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LaPierre was charged with training a dog for the fight, causing the dog to take part in the fight, and allowing a premises under his control to be used to train a dog for the fight. He pleaded guilty to the last charge and was placed on probation. The trophy in Feazell's office, adorned with little gold pit bulls and topped with a winged victory figure, would have gone to the winner, had Feazell and an army of cops and investigators not shut down the fight, at which LaPierre and his wife, Ginger, were arrested.
Three days later, Feazell conducted a search of 56 Samoset, accompanied by nine other law enforcement agents. LaPierre's parole officer from a 1989 drug bust was on hand, too.
Investigative logs detail what they found: As Feazell and other officers began to walk upstairs, LaPierre's mother, Isabel, said, "I have to take care of my babies."
What babies, Feazell asked.
"I'm raising three orphaned puppies," the mother replied. Isabel showed Feazell three puppies lying in a cardboard box in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Ginger LaPierre stood in the hall and spoke to someone -- maybe Jon -- over a cell phone. "They're looking at the puppies." She turned to Isabel and asked, "Why did you show them the puppies?"
The investigators confiscated the puppies and some pit bull training aids. As the investigative team was leaving, one of the officers led a full-grown pit bull out through the garage. The dog, Klive, pushed the officer aside and jumped on a treadmill. The officer flipped the treadmill's switch; the dog began walking. The mother tried to explain that the treadmill was hers. Feazell was convinced that 56 Samoset was a place where pit bulls were trained to fight. And kill.
Jon Bryce LaPierre came into contact with law enforcement several times in early adulthood, but was not convicted until 1988, when he was collared for possession of a stolen vehicle and placed on probation.
In March 1989, LaPierre hit the big time. He and his wife, Ginger, were arrested with 5 ounces of cocaine, both crack and powder. The police narrative of the arrest lessens any suspicion that LaPierre might be a criminal mastermind.
When officers arrived at an Excelsior address and asked to conduct a probation search, LaPierre slammed the door in their faces. After gaining entry to the home, the officers found guns, ammunition, drugs, scales, plastic bags, pipes, and more than $8,000 in cash. Jon and Ginger waived their Miranda rights and spilled their guts -- but their guts contained different, conflicting stories.
According to a police report, LaPierre said he had been on welfare for five years and the cocaine was for his personal use -- all 5 ounces of it. Ginger told the cops that Jon was co-owner of a motorcycle shop.
Eventually, LaPierre pleaded guilty and received two years in state prison. He was released on parole a year later. The next year, he was convicted of trying to construct a methamphetamine lab in San Jose with his brother, Kevin, and Kevin's wife. He was sent back to prison for five months and released on parole again.
In 1995 the pit bull case sent him back to Folsom for six months. About two months after his release, police investigating a shooting incident (in which LaPierre was never charged) searched the 56 Samoset home. There, Inspector William Murphy reported finding one of LaPierre's daughters, her boyfriend, a shotgun, ammunition, some marijuana, and $6,000 in cash. The daughter was convicted of being an accessory to a crime; the boyfriend, records show, was convicted of that crime, possession of marijuana. LaPierre was not charged.
Subsequently, LaPierre beat his wife and was placed on so-called "last chance" probation. If he runs afoul of the law again before his probation expires in 1999, he could return to state prison for three years.
Many of the details of LaPierre's criminal history are well-known to at least some of his neighbors. Not only do they know about the meth lab; they also know that it was located in San Jose, and that he was involved with his brother in the aborted criminal enterprise. Ask people in the surrounding area and chances are good you'll hear some portion of this rap on LaPierre: He's a wife-beater, a drug dealer, and a welfare case. They stress the welfare situation and his large number of children almost as much as they do the drugs. One neighbor derisively said it this way: "It's a little slice of Appalachia up there."
The class prejudice and yuppie scorn heaped on LaPierre make his former neighbor, Richard Stypmann, fume.
Stypmann is from Mecklenburg County, N.C. The county is called "the hornet's nest of the Confederacy" because it seceded from the union first. "We also declared independence from Britain a month before the fourth of July," he says with pride.
Stypmann is a rebel in every way, a homosexual and a vexatious litigant -- the government term for a lawsuit fanatic who ties up the system with frivolity and vitriol. Stypmann makes his living, in part, by helping people sue the city for towing their cars.
Between 1982 and 1990, Stypmann lived at 8 Samoset. He loved the fuck-you attitude that ruled Bernal Heights at the time. And although LaPierre treated him like a "piece of shit" for being gay, Stypmann felt kinship with LaPierre's form of fierce, almost anti-social, independence.
"All this is, is just people putting on airs," Stypmann says about the neighbors' complaints about LaPierre. "It's the yuppies versus S.F.-style radicals."
Stypmann is so upset about the criticisms of LaPierre that, after thinking about his initial response to questions, he phones back. "This just seems to be a class issue that's being made out to be more than it is," he says. "I lived in the fascist-controlled South, so I am very familiar with people trying to run other people's lives."
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