Whipped Cream Difficulties

Julio Gonzalez is burning in hell.

You may not remember the name, but you probably remember the crime. Maybe you were alive then, or maybe you’ve heard me talk about it in the context of gun politics.

Early in the morning on March 25, 1990, Mr. Gonzalez got into an argument with his girlfriend at the Happy Land Social Club, where she worked as a coat check girl. Mr. Gonzales was ejected by a bouncer.

According to testimony, Mr. Gonzalez walked three blocks to an Amoco service station, where he found an empty one-gallon container and bought $1 worth of gasoline from an attendant he knew there. He returned to the club. Upstairs, a disc jockey had just spun the reggae tune “Young Lover,” by Cocoa Tea.
Mr. Gonzalez splashed the gasoline at the bottom of a rickety staircase, the club’s only means of exit, and ignited it. Then he went home and fell asleep.

The resulting fire killed 87 people. At the time, it was the worst mass murder in United States history.

Mr. Gonzalez was tried and sentenced to 87 concurrent sentences of 25 years to life.

The Happy Land inferno left some 90 children as orphans. More than 40 parents lost sons or daughters. Five of the victims were students at nearby Theodore Roosevelt High School.

Mr. Gonzalez first became eligible for parole in March of last year. He was denied at the time, but would have been eligible again in November of this year.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 15th, 2016 at 11:27 am and is filed under Law, Obits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.