Mafia boss John Gotti, who was nicknamed the “Teflon Don” after escaping unscathed from several trials during the 1980s, is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty on 14 accounts of conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering. Moments after his sentence was read in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, hundreds of Gotti’s supporters […]
Eddie Murray Sets Career RBI Record For A Switch Hitter
On June 6, 1992, New York Mets first baseman Eddie Murray drives in the 1,510th run of his career, and breaks Mickey Mantle’s record for career RBIs (runs batted in) by a switch hitter. Eddie Clarence Murray was born February 24, 1956, the eighth of 12 children, in Los Angeles, California. Murray’s parents had migrated […]
Long Island Lolita Is Arrested
Amy Fisher, the so-called “Long Island Lolita,” is arrested for shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco on the front porch of her Massapequa, New York, home. Fisher, only 17 at the time of the shooting, was having an affair with 38-year-old Joey Buttafuoco, Mary Jo’s husband. The tawdry story soon became a tabloid and talk-show fixture, the […]
Exxon Executive Is Murdered
xxon executive Sidney Reso dies in a storage vault in New Jersey. Four days earlier, he was abducted from the driveway of his Morris Township, New Jersey, home. Reso was shot in the arm, bound and gagged, and then placed in a wooden box that was hidden in a virtually airless storage space. Despite his […]
Riots Erupt In Los Angeles
In Los Angeles, California, four Los Angeles police officers that had been caught beating an unarmed African-American motorist in an amateur video are acquitted of any wrongdoing in the arrest. Hours after the verdicts were announced, outrage and protest turned to violence, as rioters in south-central Los Angeles blocked freeway traffic and beat motorists, wrecked […]
Rodney King Trial Verdict Announced
An jury of 10 whites, one Hispanic, and oneFilipinain the Los Angeles suburb of Simi Valley acquits four police officers who had been charged with using excessive force in arresting black motorist Rodney King a year earlier. The announcement of the verdict, which enraged the black community, prompted widespread rioting throughout much of the sprawling […]
Sewers Explode In Guadalajara
Dozens of sewer explosions in Guadalajara, Mexico, kill more than 200 people and damage 1,000 buildings on this day in 1992. The series of explosions was caused by a gas leak, the warning signs of which were ignored by the Mexican government and the national oil company. Three days prior to the explosions, the residents […]
Executions Resume In California
Robert Alton Harris is executed in California’s gas chamber after 13 years on death row. This was California’s first execution since former Chief Justice Rose Bird and two other state supreme court justices, Joseph Grodin and Cruz Reynoso, had been rejected by California voters. From 1979 to 1986, the Bird court had reversed 64 out […]