Emil and Larry Vs. The L.A.P.D. and S.W.A.T.

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Cliff Lang

English M & W. 1:20-4:00

3rd Person Journalist

Emil and Larry Vs. The L.A.P.D. and S.W.A.T.

Back in Febuary of 1997, America watched live coverage of two men clad head to toe in full body armor.  It looked like it was from an action movie.  It was not the television coverage that made my stomach turn, but the photo in the L.A. Times.  It was a photograph of 9 people being taken away on stretchers, drenched in blood.  Seven civilians and eleven officers were wounded that day.  Officers not in the photo were picked up by an armored SWAT car and taken to the nearest hospital.  If it had not been for the photo, many people probably wouldn't have bought or read the L.A. Times.  Nationwide it was an inner battle between horror, understanding and shock upon hearing facts about that day.

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        Many people's first reaction to the photo was the urge to toss their cookies.  There wasn't really that much blood in the photo now that I see it today.  Just knowing that eighteen people were shot by two same two men made me sick.  The nation watched on TV as the men pulled out magazine after magazine of ammunition, then clip after clip when they ran out of ammunition for their M-16s and AK-47s and switched to handguns.  After a brief shootout showed that the standard police sidearm, a 9mm semi-auto pistol was not enough to penetrate body armor, and ...

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