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order before continuing. "It says here that there has to have been an Oriental present at the time of the offense in order for this to be a valid charge. Was there an Oriental present when this defendant was arrested, Mister Prosecutor?" The courtroom began to convulse, and even the judge seemed to think that it was mildly amusing for he pointed out that "no one has been arrested or charged with this crime, since the year 1891."

When order was restored to the court, Butch Hallinan began the defense argument by shouting that the cops and the D.A.'s office were harassing Grogan and conspiring to violate his rights guaranteed under the Constitution. He was getting a bit carried away but the judge calmed the proceedings by asking him to approach the bench with the prosecutor. Emmett's P.O. joined the huddle and his honor accepted the prosecution's advice and dismissed all the charges against the defendant. The tremendous deluge of unfavorable publicity that was bound to stem from the opium den charge, the prosecutor felt, would surely lead to other charges that the police had infringed upon the rights of the defendant and so forth. These claims would probably be accompanied by an outcry of "frame" and it all wasn't worth it, as far as the assistant district attorney could see.

Emmett was impressed because they even dropped the charge of assaulting a police officer, and after a brief chat with his P.O. he was cut loose. Several reporters from both the establishment and underground media tried to interview him when he was released from the city prison. Their persistence finally forced him to break the story in the press so they would all quit trying to scoop an exclusive out of him. He did it by contacting a radical weekly that had just begun publishing and wasn't going to last very long--The Sunday Rarnparts. The newspapers were apparently hot about his story because of the mutiny angle and he was careful to emphasize that part in the short interview he telephoned into Ramparts. He said the lieutenant "seemed to be getting on in years and his men showed him nothing but an incredible disrespect. He lost charge wllen his subordinates pushed him to the ground out of their way and actually ran over him in their absurd, uncontrollable and childish anger with me for having accidentally knocked off one of the patrolmen's hats. It was sad and certainly disgraceful for the bystanders to witness how a bunch of grown police officers disregarded their lieutenant and commander in charge, tossing him aside as if he was a piece of trash or something." The story broke under headlines on the [end page 273]