Haven City War Stories

[CyranoDeBergerac]

Haven City Stories
Episode 1: In Fair Verona
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Opening Narration (Alexandra Chapelle): Haven City, home to close to 500,000 people. Today it's famous for it's professional baseball team, it's successful urban renewal programs, and being an economic hub handling over 13 million tons of cargo every year. Thirty years ago it had a larger claim to infamy, being home to one of the longest and bloodiest gang wars in US history. At it's height the Haven City War was claiming a life every third day on the Streets of Haven City and the population of the city was fleeing to safer pastures. From 89 to 2004 criminal organizations all but owned the streets of Haven City. Now, almost twenty years since the end of the War, Vyce News has teamed up with the History Channel to send me, Alexandra Chapelle, onto the Streets of Haven City to talk to the veterans and survivors of the Pacific Northwest's deadliest gang war in order to discover the true history of Haven City.

Accompanying the narration and opening credits is helicopter footage of Haven City in the present including cars speeding through Route 91, the Jumper's stadium, and along the coast of the Hook where waves are crashing against the rocks and the Cape Blanco lighthouse is standing tall. The opening credits include scenes of stock footage and historical footage from the time of the War. A close up of the sign for 13th and Water Street, abandoned buildings with gang tags graffitied on the front; helicopter footage in black and white of a gun fight playing out on Route 91; Di Capri family consigliere pushing through a crowd after being indicted; as well as images of various gang members throwing gang signs or being carried away in body bags.

Alexandra Chapelle (narrating): I'm Alexandra Chapelle, sociologist and correspondent for Vyce News. I have covered stories on violence all over the world, from the streets of Mexico City to the valleys of Kandahar and everything in-between. My latest journey takes me to somewhere a bit closer to home. Haven City, Jefferson is five hundred miles from my hometown of Sacramento, California but in many ways it's a world away. When I was growing up the city gave Chicago and Las Angeles competition on the evening news for most dangerous city in the country. If I want to find the true history of the Haven City War then I need to walk the streets where the blood was spilled and the money was made. And I start my search with someone who was there when it all began. William Rawlings, called 'Wild Bill' by the newspapers, is currently Chief of Police of the Haven City Police Department, but for the majority of the 90's he was the Major in charge of HCPD's Violent Crimes Unit, especially overseeing the Homicide Detectives who had the job of cleaning up after the city's gangsters. With over fifty years on the force Wild Bill has possibly the most experiencing and perspective on violent crime in Haven City.

Scene shifts to Alexandra in front of the police headquarters, before moving to her in Chief of Police Rawlings' office; a corner office with windows facing Main Street and the port, Rawlings is a spartan man with few accoutrements in his office. His desk, two chairs, a single painting on the wall and several accolades. His desk is kept in a neat, crisp fashion. A picture of his family, a stack of papers, a phone and a work calendar being the only objects on display.

Alexandra: I want to start off by thanking you for meeting with me Colonel Rawlings; I'm sure your perspective of the War will be enlightening.

Rawlings: It's my pleasure Ms. Chapelle.I saw that series you did on the poppy fields over in Afghanistan. Takes some real balls for a woman like you to go head to head with the Taliban like that. Wish I had a few more officers as gutsy as you on the force.

Alexandra: Thank you, Bill. shuffles through notes Your file shows that you joined the HCPD in 1970 as a beat cop. You must have seen a lot of violence over the course of your career. What exactly made the turn of the millennium so much different from any other time?

Rawlings: That's a really good question Ms. Chapelle, and I think it gets at the heart of what you're trying to talk about in this documentary. If I had to describe what was going on here at the turn of the century with a single word it would be: anomalous. There was absolutely no way that HCPD could have seen what was coming or stopped it. If you go back and look at the history of Haven City, and I'm sure you'll find this holds true in just about any major city across the planet, you'll find that there were two major indicators of an increase in violence in a decade. The first was a new kind of product hitting the streets. The second is new populations mixing in with old ones. Pushing some of the old ones out and using violence to settle their place in it all. You can see this in the 1920's with Prohibition. You have guys like Cel the Tourist, the Fenians, the Hong Triads and White Russian and Czech refuggees all trying to get a piece of that liquor money and settle in here in Haven City. And you have the violence that came with it. Celestino was bringing in shiploads of liquor from Vancouver a month and all of it was pirated from other rum runners. Then Prohibition ends and things cool off a little in the 30's and the 40's. The war ends in '46 and you have the French Connection opening up and suddenly you've got Wise Guys and Hatchetmen murdering each other for control of the docks they can bring heroin in through. That cools off and gets settled, and you've got Los Vagos coming back from 'nam and setting up their cocaine pipeline with the Colombians and Nicaraguans. Things get hot ifor a little bit and then '72 everything settles down. You see a bit more trouble in the 80's when they start turning it into crack, but since the Russian's have their grip on the heroin trade in Pinesend that doesn't turn into anything in ridiculous. So you see patterns.

Alexandra: So how does the War buck the pattern, Colonel?

Rawlings: Looking at history the War should've start in '83 or '84 when crack cocaine arrived in Haven City. But since the only ones dealing crack were the Latinos, and none of the big players had a connect with the cartels all we see from crack is a few minor beefs. The type of stuff you see in any bigger city. A few crews in Los Vagos settled some beefs with non-Vagos crews, and a few enterprising young men in Pinesend started to deal until one showed up missing a head and they all learned pretty quick to toe the Bratva party line. The people who started off the fighting were all dealing heroin, they just disagreed on who could sell which brand where. As well as some other business disagreements. And there wasn't really any new groups immigrating to Haven City during this time, if anything we had more people emigrating that immigrating. So none of those pressures existed either.

Alexandra: Before we get into how it started, do you think you could run down on who the principle players were?

Rawlings: Certainly. It breaks down fairly simply on racial and ethnic lines. At the start of the war you have the Di Capri Family and the Hong Triad both of whom want to move their heroin in through the ports. In '89 the Triad pretty damn well controlled most of the shipping getting processed at the main port, while the Bratva had solid control of the Boneway wharfs. Di Capri's had a few wharfs here and there, but for the most part they were spending money to fly their junk in, which was making it more expensive, harder for their product to compete on the open market against what The Triads and the Bratva could bring in by boat. Now both the Triad and the Bratva had an advantage over La Cosa Nostra because they had street level distributors. Bratva had the 91'er's in Pinesend and the Triad had the No Label Gang and a few other small-time Asian gangs in Chinatown and thereabouts. LCN had enough guns for both of them, but didn't fully have the distribution. On the Southside you also had the Cartels backing Los Vagos. When they saw that Chinatown and everything north of Route 91 was in disarray they made their move to expand on their real estate. Throw in a few out of towners and other groups also trying to make their play and you end up with all of the chaos we were dealing with for over a decade.

Alexandra: So where did it start?

Rawlings: The first bodies we make as for sure connected to the War come from '89. Some poor SOBs from Harbor Patrol drew the midnight shift. Supposed to be looking to make sure that no smugglers were sneaking in or out. Tiring, bone draining, thankless work. And they catch two bodies to throw more paperwork on that fire. As they're crossing the harbor to head back in and get out of the wind and rain one of the able Seamen spots two objects floating in the water. Thinking it's drugs being floated in they pull up, and instead find two floaters. Midnight shift at the homicide desk meets them at the dock for when they pull the bodies out. And damned if they don't call me immediately and wake my ass up when they see what they've caught.

Alexandra: The bodies were special enough to wake up a Major?

Rawlings: Oh you bet they were. Detectives wanted to make sure their asses were covered and that I didn't find out watching the morning news with my coffee. I get there and they had the whole crime lab set up to document the bodies. At the scene we figured that they had been in the water nearly a month going off the decomp. Both Asian males, mid-twenties to mid-forties. Both of them were missing their feet at the ankles, likely decomposed when the gases that carried the bodies up and the cinderblocks held the feet down. Victim number one had his hands cuffed behind him; but victim number two just had the cuffs connected to his right hand, left hand was no where to be found. That, plus the .45 caliber hole in victim one's head, leads us to believe that victim number one was executed and his body was tossed into the water- but they didn't waste a bullet on victim number two and tossed him in alive.

Alexandra: Things were already this grisly at the start of the war?

Rawlings: Oh, this was just business as usual for the Al Capone-wannabes we call wise guys here in Haven City. The stuff the Bratva and the Cartels started pulling by the end of it. shrugs and gives a 'what can you do?' grin What did you say the show was rated again?

Alexandra: So what makes you think that the killers were wise guys?

Rawlings: IDs on both of the bodies eventually came back to Triad men who were set to watch certain docks in January. Low totem pole guys who drew a shit shift. Just like the mopes who found them. But we know that LCN wanted those docks, wanted to be able to move more product through the port and avoid all of the hassles that end up arising when you're spending time flying and driving product in.The Di Capri Family was going through a bit of a transition period at this time. The old boss, who we figure to be Giacomo Di Capri, was coming up during the 50's when the Triad and the Mafia had their first fight over heroin. Di Capri wanted the ports then too but couldn't quite take them. So, as far as old Giacomo was concerned, that score was settled. The new guy though, he's young, ambitious, got a fire in his crotch and wants to dress his mistresses in diamonds. So he figures that it's time to strike. We eventually got up on some CI's who were able to tell us that the Boss had sent some guys down to the Triad's headquarters to negotiate a new arrangment for the ports, but negotiations fell through, so a few mafioso went down to the docks the next day and started ordering people around. Since these two guys were already underwater, there wasn't anyone there to tell them anything else.

Alexandra: So this whole big war, that eventually sprawls out everywhere and costs over a thousand lives, it all gets started over a few docks and a little bit of money?

Rawlings: It's money that makes the world go round right?

Chief of Police William 'Wild Bill' Rawlings.

Alexandra Chapelle