<\/a><\/p>\nPowell, 75, received the death penalty for the crime. However, the
\nsentence was later commuted to life in prison with the possibility
\nparole when California briefly outlawed capital punishment.<\/p>\n
In
\na letter to state corrections officials, L.A. police union
\nPresident Paul Weber urged the board to deny parole, calling Powell a
\n"vicious murderer who has not yet paid his debt to society." <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Weber insists that Powell should be forced to serve the maximum sentence and recounts details of the crime in his letter.
<\/br>
<\/br>Campbell and his partner, Karl Hettinger, had stopped a car carrying
\nPowell and accomplice Jimmy Lee Smith as they searched for a liquor
\nstore to rob. During the stop, Powell pulled a gun, stuck it in
\nCampbell\u2019s back, disarmed the officer and forced Hettinger to give up
\nhis weapon too. Then they drove north.
<\/br>
<\/br>\u201cNear Bakersfield, Powell
\nspotted a gravel road and ordered Campbell to pull off the freeway,"
\nWeber wrote. \u201cAfter crossing a series of dirt roads, Officers Campbell
\nand Hettinger were ordered out of the car into a vast field, where they
\nstood still with their arms in the air. Then Powell asked Campbell,
\n\u2018Have you ever heard of the Little Lindbergh Law?\u2019 and shot him.\u201d
<\/br>
<\/br>Hettinger
\nbegan running through the field and escaped as Powell fired at him. As
\nluck would have it, a cloud blotted out the moon, allowing the fleeing
\nofficer to take cover in bushes before he ran four miles to a farmhouse
\nand summoned help.
<\/br>
<\/br>Powell was captured a short time later
\ndriving back to Los Angeles. Smith was arrested the next day in a
\nBakersfield rooming house. He died in 2007.
<\/br><\/p>\n
Powell’s question
\nabout the Little Lindbergh Law revealed the basis for the killing.
\nPowell believed, mistakenly, that the law made it a capital offense to
\nkidnap the officers. <\/p>\n
— Andrew Blankstein<\/p>\n
RELATED:<\/strong><\/p>\nJoseph Wambaugh on the ‘Onion Field’<\/a> <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A state parole board today will decide whether to recommend releasing the gunman in the infamous "Onion Field" police killing. Law enforcement officials and organizations — including the LAPD police union and Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley — have come out against parole for Gregory Powell. Powell was convicted of the March 1963 kidnapping and execution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4131,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}