When Justice Was a Mob and a Rope

Hardly a month goes by nowadays without a judge of Los Angeles County’s Superior Court imposing the law’s ultimate penalty on a convicted murderer. But midway through the last century, the current Civic Center was a place where such sentences were not only imposed, but also carried out.

Somewhere in the city block between the current Los Angeles criminal and federal courthouses stood a horse corral and lumberyard used as the “hangman’s gallows.” There, between about 1850 and 1870, 35 public executions took place, among them the hanging of Los Angeles’ most notorious 19th-century outlaw, Juan Flores.

His was a now-familiar L.A. story: He was a rich kid gone bad. But until he was finally captured and executed for his misdeeds, Flores was one lucky outlaw, evading arrest several times.

His day of reckoning came at 2 p.m. on Valentine’s Day in 1857. On wooden benches sat a crowd of 3,000 Angelenos--more than half the county’s population--watching 22-year-old Flores slowly strangle because the amateur hangman had bungled the job.

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Nine other members of Flores’ band of robbers were strung up from the heavy crossbeam over the gate at the Tomlinson and Griffith Corral & Lumberyard, while others went to prison. Only one 17-year-old member was released, because he came from a “good family.”

Every era, it seems, has its own notions of extenuating circumstances.

It was a time when the little pueblo known as the City of Angels had earned the nickname “Los Diablos”--the town of the devils--because of its culture of hair-trigger violence.

Racial tension increased as vigilante committees lynched mostly Mexican gunslingers, letting whites go free or allowing them to escape through transparent legal maneuvers. But the catalyst that brought the Mexican population to a near-boiling point was the acquittal of a deputy sheriff charged with killing a hard-working family man named Ruiz. The deputy shot Ruiz while attempting to repossess a guitar purchased on credit.

Into the tense situation that followed stepped the Los Angeles Rangers, the third vigilante group formed to deal with “Mexican bandits.” The group was made up of 23 prominent judges, lawyers and others, including Horace Bell, Phineas Banning, Judge Benjamin Hayes and Mayor Stephen Foster, who briefly resigned his office to join.

Pledging “law and order” for the good citizens of L.A., the Rangers shot first and argued later.

Unlike early fictional heroes such as Zorro or the Lone Ranger, these Rangers didn’t bother to wear masks. Those they took alive were given quick “justice” in the courtroom before being rushed to the nearby gallows.

Although the Rangers did attempt to defuse public tensions by releasing several jailed Mexicans, relations between Latinos and whites deteriorated further when Flores hit town.

He was handsome and charismatic, the black sheep of a prominent Santa Barbara family who drifted into a life of crime at a tender age. A ruthless horse thief, he escaped from San Quentin with a seasoned convict named Pancho Daniel. While fleeing south, they formed a gang called Manillas--Handcuffs--made up of 50 fugitives, including former Angeleno Andres Fontes.

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Harboring a grudge, Fontes joined the gang on the promise that Flores would help him kill Los Angeles County Sheriff James R. Barton, who had earlier sent him to prison on a trumped-up charge.

With a price on their heads, the band hid out in the Crescenta Valley, which included some of the most rugged and remote canyons in the Angeles National Forest. From there, they preyed on the settlers below.

Robbing and terrorizing their way south to San Juan Capistrano, then part of Los Angeles County, Flores and his men shot and killed a storekeeper while looting the village.

Hot on the gang’s trail with a five-man posse, Barton, a carpenter turned lawman, stopped at the rancho of Don Jose Sepulveda, whose house stood at the head of Newport Bay. While the posse breakfasted, their guns were tampered with by a servant, Chola Martina, one of Flores’ many sweethearts.

When the lawmen reached a spot about 300 yards southwest of where the Laguna Freeway now crosses San Diego Creek, nearly 20 Manillas rode downhill, bushwhacking them. The posse’s guns were useless. Fontes shot Barton three times in the heart, once through the right eye and again through the arm. Three other lawmen also were killed, while two escaped.

(The gunfight’s site is commemorated today as Barton Mound, State Historical Landmark No. 218, which was erected in 1935.)

Fear rose when word of the “Barton Massacre” reached L.A. Hysterical citizens believed Flores and his cohorts were headed back to town “to murder white people.”

A 119-man posse formed, headed by Andres Pico and sworn to avenge the death of the popular sheriff.

Taken by surprise, Flores and 10 other desperadoes scrambled to the top of a 200-foot peak in Santiago Canyon, which now bears the bandit’s name. Flores escaped by riding his blindfolded horse down a steep 50-foot ledge, then using the brush growing on the hillside to climb to safety. He made it; his men were not so lucky--all were captured.

Shortly afterward, however, Flores and two companions were caught and sent to jail, but soon escaped.

Before setting out after Flores, the outraged Pico hanged two other bandits remembered only as Silvas and Ardillero. He cut off their ears for evidence and left their bodies dangling for six months.

Recaptured four days later at Simi Pass, Flores was taken to Los Angeles to stand trial. However, the trial was never held. Instead, he was convicted in a “court of last resort”--a kangaroo court--and sentenced to be strung up.

“His legs were then bound, and the rope adjusted around his neck. The handkerchief was placed over his head . . . and immediately after the plank was drawn from under him, the body of Flores swung in the air. The fall was too short, and the unfortunate wretch struggled in agony for a considerable time,” reported the Star newspaper.

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More lynchings took place following Flores’ execution, some of known bandits, others of innocents. Fontes escaped to Mexico, where he was later killed, and Pancho Daniel was captured a year later. In the midst of his trial, a mob broke into the jail and hanged him from the roof beam.

The grisly history of the Tomlinson and Griffith corral ended with the notorious Chinese Massacre of 1871, where a few of the 22 victims of an anti-Asian pogrom were hanged.

Today, this site of so much pain and shame is covered by concrete and blacktop. The last words of the condemned and the shouts of unruly mobs have been replaced with the whir of tires and the click of polished heels, as lawyers and litigants march from one courtroom to another, going about the business of the law.

Rasmussen’s new book, “L.A. Unconventional,” a collection of stories about Los Angeles’ unique and offbeat characters, will be published this month. To order, call (800) 246-4042. The special price of $30.95 includes shipping and sales tax.