The Ambush Murders

by Ben Bradlee Jr.

Non-Fiction

Genres: True Crime

Mass Market Paperback

First published February 1, 1982

About the author

Ben Bradlee, Jr., spent 25 years at the Boston Globe as a reporter and editor, overseeing as deputy managing editor, among many critically acclaimed stories, the Globe's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Bradlee has three children. He and his wife Janice live outside Boston.

Son of Ben Bradlee.

Reviews

[patrick Lorelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a true crime story from 1971 in Riverside CA. I came across this book mainly because in the middle part of the 70s I was going to high school in Riverside I was not even aware of this or of the trials that took place. The first sad part is that two police officers were gunned downed. They were called to a home for burglary call and when they got out of the car each officer was shot by a shot gun blasts multiple times. The officer named Teel, never even got his gun out and was dead before he hit the ground. The second officer named Christiansen was able to draw his weapon fire three shots and get on the radio for help. Before he was put in the ambulance he said he say three people running away. Now comes the difficult part. Riverside police dept. had not had any officer or officers killed since the forties. Now began the investigation. They set up a task force and brought in an ada. This all sounds good but after a couple of weeks there really was not any leads and then a name come up and the investigators just stuck on that name and tried to put him at the crime scene any way possible. When they got a tip from someone who said that one of or two of the shooters might have been light skinned they said no because the person was a teenager. Someone else of the same age would come in and say they thought they say three or four men running who were dark skin they would take that information. When they finally started putting everything together they arrested 3 men. Two for the killing the third for making the phone call. Three trails and over 1 million dollars later no one was convicted. The one man was actually tired three times and on the last one the jury found him not guilty. There were many problems with this whole investigation, mainly focusing only on one person and trying to make the evidence fit him and the D.A.s office changing attorneys three so there was no consistency and pressure to make an arrest. Now forty years later I did find out that because of this some things were changed like not parking in the drive way and the dispatcher calling back the number for a call in for a burglary. So some things did change. A well written book but I don’t know if you can find it in a book store.

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This early 1970s crime investigation with civil rights overtones in Riverside, Calif., has been largely forgotten in the region. Bradlee Jr., who helped cover the trials as a young reporter, interviewed nearly 150 people and drew from transcripts and police reports for his first book. This deep dive, 503 pages long, is a sort of public record of the case. Five decades on, following along as witnesses change their stories, sometimes multiple times, one can lose patience with this level of detail. Yet we also marvel at how objective reality at times is bent by the law to fit its chosen suspects.

[SouthWestZippy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best true crime book I have read but not the worst. Ok book.