. 29, 1980, in Houston, Texas, at the age of 87.
Officer Bunch's memorial sign is located at the Los Angeles Police Academy.
A Guide to the Movie Stars' Final Homes
(Jan. 23, 1897 -- March 8, 1942)