A Freeway Shooting written by Paul Nussbaum M.S.W.

2007-02-11T18:39:00.000-08:00

Why did I start this blog? I was contacted by a journalist who works for a very large network. I did the usual background check and everything appeared legitimate. I agreed to share my story. I was asked to send pictures, along with any video that I had in my possession. Looking for pictures from the shooting, along with video tapes, was something that I didn't want to do, because I really had no interest in looking back in time and bringing forth painful memories. However, I thought by sharing this story I would be enlightening others to the dangers of our freeways. When the show aired, I found out from a friend that I was not in the segment on freeway shooting. For some reason this news organization failed to inform me that my interview was not used until a couple of days later. Usually I would have no hard feelings because of a scheduling conflict. However, what I found to be deplorable and outrageous is that the shooter was able to tell his version of the shooting for five or 10 min. without any challenges from the interviewer, I mean, WHAT THE HELL? After all, they had a one-hour videotape of me that included two CBS news interviews! Also, I was available to be interviewed for this segment on Freeway Shootings. It would've taken the camera crew with the interviewer about ONE HOUR to drive to my home. Was it really that much of an inconvenience to interview the victim?

I probably should have known better from a previous experience, but I really believed that journalists were ethical, fair, and balanced and checked their facts, as well as always having two sources before confirming a story as factual. It seems what's most important is garnering the most eyeballs or viewers you can attract and the victims are just collateral damage: victims are victimized all over again. For the record, I have been interviewed by journalists who have been fair and objective. At this point, I decided that I needed to publicly tell my side of the story, including unedited video, along with pictures. The readers can now judge for themselves.

(Paul, Grandpa's friend Margaret, Grandpa, younger brother Scott)

I need to state that it has taken me over a decade to recall most of the events on that tragic day. I will probably never be able to recall all of the details but my recollection of what took place afterwards is quite good. There is about one hour of video regarding some aspects of my story including CBS news. You will be able to view these interviews on Google Video or at the bottom of my story.

1987 was the best year and the worst year of my life. A decade of long distance, marathon running and weight training resulted in my physical health being excellent. In May of that year I finished graduate school at USC, earning my MSW, and thus achieved my educational and professional goals. In July of l987 I was the victim of a violent crime: a bullet fired by an irrational, angry, drunk driver as I was driving down the freeway to visit a friend.

The bullet entering my head left me paralyzed and completely dependent on other people for my most basic needs and, in addition, contending with daily neuropathic pain and spasticity. Routine daily tasks (all requiring assistance) as simple as getting dressed, going to the bathroom, eating, and moving from one place to another, are now filled with struggles that only a few can comprehend. My problems now are monumental, clearly harder to deal with than death.

The following may sound like a premonition or a warning that led up to the shooting on the freeway but I am just recalling the facts. Some may think that I am trying to make sense out of a senseless crime. This may be true. I will let the reader decide.

In the early 1980s I was home from college on a Christmas break. Every year my grandmother would make the trip from New York to California by train. She was a Ziegfeld Follies Girl. During the twenties she did a lot of traveling by train because, frankly, she was afraid to fly. One night my mom and dad took Grandma to The Velvet Turtle in Redondo Beach for dinner. There were a few dimly lit steps down to the dining room. On the way out of the restaurant Grandma stumbled going up the steps and fractured a bone in her back. She spent about four weeks in a hospital and was then transferred to a rehab hospital: what most people would call a convalescent hospital.

One night I went to visit her and she was lying in bed and I was sitting in a wheelchair that happened to be in the room. Sometime later a nurse walked by the room and saw me sitting in the wheelchair. She was a Caucasian woman, in her late 40s or early 50s, of medium build. She looked into my eyes and I saw fear in her face. She said, "GET OUT OF THAT CHAIR!" loudly and then quickly left the room. I was out of that wheelchair in less than a second. I had at that time an understanding that she probably had a premonition or (another way to put it) a glimpse of the future. After this atypical experience was over, I never really thought about it again until I was in the hospital and recalling the events in my life. Grandma made a complete recovery, left the hospital about a week later and took the train back to New York.

In the mid-1980s I experienced a strange event that happened several times, just before I would set out on an eight to ten mile run. I would be in my running shorts and it usually was in the mid to late afternoon. I was always standing in front of my parents' home, and looking west. All of a sudden I would have this intense pain in the left side of my neck that would just about knock me off my feet. I would say to myself, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" I have experienced a lot of physical pain in my life, but this was the most excruciating trauma that ever occurred. I would turn my head and look to the left expecting to see someone with some sort of weapon who had inflicted this damage to me. There was never any noise and there was never any person. I couldn't believe that no-one was there. It was like someone with a high-powered sling shot had hit me in the neck with a steel ball-bearing. I remember that my neck in that area would go into a temporary spasm. It usually took me about 5 seconds to recover and then I would be off on my run.

After my 8 to 10 mile run my dog Sheba would be waiting for me outside, wagging her tail. She was very excited to see me and realized that I had finally returned from my trek. I would look her in the eyes and say "Sheba, do you want to go for a walk" (she understood the word walk, along with about 10 or 20 other words) and her tail would start to wag even more along with her way of talking to me and we were off for another mile. One mile with Sheba was always an interesting adventure because she would need to do her usual exploring, and if one of our neighbors who happened to have a pool had left their gate open, she would dive in and swim a lap. Most of our neighbors did not mind if Sheba did a quick swim in their pools. However, a one-mile run with her could take 20 minutes.

Between l984 and l987 I spent the little free time that I had with my good friend Jeff . We sometimes went on 8 to 10 mile runs; most of the time while running we had many discussions about life and death, love and marriage, family and religion, foreign affairs, graduate school and work, interpersonal relationships, and even one discussion about life in a wheelchair, all the while moving through space at a sub 7 minute mile clip. After our run, we sometimes headed off to the gym for a one hour workout with weights. In 1985 to 1987, I worked part-time at a psychiatric hospital while attending graduate school at USC full-time. In those two years, Jeff moved up to Northern California and started an MBA program at Stanford.

July l8, l987, started off as any typical day in my life. I was looking forward to visiting Jeff, and participating in a barbecue at his new home in Costa Mesa. I don't recall everything that occurred before I left to visit Jeff on that day. When I started driving on the freeway, I was feeling normal, content, strong, in control, and I was glad that graduate school was over. I think my sister was out of town because she had asked me if I could water her plants on my way down to see Jeff.

If I did water her plants, nothing unusual at that point had occurred. I had started my journey on the 110 (Harbor Freeway) heading north and then I got off on the 405 (San Diego Freeway) heading south. I remember that I was in the left lane (which is the fast lane) and I started to feel out of sorts. While I was driving, I felt very light-headed. Also I was feeling above my body but not having an out of body experience. Not a good feeling. I recall thinking about freeway shootings for some unknown reason and this was rather disturbing. The thoughts of freeway shootings went on for about five minutes. Then, I had this foreboding feeling or presence telling me that I was going to be shot. So now I had a voice in my head telling me I was going to be shot over and over again and this went on for about 10 minutes. The voice then got louder and said "YOU ARE GOING TO BE SHOT!" While this mantra continued, "YOU ARE GOING TO BE SHOT," I really became concerned or scared because I didn't believe I was in complete control of the car while driving on the freeway. I am not a very religious or spiritual person so I had never felt anything that was as powerful as this before.

Maybe most people would have pulled over and gotten off the freeway right away. I think I kept driving because of my life's experiences. Every marathon I have ever run, I have finished. I also had just completed graduate school at USC. I had programmed myself to finish any event or goal no matter how big or how small. It was just not really in me to quit or pull over and stop.

Eventually, this ordeal that seemed to last for at least 15 or 20 minutes began to somewhat subside but I think I was still feeling a little dazed. I had to exit the 405 Freeway and connect with another freeway heading south. I was not familiar with the freeway and this was the first time I had traveled to Jeff's new home. I remember looking at the directions to Jeff's home and recalling that the traffic seemed rather heavy. I tried to merge from one freeway to another. Between the voice in my head, still feeling out of sorts, and not being too familiar with the area, I had made a decision to pull off to the shoulder of the freeway, look at the map and put the car in Park. About 5 to 6 months later I met with the assistant D.A. and he asked me in my hospital room, how fast did I think I was traveling? I told him that I thought my speed was about 45 miles per hour. He looked at me and didn't say anything. I then asked him how fast I had been driving. He answered "2 to 3 miles an hour."

Before I was able to carry out my plan to pull over and put the car in park , I had been shot. I never heard the sound of a gun, and I never saw the shooter or the vehicle he was driving. All I remember is slowly losing control of the car while I was thinking “DON'T LOSE CONTROL; DON'T BLACKOUT, DON'T LOSE CONSCIOUSNESS.” I remember hitting at least one car with a girl passenger in it. She was probably about 11 years old. She looked scared and, if I could read her lips, she probably was saying, “What are you doing?” She also probably thought that I was out of my mind which, to a certain degree, was correct. The next thing I recall is looking down at my body which had fallen over to the passenger seat. I was motionless. Shortly after that, a civilian came over to my car and asked me if I was all right. While I was watching him, he started to put me back up in my seat. I tried to tell him, while I was watching all of this, not to move me. He did anyway and sat me up.

The painful situation that I had sometimes had at my parents' house just before I would set out on my run seemed to line up exactly as the shooting had, and it seemed to be about the same time of day. What was different was the direction I was facing. At my parents' house I was always looking west. This time I was looking and facing south and sitting down instead of standing.

When I was in the Trauma Center at Fountain Valley Hospital in California, I was quite clear and lucid in my mind but I still did not know what had happened to me until someone in the ER room said, "He was shot on the freeway and I think it's time to get out of here and move up to Northern California." When I was on the ER table I could not talk and I was in a lot of physical pain. All I wanted was to get off this hard table and into a comfortable bed. I knew that I was seriously injured and I kept thinking to myself "This is 'big time'." I was concerned about my parents and how they would deal with this situation. I was also thinking about the barbecue and how I would get a message to Jeff Brown and tell him I wouldn't be coming.

That evening I became quite psychotic. (This would happen on more than one occasion.) I was not oriented to person, place, or time. I thought that I was half human and half robot. I also thought that I was in the back of Hughes' Supermarket sucking on lemon popsicles. I had this intense craving for anything lemon; it could have been lemonade or anything else made out of lemons. I couldn't talk because there were tubes down my throat but if I could have talked, I would have told the nurse to bring me a lot of lemonade or a lemon popsicle. I know that I was hooked up to IVs and various life-support systems. Since I could not talk, drink, or eat, the only thing that could go on my lips or in my mouth was a moist sponge on a stick. While the nurse was pacifying me with this sponge on a stick, I could have sworn it was a lemon popsicle. In retrospect I understand that it is not unusual to become somewhat psychotic or schizophrenic while in ICU or the Trauma Center. My mom told me later on that when my grandfather was dying, he had a craving for a perfectly red ripe tomato with salt, Italian lemon ice and the best steak in town. My mom had to drive around to different stores and roadside farms in Florida to fulfill my grandfather's request. My mom was able to find these items and bring them to my grandfather. About twelve hours later, my grandfather was gone.

In ICU at Fountain Valley Hospital I couldn't talk. I had to use an alphabet chart and make a noise with my mouth when they came to the right letter. Then I would spell out the sentence. After a while we refined the technique somewhat by abbreviating words that I would use often, such as, SOB, which meant Short Of Breath. Some of the nurses were quite good at reading lips and this made my life a little easier. At one time I think I had about eleven doctors who all had different specialties. I was in ICU hooked up to life-support equipment and couldn't talk for almost four months. Dr. Johnson was the psychiatrist for me and my family. He could read lips well and did not want to use the alphabet chart with me. Ninety-five percent of the time, there was no need to use the chart. When I was in ICU it almost felt as though time stood still. One second would seem like an hour. One hour seemed like 24 hours and I did not know the difference between night and day. My parents came to visit me every day along with my brother and sister. My professors came from USC as well as some of my classmates including my college friends. My professor and good friend from Sonoma State University, Stashu Geurtsen, and his wife, Karen, flew down and they stayed by my side for weeks. Dr. David Viscott would talk to my mom over the phone and even helped to find the best neurosurgeon to remove the bullet lodged in my neck. I was surprised when a nurse stated to me that I might not want to watch TV because I was all over the news. Watching TV didn't really help very much but I did like watching golf or baseball primarily due to the green grass and the change of scenery. The support from my family and friends was important for my mental health but some of them did lose it (although not in my presence) after they saw me hooked up to life-support systems and a rotating bed. I think I accomplished quite a bit in my first 28 years, but I am still pissed off to this day that I will not be able to run in the Badwater Ultramarathon in Death Valley, California.

Ironically, the Los Angeles Department of Social Services called my house the day after I was shot, offering me the position for which I had interviewed the week before, only one of several job offers that came in after the shooting: one from USC working with the graduate students as liaison for their field placement; one from Santa Rosa College in Northern California; and the strong possibility of working with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The drunken driver who shot me was tried and received a sentence of 10 years, but served only five in prison. He lost 5 years: I lost a bright future.

During the trial, several significant facts emerged about the shooter. When captured, he had ammunition in both pockets, was drinking heavily prior to the incident and had a blood alcohol level of .10 four hours after the shooting. His past history had notable aggressive features, including archery hunting for bears and a prior roadway assault in which he fought with another driver. Sadly, to this day freeway shootings continue.

The depression that inevitably accompanies such extreme loss and suffering is an example of life’s toughest challenge. Those of us who survived this condition recognize that although our bodies had no choice but to suffer, we humans do have a choice in how to accept our fate. I choose to fight back!

(1989 LA Marathon)

2 min. and 22 second video

The Wheels of Justice written by Dirk Eldritch

Several months earlier, on August 20, 1987, while Paul was still in the Fountain Valley hospital, Marine Cpl., Rick Armstrong, clean cut and convincing, was the star witness at the trial’s preliminary hearing, repeating his eyewitness account of the tragedy. When asked by Judge Selim S. Franklin to identify the shooter, he pointed directly at Morgan who quickly hid his face behind a magazine to avoid being photographed. It is a measure of his shame that he continued his aversion to cameras throughout the trial. Armstrong testified that when he reached Nussbaum’s car, police officers arrived almost immediately, and Armstrong told them of the shooting. Minutes later when police were arresting Morgan and his wife at the fairgrounds, they found the empty gun jammed into the crease of the truck’s seat and six unspent .22 caliber rounds in Albert Carroll Morgan’s pocket.

After hearing Armstrong’s firm, focused testimony, the judge ordered Morgan to stand trial on charges of attempted murder,assault with a deadly weapon, and firing at an inhabited vehicle. Judge Franklin evidenced a clear grasp of Morgan’s calamitous behavior:

"Morgan’s gun must be cocked before it can be fired. A jury may interpret that to mean that Morgan exhibited premeditation and deliberation, rather than acting in the heat of emotion. It seems to me impossible for him not to have seen the victim when he pulled the trigger. Morgan was looking at the victim when he pulled the trigger. I think that will be enough for the jury to find that he acted with premeditation and deliberation."

The actual trial took place in nearby Santa Ana. It began on the last day of January, 1988, a little over six months after the shooting and five months after the preliminary hearing in a different courthouse with a different judge.

The prosecuting attorney argued to the jury that Morgan was guilty of attempted murder. Reinforcing the preliminary hearing judge’s convincing comments, the prosecutor pointed out that Morgan’s wife had tried to stay his hand with her emotional outburst over the gun, but he shot Paul Nussbaum anyway. Morgan’s defense attorney, did not dispute that Morgan fired the shot.

He carefully built his case that attempted murder was the wrong charge for the circumstances. He characterized Morgan’s actions as, “Thoughtless and stupid… he did an idiotic thing, tragic really… but it was not attempted murder. No amount of emotion can change the facts of this case.” The attorney claimed his client meant only to fire a warning shot at Nussbaum to scare him. He argued that the pistol was a “small, inaccurate weapon, fired in the heat of anger, not with the intention to kill.”

Incredibly, the jury bought the defense’s story. After a day and a half’s deliberation they returned the verdict that Morgan was innocent of attempted murder, which could carry a sentence of up to life in prison. Instead, in a grotesque twist of logic, they found him guilty of attempted voluntary manslaughter, with a maximum sentence of ten years.

Paul, his family and many observers in both the public and the press, felt the sentence was totally inadequate. At the time of the sentence, Paul predicted the 10 year sentence for attempted voluntary manslaughter could, with time off for good behavior, be reduced to five years.

Paul seethed with anger at the unjust verdict. Prior to Morgan’s sentencing, Paul’s mother, Gloria, wrote a passionate plea for justice to the judge. Here, in part, is her compelling argument:

"Paul had worked hard and long to train his body for strength and endurance; he trained his mind for a professional career in the social services to help others. Now he often says that he wishes the bullet that has made him totally dependent on others had killed him… It should be a moral and legal imperative that Albert Morgan contribute every day of his life to the expenses that he alone, consciously and willfully caused with no excuse for alcohol because imbibing is a volitional act and responsibilities exist here too.

If Morgan’s spinal cord could be transplanted in Paul so he could use his legs, arms and hands, and elimination, to care for his own body, that would be close to justice.

If Paul’s past pain, excruciating present and probable future pain and the painful post traumatic memories could be erased from his mind and given to Morgan, that would approach justice. In the absence of this reality, what else would be fair and just but to require penance be shown through a life‐long court ordered restitution to be paid directly to Paul Nussbaum. I pray that the court will impose upon Albert Morgan the maximum sentence allowed by law for the crime of which he has been convicted.
Respectfully,
Gloria Nussbaum"

In spite of her impeccable logic, Gloria’s plea for justice fell on deaf ears. Our criminal justice system failed the Nussbaum family. What defies understanding is that Paul’s prediction of a five year sentence came true.

Albert Carroll Morgan spent only five of his ten year sentence in jail, the other five excused for good behavior. At age thirty‐eight he walked out of prison a free man. Paul will live with the results of Morgan’s unthinkable act for the rest of his life. That is a far cry from justice. In my opinion, the judge, the jury and the parole board should hang their heads in shame.

Newspaper Articles:

Shooting Victim Known as Reserved, Non-Combative

July 22, 1987|BOB SCHWARTZ | Times Staff Writer

Paul Nussbaum, the USC School of Social Work graduate who was shot by another motorist on the Costa Mesa Freeway, is "one of the most reserved, non-combative, non-confrontational people you'd want to meet," one of his former professors said Tuesday.

"This has just shocked everyone," said Dr. Barbara Kaplan, an assistant clinical professor at the school. "He was a very competent student, very cooperative and helpful, and he had good relations with other students."

(USC Graduation 1987, Scott and Paul)

Article continues

56 min. interview

My Website:

www.usclifecoach.com

Resume:

http://pnuscresume.blogspot.com

Los Angeles Times