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"I find nothing from a psychiatric point of view which would lead me to the conclusion that this defendant constitutes a danger to the health and welfare of others. I conclude he is suitable for probation," Levy wrote to the court.
Levy couldn't have been more mistaken.
Less than a year after the rape, in October 1988, the Soul-Jacker baptized himself in the blood of Walter Mullins. According to a former gang associate, it was Temple's first hit. "He got scared and he backed off for a while," the associate says. "But then he came back like the Tasmanian devil."
By the time Temple allegedly killed Mullins, the Soul-Jacker was a legend in Hunters Point. In his 1996 book Street Soldier: One Man's Struggle to Save a Generation -- One Life at a Time, Joseph Marshall Jr., the co-founder of the Omega Boys Club, a group that helps reform youthful offenders, described Temple in this way: "A rock of a kid ... widely known as the toughest gangbanger in Hunters Point. His nickname was Mani, for Maniac. There was nothing on two legs -- and probably four -- that Bernard couldn't beat up. He was the kind of kid who would walk up to you and knock you out just because he felt like it, the classic 'crazy nigger.' "
A San Francisco police officer who has worked extensively in Hunters Point over the years backs up that assessment. "He would always try and make a calm situation into a hostile one," the officer says. "If we were talking to a couple of youngsters, he would say something like, 'Why are you harassing them?' He was a shit disturber who would always try and disturb the calmness of the contact."
In the late '80s and early '90s, turf wars raged among the gangs of Hunters Point, Sunnydale, and the Fillmore. By virtually all accounts, Temple was an instigator of the violence, a divisive force who opposed community leaders trying to stop the warfare. In fact, Temple was a leader of the HP mob and, therefore, at the center of the most vicious confrontations. But not even a Soul-Jacker is bulletproof.
On April Fools' Day of 1990, Temple's chief rival from the Sunnydale mob, Ernest Hill, shot him in the stomach with a shotgun, and Temple almost died.
A police report shows that Temple was uncooperative with investigators on the shooting case, telling them he'd "take care of business." Temple's "business" would lead to the most deadly cycle of gang violence in Southeast San Francisco in recent memory.
Amazingly, as Bernard Temple was planning retribution for being shot, he was chosen by then-Mayor Art Agnos to serve on an 18-member committee called "The Mayor's Team" that was expected to advise Agnos on gang-related issues. (Agnos once dressed the group in tuxedos and feted them at the swanky Carnelian Room.)
Agnos' decision to tap Bernard Temple for public service wasn't merely the result of Agnos' tendency to listen to stupid or ill-informed advisers, although that certainly played a role in the insanely inappropriate choice. To put it simply, Bernard Temple had and, by most accounts, still has charisma. There's an odd coloration to his character that softens the violent streaks of red.
Temple fooled more than white liberal former social workers like Agnos. The Soul-Jacker seems to have been able to fool people in his own community. One of Temple's old friends from Bayview-Hunters Point, Shirletha Calhoun, spun into voice-cracking hysterics when informed that Temple is in jail, awaiting trial on two counts of murder.
"I thought he was going to be a minister!" she screamed.
Calhoun knew Temple when he had just gotten out of the hospital after being shot. She was close enough to Temple to have been part of a group of people who prayed over Temple's supine body in the hospital. "We lifted him up," she said.
Back then, Calhoun said, Temple was reading the Bible, quoting Scripture in daily conversation, and telling people he was going to use his powers of persuasion to do the Lord's work. At the time, Calhoun was trying to negotiate a peace between warring gangs in Sunnydale and Hunters Point. She organized a "peace caravan" and loaded up several cars with fatigued gangbangers from Sunnydale -- gangbangers who were Temple's sworn enemies.
The caravan was driving down Third Street toward HP, Calhoun said, when she spotted Temple coming out of a store. "I still remember it like it was yesterday," she said. "I told Bernard what we were doing, and as soon as the words 'peace caravan' came out of my mouth, he started getting all excited and jumping up and down."
Temple jumped into a convertible with his Sunnydale rivals, sitting right up front for all to see as the caravan drove slowly toward his Hunters Point turf. On the way, Calhoun said, Temple stood up in the convertible, not unlike a campaigning politician, exhorting people on the sidewalk, yelling, "Peace. Peace."
People began calling back to Temple, Calhoun recalled. "Peace, peace," they chanted; some jumped in their cars.
By the time the caravan reached HP, it included a long line of HP cars and kids. The drivers were honking their horns, Calhoun said. They continued yelling the word, "Peace."
It appears that Temple was conducting business as usual during the few weeks of quiet that followed the peace caravan. He was looking for Ernest Hill, the man who shot him on April Fools' Day, and trying to build his "rep" as the Soul-Jacker, gangbanger extraordinaire.
"While monitoring gang activity and narcotics dealing in the Potrero District [the S.F. police district covered by Potrero Station, which includes Hunters Point and the Bayview] for the past two and a half years, Temple has come to the attention of this unit on an almost daily basis. Temple was the acknowledged leader of the Oakdale and Baldwin set [subgang] of the Hunters Point gang," John Fowlie, a veteran narcotics inspector who is now serving on the federal gang task force, wrote in a June 1990 report. "Temple's police contacts have mostly been involving crimes of violence."
