1973 New Orleans Tower Sniper--Was it a Black Op?

[Rolf Zaeschmar]

There are many who remember the 1966 UofTexas/Austin tower sniper, but who today remembers the New Orleans hotel tower sniper of 1973? Like so many others, this one was eventually blamed on a deranged lone nut, though the evidence shows it was anything but.



12-31-72 and 1-7-73 New Orleans/HowardJohnsons Tower Sniper Mark James Essex, 23



On Sunday, January 7, 1973, at about 10:15 a.m. a black militant named Mark Essex shot and wounded a white grocer in the black ghetto of Gert Town. He then carjacked a vehicle, drove to the fourth floor of a seven floor parking garage at the downtown New Orleans location of a Howard Johnson motel, and then began a 28-hour murder and arson rampage in the nine residential floors above the parking floors. He killed seven people and wounded at least six more both on the ground and inside the building before he was shot to death on the roof by police snipers.





The sniper had begun his rampage a week before, in the last hours of the old year, when he shot two police officers near the entry port of the city jail/police headquarters building in the downtown area. One was killed and the second lightly wounded, the shots fired from an open field across from the building with the suspect's Ruger .44-caliber Magnum carbine. A half hour later and a half mile from the first site, the gunman shot and killed another police officer who was responding to a silent alarm at a warehouse, who was not aware of the previous shooting. The killer would then pop up again seven days later at the HoJos to resume the rampage.


Victims:

12-31-73
NOPD training officer Alfred Harrel, 19 (killed)
NOPD Lt. Horace Perez (wounded)

NOPD Ed Hosli, 27 (succumbed to his wounds two weeks later)


12-7-73
Joseph Perniciaro, Gert Town grocer (wounded)

Robert Stegall, 27 hotel guest (killed)
Betty Joe Stegall, hotel guest (killed)
Frank Schneider, hotel manager (killed)
Walter Collins, hotel general manager (killed)
NOFD (Fire Dept) Tim Ursin (wounded)
NOPD Charles Arnold (wounded)
Robert Beamish, 43, hotel guest (wounded)
NOPD Ken Solis, 26 (wounded)
NOPD Emanuel Palmisano (Wounded)
NOPD Philip Coleman (killed)
NOPD Paul Persigo (killed)
Ambulance attendant Chris Caton (wounded)
NOPD Assistant Chief Louis Sirgo (killed)
Unknown Civil Defense employee (wounded)
NOPD Larry Arthur (wounded)

12-8-73
NOPD Sgt Fred O'Sullivan (wounded by friendly fire)
NOPD Sgt Robert Buras (wounded by friendly fire)

NOPD L.J. Delsa (wounded by friendly fire)
NOPD Dan Dunn (wounded by friendly fire)
NOPD Guy LeBlanc (wounded by friendly fire)
+six other NOPD officers less seriously wounded

After the killing at the warehouse on New Year's Eve, police waited until daylight to attempt to track the movement of the gunman. It was not difficult:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_mu...sex/5.html
The ammunition outside the window was the start of a trail of bullets. By the end of that Monday morning, January 1, the police picked up a total of 10 unfired cartridges. The path led straight into the heart of Gert Town.
As they followed the track of .44-caliber bullets, several police officers and detectives began to suspect that the shooter had not dropped the ammunition accidentally. Many believed that the bullets had not been dropped at all, but had been laid down so that the police could find them and follow them.
Writer Peter Hernon quotes NOPD detective Emmett Dupas, who said, "It was clear that it was a trap, that we were being set up. The bullets were always in pairs and always pointed in the same direction."
In describing the way the bullets were left, one detective says, "They were placed there. I think he was waiting for us in the church."

The trail ended at a small church in Gert Town(a nearby black ghetto), where police believed they had the multiple cop-killer surrounded (later evidence proved he was indeed inside the church).

And then something happened that is probably unique in the annals of American law enforcement:

Chief of Police Clarence Giarusso ordered his officers out of the area. Allegedly the chief was worried about the civil rights of the neighborhood's inhabitants:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_mu...sex/5.html
Throughout the morning, the chief had received several complaints from Gert Town residents about the tactics the police were using to search for the killer. Doors had been kicked open and houses searched. The chief feared the officers would further alienate the already antagonistic neighborhood.


Chief Giarusso

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After the crime scene at the motel was secured, it was discovered that victims were shot, fires started, or gunmen spotted on the 8th, 10nth, 11nth, 16nth, 17nth, and 18nth floors. Could one gunman have moved so freely and quickly inside the massive structure?

Essex' life was ended about 9:30pm Sunday night, when he emerged from a concrete cubicle on the roof and was shot to death via hundreds of rounds from police on the surrounding skyscrapers and from a sniper team circling the roof aboard a Marine Corps Reserve CH-46 helicopter. But the death of the lone gunman did not end the siege. It would continue another 15 hours, fed along by numerous reports of more shooters and resulting in thousands of more rounds fired and dozens more helicopter sorties. And the number of wounded would continue to rise.




"The body of Mark Essex lies on the hotel roof. An autopsy revealed more than 200 gunshot wounds."