the ghost of Don Bolles

 

Journalism can be a dangerous profession.

         

In 2021, 55 journalists were killed, and most of them were in two regions, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean. 90% of the killings that have taken place since 2006 are still unresolved.

         https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109232

 One killing that WAS resolved involved a reporter for the Arizona Republic named Don Bolles.

Former Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles thought the mob had its fingers in the Phoenix Greyhound Park. He pursued the story through the early 1970s and there’s reason to believe he was thinking about it when a bomb went off beneath his driver’s seat on June 2, 1976.

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After the bomb exploded under his car, as he backed out of the parking lot of the Hotel Clarendon that June day, onlookers who rushed over to help heard him say “mafia” and “Emprise,” the company that partly owned Phoenix Greyhound Park.

Time and changing social mores would eventually do what Bolles’ journalism couldn’t: turn off the cash spigot at the dog track.

Dog racing ended in 2009. Arizona law banned it years later, ensuring it would never start up again.

This February, another vestige of the dog track came down.

 

The grandstand, which promised patrons fine dining with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the racing action, was taken down by excavators that hacked away at it, leaving behind heaps of concrete and glass.

It is not known what happened to any of the building’s secrets. 

Phoenix Greyhound Park would start getting press in 1969. But not the kind they wanted. Bolles started investigating Phoenix Greyhound Park that year after an editor noted a lawsuit filed by breeders against the Funk family, which owned every dog track in the state.

While investigating the merits of that lawsuit, Bolles found something in the divorce filing of one of the Funks. The track was co-owned by Emprise, a sports concessions company based out of New York. Racing commissioners in other states had suspected the company of being involved in organized crime.

Bolles’ stories about the suspected ties to organized crime drew the attention of Arizona U.S. Rep. Sam Steiger who started using the power of his office to amplify and investigate the allegations.

Then, in the summer of 1970, a man told Bolles that he had been hired by the Funk family to wiretap his home telephone, along with other elected officials, including Steiger. The man held some details close to the vest, saying he was waiting for an immunity deal from prosecutors.

 

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/don-bolles/2022/0/01/greyhound-park-grandstand-part-don-bolles-history-demolished/9900137002/?utm_source=azcentral-NewsAlert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news_alerts&utm_term=news_alert&utm_content=PPHX-1531AR-E-NLETTER17

John Harvey Adamson pleaded guilty in 1977 to second-degree murder for building and planting the bomb that killed Bolles. Adamson accused Phoenix contractor Max Dunlap, an associate of Kemper Marley, of ordering the hit as a favor to his friend Marley and Chandler plumber James Robison of triggering the bomb. Phoenix police said they could find no evidence linking Marley with the crime. Adamson testified against Dunlap and Robison, who were convicted of first-degree murder in the same year but whose convictions were overturned in 1978. When Adamson refused to testify again, he was charged and convicted of first-degree murder in 1980 and sentenced to death, which was overturned by the Arizona Supreme Court. In 1989, Robison was re-charged and re-tried and acquitted in 1993 but pleaded guilty to a charge of soliciting an act of criminal violence against Adamson. Robison died in 2013. In 1990, Dunlap was re-charged when Adamson agreed to testify again, and was found guilty of first-degree murder. Max Dunlap died in an Arizona prison on July 21, 2009.

Adamson was given a reduced sentence because of his cooperation and was released from prison in 1996. He remained in the federal witness protection program (in which he had been placed in 1990 while he was still in prison) and died in an undisclosed location in 2002 at the age of 58.

Among the last words that Bolles mentioned was "Emprise". Emprise (later called Sportservice and now called Delaware North) was a privately owned company that operated various dog and horse racing tracks and is a major food vendor for sports arenas. In 1972, the House Select Committee on Crime held hearings concerning Emprise's connections with organized crime figures. Around this time, Emprise and six individuals were convicted of concealing ownership of the Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. As a result of the conviction, Emprise's dog racing operations in Arizona were placed under the legal authority of a trustee appointed by the Arizona State Racing Commission. Bolles was investigating Emprise at the time of his death. However, no connection between Emprise and his death was discovered.

His remains were interred in a crypt located in the Serenity Mausoleum of the Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery in Phoenix.

Greyhound racing is a sport and regular gambling activity. The sport is regulated by state or local law and the greyhound care is regulated by National Association of State Racing Commissions and the American Greyhound Council (AGC). The AGC is jointly run by the National Greyhound Association.

In recent years many greyhound tracks have closed due to declining betting revenue, encroachment by Native American gaming and commercial casino gambling into states with greyhound racing, the legalization of sports betting, and concerns over the welfare of racing greyhounds, along with general market failure in states greyhound racing attempted to enter into, as what happened in Wisconsin (where one track closed after only three years of operation, and the state's constitutional amendment to allow greyhound racing also opened up Native American gaming in the state). Although most tracks currently simulcast racing from other tracks, only three tracks currently conduct actual live racing onsite, and only two tracks in West Virginia will remain in operation with the start of 2023. 

The first greyhound in the United States was registered in 1894 and the oval form of racing with a mechanical or artificial hare was started by Owen Patrick Smith in 1912. California was the first state to introduce an oval greyhound track in May 1920, it was the first mechanical lure oval circuit in the world. Smith opened the track at Emeryville. The Emeryville arena was torn down in February 1920 to make way for the construction of a modern racetrack using the mechanical lure, described in the press as the "automatic rabbit. The first race at the new park was on Saturday, May 29, 1920 

A greyhound called Joe Dump set a world record of 31 race wins in 1978 and 1979; the red brindle dog was trained by JC Stanley and owned by Joe Fallon and raced primarily at Greenetrack. The record was subsequently beaten by Ballyregan Bob. On 4 June 1994 a greyhound bitch called Pat C Rendezvous won her 33rd consecutive race to break Ballyregan Bob's world record and went on to win 36 consecutive races. In 1998 a greyhound called Leos Midas won for the 103rd time to equal the United States record number of total races won, the race was at Orange Park.

In November 2018, Florida voters passed a constitutional referendum banning live greyhound racing at Florida tracks after December 31, 2020. Greyhound racing in Florida ended on December 31, 2020. A number of Florida tracks closed earlier in that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened, with a gradual fade-out on remaining tracks late in the year. The Palm Beach Kennel Club's final meet finished on New Year's Eve at 11:59:59 p.m.

Although there are only a handful of dog tracks still operating in this country, there still ARE a few greyhounds that have retired. If you’re interested in saving one of these magnificent dogs, information on adopting one can be found at the site listed below.

http://www.adopt-a-greyhound.org/