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Like any other city, Beachwood has has its share of bombings. In March of 1975 Richard Moss, who lived at 24728 Letchworth, came out to his car and found a small box by the garage door. Thinking it was for his wife Roberta, a Violinist with the Cleveland Orchestra he4 yelled for her to come get the package, and as she came to the door it blew up in his arms. he was killed instantly. Apparently Moss and his brother Stanley owed a lot of people money. One of his creditors decided to scare him and placed the bomb there with the intention of it going off in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, due to the cold weather the detonator froze and did not go off until Moss picked it up. While the police were able to determine who did it tere was not evidence to charge him with the crime. George Cicero, the owner of American Office Supply Co., was unhappy with the way the world was going and decided to bomb Fairmount Elementary School. Apparently, local law enforcement agencies were looking for the person or persons responsible for bombing several schools in Cleveland along with a few adult bookstores. On the night of August 1st. 1978 Cicero placed a bomb at the school at approximately 10:30 p.m. At the same time patrolman, (now Lieutenant) Gordon Fuchs was on his way down Fairmount Blvd. to assist on an ambulance run when he saw a car leaving Fairmount Elementary School. Being the observant, intelligent law enforcement officer that he is, he knew there was nothing going on at the school that night and wrote down the license plate number. Several minutes later a bomb went off in the front portion of the school. The explosion was heard as far as Geauga County. The bomb caused over $100,000.00 in damage. As police arrived many people wanted to survery the damage and gawk. Included in the group of gawkers were school board members who had come to survey the damage. The police were concerned that there could have been another bomb in the school. Council President Harvey Friedman, who was acting mayor at the time because George Zieger was out of town, exerted his powers as the chief commander of the safety forces. He instructed school officials that they would be restrained if they entered the building. An additional reason to keep people away from the building was the possible contamination of evidence. Within two hours the police had staked out the bomber's apartment in Warrensville Heights. Then rookie patroman Mark Sechrist (now Chief) spent 14 hours in an unmarked car outside Cicero's Warrensville Heights apartment, booby traps and a variety of explosive devices were found. This case put Beachwood on the map in the law enforcement community because the FBI, ATF and Cleveland police had all been working hard to find the person reasonable and little Beachwood was now the hero of the year. While Cicero never admitted any guilt he said that he would think the reason one would do something like this was because those who were orchestrating desegregation of the Cleveland Schools lived in the suburbs. Cicero was sentenced and served 15 years in prison. In 1980 after finding his way with the Lord, he sent Fuchs a Christmas card with a handwritten message that read "Add my name to the list of those congratulating you on the fine bit of police work". | |