Crown's Law Read Online Free PDF

true. The details—undocumented ones—varied depending upon
to whom you spoke.
    Sam Crown was in a chopper heading to base
camp—he had been on a solo foray in the north—when the chopper
pilot heard over the radio that Lt. Manley’s platoon had taken to
the field without Crown, their normal point man. Manley had gotten
annoyed when Crown didn’t show up on schedule and ordered his
platoon to move out with Corporal Gerard on point. Sgt. Collins
advised him to wait for Crown, but Manley was adamant. He wasn’t
going to let the arrogant Corporal Crown run his platoon!
    When Crown was advised that Manley was
already on the march, he asked the pilot to change course and find
them. He would join them in the field. When they finally found the
platoon, they also found a large group of Viet Cong lying in wait
for them.
    What happened next was related by the chopper
pilot and the sergeant on the starboard machine gun. Corporal Sam
Crown never gave a clear statement about the incident. According to
the chopper crew, when they discovered the impending ambush, they
tried to raise Manley’s platoon on the radio without success. That
was when Corporal Crown asked the pilot to put him down about a
half mile from the VC group. He told them that he would cause a
disturbance that would warn the platoon. That he did.
    When Lt. Manley heard the automatic weapons
fire, he eased his platoon slowly forward towards the noise. When
he went off radio silence, he heard the chopper pilot still trying
to raise him. Crazy Crown was in the middle of a fire-fight with 30
or 40 VC and needed help. The chopper was trying to help him with
their machine gun, but when they took heavy ground fire, they had
to pull away.
    At that point, Manley ordered his platoon
forward with all haste. When they arrived at the clearing where the
fight was underway, they found Corporal Crown on his knees spraying
the area with an enemy’s AK-47. Bodies were everywhere. Manley’s
platoon finished off the remaining VCs and Manley rushed to
Corporal Crown and took the AK-47 from his bloody hands. He had
been shot several times.
    “Medic!” yelled Lt. Manley. Then to himself,
“Crazy son-of-a-bitch!”
    Then he whispered, “Thank you.”
    ***
    Sam Crown received his honorable discharge in
August 1973 and went home to Capistrano Beach, a Medal of Honor in
his duffel. To please his mother—he had disappointed her very much
when he had enlisted in the Marines—Sam enrolled at UCI with a
Criminal Justice major. He wanted to be a cop someday. It was a way
to stay close to guns and to battle evil. That’s all he knew.
    ***
    He got his degree in 1977 and
immediately went to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s
academy. Four years later he was in homicide. His tumultuous law
enforcement career ended in 1995 with the shooting of Irene
Culvert’s husband. That was when he joined Investigations International (II), a much
respected investigations and security firm based in L.A., as a
private investigator and bodyguard specialist. In spite of his long
years as a cop, they sent him through their standard training
course where he learned the company’s policies—and more
importantly—he became an expert in advanced surveillance equipment
and techniques.
    As part of his employment contract, he
got II to open a pro bono
office in Santa Ana where he could do investigations for the locals
at 1940 prices—or in needy cases, free. This office did business
as Mickey Malone
Investigations . This allowed Sam to be close to
Capistrano Beach—where his aging parents lived—several days per
month. He wasn’t about to live anywhere except Orange County—never
far from “his” beach.
    Investigations
International did not want to use their widely-known
name on the pro bono office since they wanted to maintain their
ability to demand top rates in offices bearing their name. This
suited Sam just fine. He thought the average person’s image of a
P.I. was Bogart in the