Hard to believe it’s been twenty years.
That means it’s been about twenty one years since my officers caught one of the family members shoplifting from Yosemite’s Village Store.
The Wesson family’s converted school bus had earlier been seen by us and Rangers. Of course, at the time of the shoplifting incident, we didn’t know they were with that old bus. It was a strange looking rig.
My staff knew how to handle shoplifting calls really well and I never had to worry. I was busy and monitored the radio traffic, so I didn’t respond to this one. I had trusted, experienced, and honorable officers plus an Assistant Chief there.
Not long after they stopped the suspect, I was informed the father was extremely irate and heading to our General Offices building to complain about the officers being racially motivated for the shoplifting stop. I knew there was no way that was true.
Turning to look across the street through my office window, I remember seeing Wesson briskly walking, more marching, toward the G.O. There, he found our Director of Retail and apparently laid into her pretty hard. She brought my then boss (B.C.) into the situation.
I have vivid of memories dealing with my then-boss when we were directed to ignore the concession contract requirement that we report the incident to NPS and let them leave with no action taken. Of course, our internal documentation was very detailed about all of the incident and disposition.
https://abc30.com/marcus-wesson-mass-murder-children-killed-convicted-murderer/14518182/
