Lennon’s death lingers for those who were there

updated 10:39 a.m. ET Dec. 8, 2005

NEW YORK - A television news producer. An emergency room doctor. Two NYPD beat cops. Before that December night 25 years ago, they shared little but this: As children of the ’60s, the soundtrack of their lives came courtesy of the Beatles.

Alan Weiss, a two-time Emmy winner before his 30th birthday, was working at WABC-TV. His teen years were the time of “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” In his 20s, Weiss admired John Lennon’s music and politics.

Dr. Stephan Lynn was starting his second year as head of the Roosevelt Hospital emergency room. He remembered the Beatles playing “The Ed Sullivan Show,” although he didn’t quite get the resultant hysteria.

Officer Pete Cullen, with partner Steve Spiro, did the night shift on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. They’d occasionally run into Lennon walking through the neighborhood with his son, Sean. “The Beatles were a big part of my life,” Cullen said.

On the night of Dec. 8, 1980, Lynn was in the ER, Weiss was heading home from the newsroom, Cullen and Spiro were on the job — and Mark David Chapman was lurking outside Lennon’s home.

The chubby man with the wire-rimmed glasses stood patiently in the dark outside the Dakota apartment house. He carried a copy of “The Catcher In the Rye,” the J.D. Salinger tale of disaffected youth, and a five-shot Charter Arms .38-caliber revolver.

Lennon, just two months past his 40th birthday, returned from a midtown Manhattan recording studio at 10:50 p.m with wife Yoko Ono. The limousine stopped at the ornate 72nd Street gate; John and Yoko emerged. Chapman’s voice, the same one that had beseeched the ex-Beatle for an autograph hours earlier, rang out: “Mr. Lennon!”

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The handgun was leveled at the rock world’s foremost pacifist. Four bullets pierced their famous target.

The voice of a generation was reduced to a final gasp: “I’m shot.”

“Do you know what you just did?” screamed the Dakota’s doorman.

“I just shot John Lennon,” Chapman replied softly.

The cops
Back in 1965, while still in the Police Academy, 23-year-old Pete Cullen’s first real assignment was working security outside the Warwick Hotel on West 54th Street. Upstairs, safe from the insanity below, were the Beatles.

Fifteen years later, the officer was staring at a dying John Lennon within minutes after Chapman opened fire. Cullen and Spiro were first to answer the report of shots fired.

Cullen was struck by the lack of movement: the doorman, a building handyman and the killer, all standing as if frozen.

“Somebody just shot John Lennon!” the doorman finally shouted, pointing at Chapman.

“Where’s Lennon?” Cullen asked. The rock star was crumpled inside a nearby vestibule, blood pouring from his chest. There were bullet holes in the glass; Cullen went to Lennon’s side as Spiro cuffed the gunman.

Two other officers lugged Lennon’s limp body to a waiting police car, which sped downtown to Roosevelt Hospital. The cuffed suspect directed Spiro to his copy of “The Catcher in the Rye,” which was lying on the ground nearby with the inscription, “This is my statement.” And then he spoke: “I acted alone,” Chapman said.

“That blew my mind,” said Spiro, who suddenly felt like he was in a movie. The veteran officer later thought about Lennon’s 5-year-old son, Sean, who was sitting a few floors above. Spiro had a boy the same age.

In the midst of the chaos, Cullen spotted Yoko Ono. “Can I go, too?” she asked as her husband disappeared. A ride was quickly arranged. Cullen and Spiro then loaded Chapman into their car for a trip to the 20th Precinct.

“He was apologetic,” Cullen recalled — but not for shooting Lennon. “I remember that he was apologizing for giving us a hard time.”

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