lights going out the second time, four stores had their windows smashed and the serious looting had started. Looters were filling up supermarket trolleys with televisions, radios, stereos, whole lambs, hind quarters of beef, jewelry and tins of food. Others loaded up with cakes, records, clocks and fruit. It was an incredible sight, a real live free-for-all, people struggling down the street bumping into one another with televisions and leather-bound sofas, dining tables and washing machines, all under the cover of darkness.
At one clothing store, even the mannequins disappeared into the night along with the cash register, display cabinets and every single item of clothing. Looters were taking orders and going out and fulfilling them, wholesale! They'd get you what you wanted, big discount guaranteed! The word went out, time to go to work, let's get busy, and they did. Free shopping!
The first thing Bishman did was to get a gun and he did that by killing a cop. In the blackness, the only light came from car headlights, and what really stood out were the bright blue flashing lights from the police cars.
When the big rattlesnake drive goes down in Texas, they deliberately beat the bushes and grass to make the rattlesnakes 'rattle' and give themselves away. To find a gun, all Bishman had to do was find a blue flashing light.
Bishman approached cautiously. He wanted to ensure the cop's partner was busy and he most certainly was. He was tied up with about fifteen blacks who were putting an empty fifty-gallon drum through a store window.
Bishman crept up behind the cop, by the patrol car and slammed a four-foot section of scaffold pole into his skull. He never knew what hit him. Bishman said to himself: You thought you could control the city with the lights out, but instead I've stuck your lights out - permanently. He was a fuck pig anyway. If you've got three cops up to their necks in shit, what have you got? Not enough shit, right.
Bishman had a problem getting the gun out the holster, but after a bit of fumbling he managed it. It was a Glock-17 that usually held seventeen rounds. Sometimes the police have access to clips that hold thirty-two rounds. This one did.
Bishman looked around and surmised there was a certain advantage to being black on a night like this. It was dark enough on its own but the blacks really did disappear into the shadows. Spooky! He smiled.
All around were the sounds of huge plate-glass windows getting smashed and big cheers going up. There were lots of gunshots, automatic fire as well.
A lot of businesses were cleaned out that night. By morning, hundreds of stores were stripped clean. A lot of people had had their lights stuck out permanently, too. Bishman killed at least eighteen people that night - maybe more - but the others were just wild shots and he couldn't establish his kills.
Bishman was not the only serial killer on a spree. During the first night he saw over one hundred and fifty bodies. Some maniac had been firing an automatic and you could hear that dull rat - tat - tat all night long, right up until sunrise . O n Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street there was a pile of bodies, maybe as many as forty or fifty, in body bags. A special police unit, dressed like a SWAT team, were loading them onto a truck. Bishman noticed that each member of the team carried three Colt .45 automatics. One on each hip and one in a shoulder holster. While they were loading the bodies their buddies stood back-to-back keeping guard and carried Uzis and AK-16s as well as the three Colt .45 autos.
During the course of the evening, thousands of gang members made their way over to Manhattan from Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and New Jersey. The police had slide-action shotguns on Brooklyn Bridge to deter gang members from coming over. The patrol was taken out with an AK-47 with a starlight scope within ten minutes. They weren't replaced.
Bishman's 'kills' were anyone who came into his line of fire, providing he had