Searcy Notes On Firebombing
Paul Dalrymple
On Boxing By Jay Searcy
Philadelphia Inquirer
Fire set in his office puzzles Peltz; priceless memorabilia burned
All weekend the names and faces from J. Russell Peltz's boxing past rolled
through his brain.
Who would throw bottles of ignited gasoline through his office windows in
Fairmount at 1:30 on a Friday morning? And why?
He is considered by virtually everyone in boxing the most honest and most
reliable promoter in America, a no-nonsense guy who is so trusting he
sometimes works without a contract.
He had given Philadelphia police every name he could think of after
surveying the damage of his gutted front office at the corner of 25th and
Brown -- known enemies, angry telephone callers, upset boxers who complain
about not getting paid enough, or not fighting often enough.
"But he wouldn't do this," he kept telling the police after every new name
he recalled.
Peltz, 52, opened for business Monday at 10 a.m., as usual. He sat at his
desk in an office adjacent to the one that had burned, but he couldn't work
because of the interruptions -- consoling telephone calls from all over the
country, well-meaning visitors, workmen knocking down window boarding and
starting the cleanup of a room once filled with priceless boxing mementos,
now melted.
He looked through the photos of the memorabilia he had lost -- the
irreplaceable posters of Joe Louis and Bob Montgomery and Beau Jack, 11
original oil paintings by his favorite boxing artist, C.R. Schaare, a house
painter whose work had appeared on the covers of The Ring magazine for
years -- paintings of Marciano, Louis, Schmeling. Lost, too, was the
original art of a Sports Illustrated cover featuring Gypsy Joe Harris, one
of his most colorful and tragic fighters.
"Well," he said, "At least I have photographs of them."
The sickening acrid smell of the burned-out front room was everywhere -- in
the back kitchen, in the upstairs apartment, out on the sidewalk, in the
adjoining houses.
"Be careful of stuff that may be saved," Peltz reminded a workman, who was
shoveling debris and tossing molten computers and office machines into a
sidewalk dumpster.
Maureen Sacks, 44, part secretary, part office manager and vice president,
paced from Peltz's office to the kitchen and back, looking drawn and
fatigued, as if she couldn't decide what to do, where to start. She narrowly
escaped a flaming death, asleep in her second-floor apartment when fire
erupted below her. She hasn't lived in the apartment since the fire and now
she dreaded going back upstairs.
Because of the noise of a nearby air-conditioning compressor, neither she
nor her boyfriend had heard the alarm that sounded when the first firebomb
crashed through a downstairs window and activated a motion detector. Finally
they heard the firemen pounding on an office door, trying to break it down.
Her boyfriend opened a window and shouted down, "What's all the commotion?"
"The building is on fire. Get out!" a policeman shouted.
They dressed rapidly and made it down the stairs to the street. She was
nearly hysterical when she telephoned Peltz, who was at Foxwoods Casino and
Resort in Connecticut for ESPN2's Friday Night Fights, which he helps
produce. Flames were leaping from windows as she dialed. She thought the
entire four-story building was gone.
"Somebody firebombed the building," she shrieked into the phone.
"My heart sank and got cold," Peltz said.
He tried to calm his secretary and then his wife, Linda, who was with him.
They packed immediately and drove to Philadelphia in just over four hours,
wondering all the way. Who? Why? And every time Peltz thought about the lost
memorabilia, part of a collection worth perhaps $1 million, one of the top
five in the world, he felt sick.
In 30 years years of promoting Peltz had never been scared by threats, "but
I never think they are going to do it," he said.
Twice in the last few years he had his life threatened by fighters he
promoted.
"Both said they were going to kill me," Peltz said. "One [ threat ] was by
an ex-fighter who was upset that I wasn't going to to finance a movie
project.
In 1995 his office was robbed by two gunmen who handcuffed him to his niece
on the afternoon of a fight night at the Blue Horizon, put them on the floor
and screamed for money they knew was there.
"Give them the money," Peltz shouted. They dragged her into the front room
where she gave them a box of mostly small bills amounting to less than
$1,000. Everyone escaped unharmed. The gunmen were never apprehended.
But this?. People could have been burned to death, homes destroyed.
Now Peltz is trying to decide what to do, whether to stay in the building,
whether to stay in Philadelphia, whether to remain in promoting.
"If we stay we would have to protect the building better," he said. "like
better windows with the kind of glass they have in banks."
Maybe he could move to a high rise in the suburbs, but where would he find
affordable space to hold his vast collection? Maybe he should sell his
mementos, or buy a house in Florida and move it there.
While he was talking the phone rang and when he answered, the caller hung
up. He quickly dialed star-69 and made a note.
"Maureen," he called out. "Dial star-69 every time we get a hangup so we can
get the number."
He is not scared. "But now," he said, "you're always going to worry when the
phone rings at 11 o'clock at night that . . . there's trouble in the
building."
So much to do, so much to think about. On Monday, he still had not even
spoken to his neighbor, Mike Clancy, who watched the firebombing from a bay
window across the street and had his brother dial 911. Three black men in a
yellow pickup truck. Two got out and walked unhurried to the sidewalk and
each threw a firebomb. The first one bounced off a window and shattered on
the curb near a car. The second fell inside the office but didn't ignite so
the two went back to the truck for more. Next time they succeeded. The
office burst into flames. The yellow pickup pulled away just minutes before
fire trucks and police appeared.
"It kind of scares me because they could come back," said Sacks.
"The guys who robbed us could come back," Peltz said in a shrug. "They could
shoot me getting into my car."
The police found pieces of glass the sidewalk," Sacks told him. "There may
be fingerprints.
"That would be wonderful," Peltz said. "I would love to know who. . . .
Maybe we'll get lucky on this one."
"You're going to find out," said Sachs. "Someone is going to call."