Pacific Bell Central Office Shooting

Published on April 30, 1987, Daily News of Los Angeles (CA)

EX-BELL EMPLOYEE PLEADS INNOCENT

A former Pacific Bell employee who took several hostages and destroyed about $10 million in telephone equipment in a rage over the loss of retirement benefits pleaded innocent Wednesday to eight felony counts. Anthony Apodaca, 47, of Riverside pleaded innocent to three counts of false imprisonment, three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of burglary and one count of vandalizing telephone equipment, Deputy District Attorney Danuta Tuszynska said.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• pacific
• bell
• shooting
• anthony
• abodaca
• central
• office
• riverside

[capitaltelephone]

that switch was a WECO 1AESS

[omnicron10]

@capitaltelephone

I dont think it was a 1AESS. I believe it was a #5 crossbar. You can see the video pictures of the controller. The had to ship a old cross bar controller from San Deigo. They also had no custom calling features on the 714-369 714-781 714-787 and 714-788 prefixes affected which a 1A would have. Additionally it was replaced with a DMS switch.

[capitaltelephone]

@omnicron10

i dont know but it sure looked like a 1AESS but they may have replaced it with #5 crossbar controler.

i have a friend who is a switchman for qwest and said it was 1AESS.

[omnicron10]

@capitaltelephone

There was a 1AESS in the building as well but the major damage was to the crossbar. My Former Pacific Bell employee contacts tell me it was a #5 crossbar. They handled the order to get the crossbar controller from San Diego to Riverside. The shooter knew exactly what to shoot to cause the most damage. Amazing thing was that calls in process were not dropped if the circuit was not damaged, just new calls. If you did that to a 1A it would lose all calls.

[omnicron10]

It was a replaced with a DMS 100 from Nortel. Still in service today.



[omnicron10]

Oct. 15 1987,Daily News of LA MAN WHO SHOT UP PHONE OFFICE FOUND INNOCENT A man who stormed a Pac Bell telephone office and peppered equipment with shotgun fire was found innocent of the $6 mil attack by reason of insanity. Antonio Apodaca, 47, who said he was seething with "ugly thoughts of violence" had been involved in a dispute with the telephone company over disability payments before the Apl 13 incident.

[xxxApodacaxxx]

Eff u guys this is my grandpa and wat he did was right cuz that company jus screwed their workers ovr.

[futuresoccerstar08]

This is my uncle and he did it for a great cause!

[MrTimFarnham]

@omnicron10 This office never had a 1AESS, the #5ETS cu 0 and cu 1 can be confusing (it looks like a 1AESS system installed). Another frame required (for the 2 processors to talk to the #5 Crossbar System) was the DAS frame (Distributing And Scanning equipment). I was a switchman in this office for 12 years, then promoted to Engineer (this was one of my offices ... and yes it was replaced by a DMS 100). Another engineer did the replacement, I was working at Bellcore by then.

[MrTimFarnham]

@capitaltelephone That switch was NOT a WECO 1AESS, it was a #5 Crossbar System equipped with Electronic Translation (actually there were three (3) Marker Groups, MG 0 was flat spring, MG 100 was wire spring and MG 200 was a Phase III Centrex #5 Crossbar System (I was the WECO observer (switchman for Pacific Telephone and Telegraph) that observed the Phase III Centrex installation. I started work in THIS office as a Frameman in the 1960's, I was a switchman in all three Marker Groups.

[capitaltelephone]

@omnicron10

yeah your right about that. ok so there was a 1AESS in the building but that was a crossbar ok i stand corrected.