New York’s ‘Finest’ Reporting from the Dakota

A January 1981 NYPD Newsletter gives fresh insights (and familiar misinformation) surrounding the events of 8th December 1980

If there is one thing I have learnt from five years researching John Lennon’s assassination, it is that there is always something new to discover. That said, a proper police investigation into John’s murder obviously never took place. That is crystal clear to me now. An NYPD police report with details about the crime and the crime scene will almost certainly never surface. But, we now have what may be the next best thing. After the murder, a newsletter was put together by the ‘New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association’ (PBA). In the January 1981 edition, the association’ decided to dedicate some of its newsletter to John’s assassination. Before we get into what it revealed, lets first look into the benevolent association and its links to the Lennon’s.

In 1979, John and Yoko donated $1,000 dollars to the NYPD benevolent association for bullet-proof vests. 1979 was a bad year for the NYPD, with numerous cops being murdered. The high NYPD death-rate was featured heavily in the local news of the time. John and Yoko were charitable people who watched the news. Some right-wing commentators may have been surprised at the time when the Lennon’s publicly donated to an official body like the NYPD, but in hindsight, this donation was a charitable act that some could say was also a canny way of keeping the local police on their side. Local police who throughout the seventies had been accused multiple times of corruption and much worse besides. After John’s assassination Yoko Ono hired moonlighting NYPD Cops as her new bodyguard detail. According to Fred Seaman, Ono has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the PBA after her husband’s assassination. Seaman believes that her overall contribution could be as much as two million dollars. Why Ono would want to do this, when the NYPD did not properly investigate her husband’s murder, troubles me and I’m sure many others.

The author of the benevolent association January 1981 newsletter was a very interesting individual called Massad Ayoob. Ayoob was a part-time police officer for 43 years and a hand-gun obsessive. He has been the editor of various gun magazines over the decades and he is an award-winning handgun marksman. He has trained people to shoot for decades and today he is regarded as one the finest marksman with a handgun from the last fifty years. In 1981, Ayoob created the terrifyingly named ‘Lethal Force Institute’ and since the early 1970’s, Ayoob has published hundreds of articles in gun magazines. He has also used his gun experience to advise attorneys on gun-related legal cases.

In a 2010 blog, Ayoob laid out how he put the December 1980/January 1981 benevolent association newsletter together. Just in case anyone thought anything nefarious about a handgun guru like Ayoob being connected to such a famous handgun murder, Ayoob immediately stressed at the top of his 2010 article that literally as John was being shot, Ayoob’s plane was landing in New York’s LaGuardia airport. As feature editor of the PBA newsletter, Ayoob had an urgent message waiting for him at his hotel room the next morning about Lennon’s murder. A patrol car apparently picked him up and drove him to the crime scene. If this is true, it appears that the NYPD were more interested in getting their own personal stories about the events of 8^th December recorded internally, than actually investigating the murder itself. Imagine the thought process - we are a few hours into investigating one of the most famous murders of all time, quick, let’s get a car over to our newsletter editor gun guy who conveniently flew into New York last night, so he can help us get our story straight. Or perhaps, Ayoob was summoned to the Dakota for his handgun expertise? If anyone would have known how those bullets holes got in the glass vestibule doors, Ayoob might have been the guy to work it out.

Speaking 30 years later on his blog, Ayoob went into what he could recall about his Dakota crime scene visit:

Dawn found me at the Dakota, being escorted through the death scene. The blood had not yet dried on the lush carpeting of the foyer into which Lennon had fled, before he collapsed. The Vigil had already begun. I remember the sea of haunted and grieving faces, bundled against the bitter cold of the day. If I recall correctly, the photo I took for the cover showed the crowds and the cops in front of the Dakota. There was no pushing or shoving, only a sense of mutually shared grief.

I interviewed the first responding officer who captured the assassin at the point of a Colt Official Police .38. The officers retrieved the death weapon, a Charter Arms Undercover .38. They were professional enough to veil their contempt of the killer in his presence. I debriefed the last cop to hear John Lennon speak as they rushed him to the hospital hoping to save his life.

Say what you will about his politics, the cops saw John Lennon as a good man at heart. At a time when the city was too cheap to buy body armor for its police, the union had started a “vest fund,” and John Lennon had made a five-figure contribution. The cops knew it and appreciated it. In the days and weeks that followed, until it was certain that the killer had acted alone, Yoko Ono and Sean had free bodyguard service from a rotating crew of volunteer off-duty police.

We can probably safely assume that when Ayoob is referring to dawn, it would be the morning of 9^th December 1980. Eight hours or so after John’s assassination. Blood on carpeting in the foyer is new. We have previously had blood described in the driveway, sidewalk, front-office and back-office. Blood on a lush carpet in the foyer is a first. He probably means the lobby when describing a foyer.

Debriefing Moran about his bogus Lennon exchange in the back of his car is understandable and an indication that Ayoob was not going to bother verifying what he was told had happened by the officers involved. With this method, Ayoob understandably got plenty wrong but new important information was also revealed.

The free NYPD bodyguard service claim is bogus. As is the five-figure donation assertion. Yoko hired ex NYPD sergeant Dan Mahoney in October 1981, after allegedly firing Doug MacDougall in September 1981. Mahoney hired moonlighting cops to assist him in protecting Ono and Sean. Mahoney was still in place at the Dakota as late as 1985. These guys were not working for free. They were moonlighting armed mercenaries picking up some easy and glamorous work on the side.

Elliot Mintz did his usual trick of glossing over this odd relationship:

“Some of Yoko’s bodyguards were at the time New York City police officers. This is not unusual because New York has the Sullivan Law, which is the strictest anti-gun law in the United States. In New York City, it is very difficult for a private citizen to [legally] possess a weapon and keep it on his or her person secretly. Those who are allowed to do it are off-duty New York City police officers. So, it’s not unusual for a number of very well-known celebrities in New York to have this [bodyguard] arrangement.”

In a final twist, one of Yoko Ono’s bodyguards called Sgt Barry Goldblatt was, in March 1991 (along with four other police officers) indicted by a grand jury on murder charges in connection with the death of Frederico Pereira, a 21-year-old found sleeping in a stolen car who was allegedly beaten and choked to death while in police custody.

Back to the newsletter.

As the newsletter was designed to boost police morale, the overall tone from Ayoob is supportive and sometimes sycophantic to an almost comical degree. I’m not going to waste your time exploring the official narrative parts of the article. I’m sure you all know those very well at this point. I only want to focus on new and revelatory information. The newsletter was dated January 1981, but Ayoob must have put the information together in the immediate days after the murder. Printing took time in the non-digital days of 1980. This information is fresh after the murder and therefore valuable.

The first big reveal is that after Officers Spiro, Cullen, Palma, Frauenberger, Moran and Gamble all arrived on the scene at roughly the same time, Officer Rudolfo Blake (Rudy) and Officer Charles Leimgruber also arrived at roughly the same time. Blake was later identified as the officer who went down to the basement with Joe Many and picked up the alleged ‘death weapon’, as Ayoob later described it. Officer Leimgruber is a new name. He was never mentioned again after this newsletter was published in January 1981. He never gave a media interview and not one of his colleagues ever mentioned his name. We will come back to Leimgruber shortly.

Ayoob next describes Spiro and Cullen encountering a doorman and a ‘handyman’, who were both pointing at a non-descript white male. The handyman is almost certainly Victor Cruz. Cullen said the handyman was talking a hybrid Spanish and English. Jay Hastings would later lay claim to be with Perdomo when the cops arrived. After Spiro cuffed Chapman, Palma, Frauenberger, Blake and Leimgruber arrived almost simultaneously according to Ayoob. Palma and Frauenberger never mentioned their colleagues arriving with them in the dozens of interviews they subsequently gave over the years This is a shame because according to Ayoob, Leimgruber and Blake quickly ‘debriefed the witnesses’. The two police officers who spoke to the witnesses immediately after the murder, were erased from the narrative, never to be mentioned again in the media or by their colleagues.

Ayoob continued with the familiar account of Palma and Frauenberger racing through the door of the Dakota and up the stairs into the ‘oak panelled office’. When Palma reached the ‘inner office’, he saw a woman standing over a man who was lying face down on the floor. Palma has always stuck to the woman standing over Lennon story. Frauenberger is adamant that no-one was with John in the back office when they arrived.

Palma apparently didn’t recognise Ono or Lennon. He bent down and turned Lennon over and saw the nature of his wounds. Palma knew immediately that the man needed surgery. ‘We better get him out of here’ Palma snapped. Ayoob then described Palma holding the man under his arms and Frauenberger taking his feet, as they rushed outside. Years later, both officers would invent the story of Frauenberger feeling a faint pulse on John, to almost certainly cover their rash actions in moving him. Jay Hastings is not mentioned.

Ayoob then describes Frauenberger and Palma placing John ‘on his right side‘ on the back seat of officer Moran and Gamble’s patrol car. Moran heard someone yell that it was John Lennon. As Moran’s car sped to the hospital, Ayoob then described Moran looking at the man sprawled in his back seat. Nearly ten minutes after being shot with four bullets shot closely around his heart, Ayoob described the man’s eyes being open and his expression ‘slack and vague’. Moran apparently knew ‘the man was already going into the twilight’. Are you John Lennon? Moran asked. Ayoob described what John did next - ‘the man seemed to nod and said something that sounded like a yeah’. By the time Ayoob wrote this piece, Officer Moran had already spoken to the journalist Jimmy Breslin and told him his ‘I heard John Lennon’s last words’ bullshit story. Breslin bought it and printed it. Why wouldn’t Ayoob? Days later Officer Gamble would weigh in with his own personal ‘I spoke to John’ bullshit story. It was a very convenient lie. Not only did it give Moran and Gamble a few minutes of global fame, it also covered for the rash actions of the officers who moved John. A win win all round. Years later, it would be revealed that Moran and Gamble’s colleagues were embarrassed by the talking John story, recalling that the man that two of their colleagues carried out of the Dakota, was very much dead and talking to nobody. Ayoob had printed a blatant lie. More was to follow.

Ayoob switched over to Frauenberger and Palma’s car. Palma apparently still didn’t know that one of the world’s most famous women was Yoko Ono. He asked the woman what had happened. The woman told him she had heard someone call to her husband – ‘John!’. Then came the sounds that she thought were backfires. They were already inside the door when she heard him say, “I’m shot” and he then ran to the inner office where he collapsed.

The Chapman calling out to Lennon myth was quickly established on the night of the murder by Chief of Detectives, James Sullivan. In all of the statements that Ono gave to Detective Hoffman and the NYPD, she never mentioned it. Chapman never mentioned it. In all the subsequent media interviews that Palma and Frauenberger gave, neither mentioned Ono talking to them. They both specifically told me that Ono said nothing to them. Did both officers lie to Ayoob about this or was Ayoob getting his erroneous ‘calling out’ information from somewhere else? Ono did once mention to Hoffman that she heard a bang that she thought was a tyre. She also mentioned a couple of times that John made it inside the vestibule door before declaring he had been hit. Ayoob probably got some of this information from Ron Hoffman’s notes. The calling out ‘John’ claim was probably taken from Sullivan’s press conference assertions.

Back at the Dakota, Blake and Leimgruber asked the doorman what had happened to the gun. They were told that an employee had kicked the fallen revolver into a service elevator and brought it downstairs. Officer Blake retrieved the gun from the room where the ‘nervous’ employee (Joe Many) had placed it for safekeeping. Blake apparently broke the gun open and saw that all the rounds had been fired. If true, fingerprints were now a problem. Blake and Leimgruber then rounded up witnesses to be brought to the station.

Back at the Roosevelt Hospital, Palma allegedly leant Ono some dimes so she could make a phone call, apparently still none the wiser who she was. Lynn then told Ono the news her husband had died and Palma witnessed ‘hysteria rising’ as Ono screamed “Tell me it’s not true, tell me it’s not him”. Ono and Nurse Kammerer have both subsequently quashed the screaming Ono story.

Ayood then explained how Palma and Frauenberger “spirited’ Yoko and a ‘close friend’ (David Geffen) away from the hospital in their waiting blue and white sedan to the Dakota. Exiting the Roosevelt, they apparently pulled out of the jammed parking lot unnoticed. Back at the Dakota, Palma drove his car to the rear of the Dakota, bringing ‘Yoko home to her son’.

It has been made very clear by everyone involved that night, that Geffen drove Ono home to the Dakota in his chauffeured car. Palma and Frauenberger have never said they did this. So, the key question is this, are Palma and Frauenberger lying to Ayood, or is Ayood making stuff up to make the 20^th precinct cops look good? I strongly suspect the latter, as Ayood then goes on to say – ‘she said nothing as she got out of the car. She knew that there are times when “thank you” is unnecessary’. Ayood continued with the pathos and dramatic prose: ‘Officers Palma and Frauenberger watched her as she disappeared. They glanced wordlessly at each other as the cold December wind whipped around the radio car’.

This touching scene never happened and the officers involved never said it did. All that’s missing is the ‘Hill Street Blues’ theme tune.

Ayood had more pathos to wring out back at the 20^th precinct. In a final dramatic flourish, he explained how Officer Cullen, was ‘a hardened New York Police Officer who was mourning in his own way, for the man who had cared enough to want to protect police officers from the violence of the city’s streets, and who had been claimed by it, himself, that night’.

After wading through the bad writing and sycophantic tone of this newsletter article, the main take-way is that the NYPD of December 1980, were not interested in reporting on true facts regarding the conduct and actions of their men. Loose accounts and blatant lies were reported as truth just days after the murder. In this regard, Ayood was only kicking off what the rest of the mainstream media and bad actors such as Jim Gaines (Council of Foreign Relations) and Jack Jones (Navy Intelligence) would continue for decades to come.

The other main take-way is the deliberate erasing of Officer Leimgruber and to a lesser extent Officer Blake, from the official narrative. The two officers that were dealing with Dakota witnesses, were wholly erased from the narrative. This smells of a deliberate NYPD and media cover-up.

The bottom image of Officers Palma and Cullen was released to the media. I’ve seen it many times.

But the original newsletter image below, also contains Officer Leimgruber (far left) and Officer Moran. Somebody clearly wanted to erase Leimgruber from the visual narrative.

The New York Post in the foreground is from 12^th December 1980. Four days after the assassination, it appears that the 20th precinct had hired a photographer to record the officers involved. This may have been the multi-skilled Ayood.

The murder souvenir photography reached its zenith in another image from the Dakota published in the Newsletter. This one has Officer Moran and Palma posing next to the Dakota vestibule doors. It is likely this was also taken on 12^th December 1980 as well. The bullet-holed glass has been replaced. This is the clearest and therefore most valuable image we have of the vestibule structure at the Dakota from the time John was assassinated. The stairs that John allegedly ran up and the mahogany doors he allegedly pulled open and ran through, can be seen clearly for the first time.

Joe Many told me that the whole vestibule structure was thrown into the basement very shortly after the murder. He then told me that over the coming weeks, the windows and the handles were taken away by persons unknown. This image strongly indicates that Joe Many was not telling the truth. It now appears that a few days after the murder, the bullet riddled glass windows of the vestibule doors were replaced. Ron Hoffman told me that they never took the vestibule glass into evidence. In a recent car crash interview I had with Assistant DA Kim Hogrefe (article coming soon), regarding taking the glass as evidence, Hogrefe told me – ‘I don’t recall that I did’. That is legal speak for no, we didn’t bother.

The total lack of interest in securing and analysing the vestibule glass door panels by the DA’s office and NYPD, proves unequivocally to me that they were shamefully not seeking to investigate John Lennon’s assassination with the kind of care and thoroughness that the case deserved. The bullet riddled glass could have told a forensic expert much about who shot John and where they were positioned. It was crucial evidence that was deliberately overlooked and ignored.

Officer Blake is now dead but It is possible that Officer Leimgruber is still alive and will one day be tracked down so he can tell his story. As for the vestibule glass panels, perhaps a New York glazier kept them as a souvenir. In her ghoulish 2020 bullet-riddled glass panel art installation, Yoko inscribed the following in one of her bullet hole ‘art’ pieces:

“Go to the other side of the glass and see through the hole”.

Just a few days after her husband’s murder, someone ensured no one could ever do that with the shattered vestibule glass panels that witnessed and bore the scars of her husband’s assassination.

John, his family and his millions of fans deserved better.

A special thank you to Daniel for bringing this newsletter to my attention.