Educator Dies in Apparent Robbery

Tears and sadness marked the start of the day at Earl Warren High School in Downey on Tuesday as faculty and students mourned the death of a popular vice principal shot in his home during an apparent robbery.

“The kids loved him, the staff loved him. It’s a huge tragedy for the school,” Assistant Principal Phil Davis said of George Blackwell, 46. “He’ll be greatly missed.”

A Warren vice principal for eight years and a Downey elementary school principal before that, Blackwell was found mortally wounded in his Long Beach home shortly after neighbors heard a series of shots Monday evening.

Acting on descriptions of a man seen calmly walking away from Blackwell’s Bluff Park home, Long Beach police soon arrested Gilbert Rubio, 36, of Los Angeles, a parolee with a long arrest record who has been in and out of prison for the past decade.

Rubio was most recently released from state prison in November 1996 after serving three years for the sale and possession of cocaine, according to the state Department of Corrections.

He was booked on suspicion of murder and is scheduled to be arraigned today in Long Beach Municipal Court.

“Detectives believe robbery was the motive for the crime,” said Long Beach police spokesman Cpl. Harry Erickson, adding that Blackwell’s hands were bound with tape. “[Blackwell] may have broken free and attempted to stop him or escape when he was shot.”

Officer J. P. Morgan had stopped on Ocean Avenue to talk to a possible witness when Rubio emerged from bushes a half-block away and jogged across the street, Erickson said. Morgan pursued Rubio and arrested him at gunpoint. A semiautomatic handgun was found in nearby shrubs.

One of Blackwell’s neighbors, who did not want to be identified, said she was on the phone when she heard gunfire.

“The next thing I knew my daughter was at the door saying, ‘Mom, it’s George. He’s been shot,’ ” said the woman, whose two teenage children had run to Blackwell’s 12th Place house right after the gun blasts. The woman grabbed a towel and raced across the street into Blackwell’s home.

“His eyes were open, but it was like he wasn’t in his body. His chest was filling up with blood,” she said. “I just kept holding the towel on this big hole in his chest. His shirt was burnt around the hole. I told him his body had been shot and the paramedics were on the way. Right before the police came in, he took one horrible, last, gasping breath.”

Blackwell had planned to have dinner with some colleagues from Warren High on Monday night. When he didn’t show up, one of them went to his home and found that police had cordoned off the house. Davis was alerted, and he and other Warren administrators spent the next several hours phoning school staff members at home to tell them what had happened.

“A big part of George’s life was Warren High School. And we were a big part of his family,” said Principal Earl Haugen, remembering how the faculty had gathered last year for their year-end party at Blackwell’s new house.

Blackwell, who started his education career more than 20 years ago as a teacher in Fountain Valley, handled discipline at the 2,800-student high school. But he went about his job as a counselor rather than as an authoritarian.

“It wasn’t just, ‘Here’s your punishment,’ ” Haugen said. “It was, ‘Let me help solve your problems. Why are you doing this?’ . . . George was a good guy. There’s no rhyme or reason to this.”

Davis said that while many in Blackwell’s position tend to distance themselves from a student’s problems at home, Blackwell would work closely with parents, attempting to sort things out.

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He looked for alternatives to suspending students when they ran afoul of school rules. And he would touch base with them when they weren’t in trouble. “He was a kind, compassionate man who tried his best to help kids,” Davis said. “Everybody knew George and loved him.”

Classes went on at Warren’s 1950s-style suburban campus Tuesday. But crisis counselors were on hand, television trucks were parked on the sidewalk and educators from other schools called and stopped by to offer condolences. Just before lunch, an assistant principal and some student leaders from Dominguez High School in Compton arrived with a floral arrangement.

The mood was equally somber in Blackwell’s neighborhood, where several residents said they heard the shots about 5:20 p.m. Monday and looked out to see a burly man walking away from Blackwell’s home.

“He looked like a big biker, arms all buffed up and tattoos,” said the neighbor who tended Blackwell. “He didn’t look like anyone George would associate with.”

Like many who live on the short street, which dead-ends at a bluff overlooking the beach with the Queen Mary in the distance, Roger Fretwell called Blackwell an excellent neighbor. “He was a delight and he will be missed,” Fretwell said.

Lonal McKnight, a Long Beach electrician who had done a number of jobs at Blackwell’s immaculately kept New England-style house, said he was at home when he heard reports that a black man had been murdered on 12th Place.

“I got this sick feeling because I knew Mr. Blackwell was the only black man on this street,” said McKnight as he placed a bouquet of flowers on the driveway of the slain educator.

McKnight recalled how Blackwell would play various tapes while he worked because he knew the electrician liked jazz. “He’d put on some George Howard, or Earl Klugh or some Coltrane. He was the best, nicest customer I ever had.”

A month ago, after Blackwell had a hot tub installed in his small backyard, McKnight noticed an electrical outlet that was too close.

“I told him I’m going to have to move that outlet or I’d be going to his funeral,” said McKnight, as he laughed sadly. “I was only teasing him, you know. Now, I guess, I am going to be going to his funeral.”

A short while later, Blackwell’s older half brother Morris Stapler arrived with his son.

“I just talked to Skipper the other day,” Stapler said, using the nickname their mother had given Blackwell when he was 5 years old. “Who would want to murder Skipper?”