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.
.
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/
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