Which story is better?
This was a great big muscular kid, in for assault with a deadly weapon and robbery. It was in the LA riots, in Pasadena.
This guy walks into a little Mama-Papa Korean-owned liquor store, carries out a bunch of stuff, puts it in his car, walks back in, pushes the old man out of the way, a little old Korean guy, carries more stuff out.
The Korean guy stops him at the door.
The guy lifts up a beer bottle, says, “Get out of my way or I’ll crush your skull, you little (racist remarks) and got arested.
In the courtroom this guy came up out of his chair, up over the counsel table. He got nailed by a Pasadena policeman and my fill-in baliff Brianwho used to pitch for the White Sox.
They had him pinned on counsel table. Brian, who is left handled, is leaning over him holding his arm so his gun’s on his left side. I don’t like guns in the courtroom.
This guy’s on his back, and really built.
That arm that Brian is leaning over and holding keeps coming up toward his gun. Every time it came up it was getting closer and closer to the gun. I’m watching this hand getting closer and closer.
So I stood up on my bench and jumped into the well. My robe is flying. I happened to be wearing tennis shoes that day. I jumped down and grabbed the guy’s arm and cranked it behind his back until Brian could get over the railing. It took all of three seconds.
There was somebody there from the Pasadena Star News at the time; the headline said, “Whoosh! Batman Judge.”
I went into the park. It’s one o’clock in the morning by now. A guy was passing in the street on a bicycle. He sees me. He just kept going back and forth in front of the park I think, I’m going to have a problem with this guy. I call my dog and put her on the leash. We’re walking out the only entrance to the park.
Now we’re on the city street, he on one side of a car, me on the other, right under a light. His back is to me, he’s still motoring on his bike. He sticks his hand in his pants. I think, he’s got a gun. When he turns around, he didn’t have a gun. He had his penis in his hand and he was masturbating. I got so mad. I wasn’t frightened. What if it was my niece walking the dog, or it was someone’s daughter? A housewife? Someone’s who’d be frightened. I remember when I was a young girl and that happened to me I was terribly frightened.
Now I knew what he had in his hand. I pulled out my gun. And he knew what I had in my hand. I stuck it straight out, and said to him, “I’ll put a bullet in your eff’ing head.”
And pssh, he had an instant crash. And he said to me–which struck me very strange–”what are you, crazy, lady?” And he drove off, thinking I was crazy.