{"id":96079,"date":"2020-02-20T08:18:02","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T13:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=96079"},"modified":"2022-01-13T20:31:17","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T01:31:17","slug":"u-s-marine-pilot-whose-heroics-helped-stop-1973-new-orleans-sniper-dies-at-84-crime-police-nola-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=96079","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Marine pilot whose heroics helped stop 1973 New Orleans sniper dies at 84"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A decorated U.S. Marine Corps pilot who risked his life and career to help New Orleans police during the Howard Johnson\u2019s hotel sniper attack that claimed seven lives in 1973 died Feb. 13 of cancer, according to his family.<\/p>\n

Retired Lt. Gen. Charles \u201cChuck\u201d Pitman Sr., whose heroics in piloting a helicopter that allowed police to shoot and kill sniper Mark Essex earned him the gratitude of city leaders, was 84.<\/p>\n

In nearly four decades as a Marine, including three combat tours in Vietnam, Pitman earned numerous medals: including Silver Stars for valor, Distinguished Flying Crosses and a Purple Heart.<\/p>\n

But in an interview with The Times-Picayune in 2013, Pitman said perhaps his proudest achievement was being named an honorary New Orleans Police Department captain for flying the helicopter that turned the tide as police exchanged gunfire with Essex.<\/p>\n

Pitman never sought permission from his superiors to fly that mission, he said, only forgiveness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing with him was, if you\u2019re going to be a Marine, you\u2019ve got to do what you\u2019ve got to do,\u201d his son, Charles Pitman Jr., said. \u201cHe was always happy he did what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

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On the quiet Sunday morning of Jan. 7, 1973, Essex \u2014 who had already killed a police cadet and a police officer the previous week \u2014 arrived at the Downtown Howard Johnson\u2019s Motor Lodge in the 300 block of Loyola Avenue.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

He killed the hotel\u2019s general manager, its assistant manager and a newlywed couple staying as guests. He then set fire to some of the 17-story hotel\u2019s rooms in a bid to attract more first responders to the scene.<\/p>\n

Armed with a .44-caliber carbine, Essex began firing at them as they arrived, fatally shooting three NOPD officers: Phil Coleman, Paul Persigo and Deputy Superintendent Louis Sirgo.<\/p>\n

Essex continued shooting, wounding a dozen other people as he finally shielded himself in a concrete rooftop cubicle.<\/p>\n

Like the rest of the paralyzed city, Pitman was watching news coverage of Essex\u2019s attack when he decided he\u2019d had enough.<\/p>\n

A 37-year-old lieutenant colonel in charge of a Marine air unit stationed in Belle Chasse, he gathered up a volunteer co-pilot and two crew members and flew them all in a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter to a parking lot near the hotel.<\/p>\n

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Several NOPD officers armed with rifles hopped aboard the twin-rotor transport helicopter, which Pitman repeatedly flew over the rooftop. Essex would occasionally venture out to fire at the helicopter but returned to his cover before the cops could get a clear shot.<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

On the critical flyover, Pitman doubled the helicopter back instead of retreating as he had on previous occasions. The maneuver caught Essex far from the cubicle, and \u2014 with a spotlight illuminating him \u2014 officers in the helicopter and on rooftops of surrounding buildings emptied their weapons.<\/p>\n

Essex fell dead, shot more than 200 times. The crisis was over.<\/p>\n

Investigators later determined that Essex, a Black Panther Party sympathizer, was enraged by the shooting deaths of two students at Baton Rouge’s Southern University during a clash between police and protesters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf (Pitman\u2019s involvement) would not have happened, we would have lost more people,\u201d said Larry Preston Williams, who was among the officers who scrambled out to the hotel that day. \u201cHe was instrumental \u2026 in taking out Mark Essex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Pitman faced a possible court-martial, having deployed military personnel and resources without obtaining the proper authorization. The matter was dropped after U.S. Rep. F. Edward Hebert, a powerful New Orleans Democrat who headed the House Armed Services Committee, intervened.<\/p>\n

The Marine Corps transferred Pitman out of New Orleans in June 1973. The most difficult chapter of his career happened in 1980, when he took charge of helicopter crews who tried to rescue 52 Americans being held hostage in Iran. The mission failed when one of the helicopters collided with a transport plane, and eight military members died.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Essex fell dead, shot more than 200 times.”\u00a0 The good ole days, before we got soft on crime.<\/p>\n

Source: U.S. Marine pilot whose heroics helped stop 1973 New Orleans sniper dies at 84 | Crime\/Police | nola.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A decorated U.S. Marine Corps pilot who risked his life and career to help New Orleans … U.S. Marine pilot whose heroics helped stop 1973 New Orleans sniper dies at 84<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":667,"featured_media":96080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[185,10,226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-historical","category-veterans-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/667"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96083,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96079\/revisions\/96083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/96080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}