On August 10, 1977, 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz
was arrested and charged with being the “Son of Sam,” the serial
killer who terrorized New York City for more than a year, killing
six young people and wounding seven others with a .44-caliber
revolver. Because Berkowitz generally targeted attractive young
women with long brown hair, hundreds of young women had their
hair cut short and dyed blonde during the time he terrorized the
city. Thousands more simply stayed home at night.

After his arrest, Berkowitz claimed that demons and a black
Labrador retriever owned by a neighbor named Sam had
ordered him to commit the killings. 

David Richard Berkowitz (born Richard David Falco)
Turned 70 June 1st.

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens
(September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980)

On this day at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, African American track
star Jesse  Owens won his fourth gold medal of the Games in
the 4×100-meter relay. His relay team set a new world record of
39.8 seconds, which held for 20 years. In their strong showing in
track-and-field events at the XIth Olympiad, Jesse Owens and
other African American athletes struck a propaganda blow
against Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who planned to use the Berlin
Games as a showcase of supposed Aryan superiority.

Owens with Adolf Hitler.

One of Jesse Owens’ four gold medals won at the 1936
Olympics in Berlin.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has ordered
all flags at Oregon public institutions to be flown at half-staff
until sunset on August 10 to honor firefighter Benjamin Charles
Sapper (21), who died in the line of duty on August 4.

Benjamin was a firefighter with the Rogue River-Siskiyou
National Forest Service.

Robert Swan, the veteran character actor who appeared in key
roles in the notable sports films Hoosiers, Rudy and The Babe, 
died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer at his home in
Rolling Prairie, Indiana.

Swan also portrayed a Canadian Mountie in Brian De Palma’s
The Untouchables (1987) and a bloodied deputy in Oliver
Stone’s Natural Born Killers (1994) and was other lawmen in
Who’s That Girl (1987) and Mo’ Money (1992).

Robert Swan in Natural Born Killers.

CAMILLE BOHANNON