New York, December 8, 1980. There were five shots fired that night, four that hit. And it happened like all great icon falls happen: in a matter of seconds. The death of John Lennon shocked generations, fulfilled a wish and unleashed ghosts. Everything, in the blink of an eye.
It was 10:50 p.m. Lennon and the controversial Yoko Ono had arrived at the Dakota, the apartment where they lived. At the entrance there was Mark David Chapmana young sociopath with self-esteem problems who sought to become someone important with what he was about to do. Of the four .38 caliber shots, two hit him in the back and another two hit him in the left shoulder. Ten minutes later, a music legend was declared dead.
In the whirlwind of screams that Chapman released it was difficult to distinguish anything, according to some witnesses who saw how that psychopath, to whom Lennon had signed an autograph hours before and that he coldly awaited the arrival of the police with his copy of The catcher in the ryeI managed to be someone important. Ono’s screams for an ambulance. And the last moments of the old beatle.
The building’s doorman and the taxi driver
The documentary Lennon: Murder Without a Trial has seen the light on Apple TV+, becoming more than just a chronicle of the night in which the British counterculture star went out. More than four decades later, one of the fragments lost in the maelstrom of that murder has come to light: Lennon’s last words, the ones he spoke before closing his eyes and with blood flowing from his mouth.
The one who gave voice to these seconds of his dark death was the doorman of the Dakota building, Jay Hasting, who was alerted by the noise of the gunshots and who tried to help the musician without luck. (John) ran past me. He told me they have shot me. He had blood coming out of his mouth. He simply collapsed to the ground. I rolled him onto his back, took off his glasses and put them on the desk., he reveals, to which he adds that Yoko was shouting bring an ambulance, bring an ambulance, bring an ambulance. They did listen to this, no matter how late it was to remedy anything.
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Another of the witnesses who spoke about that was the taxi driver Richard Peterson. He was sitting in his car, which he had parked in front of the same building. The shooting did not go unnoticed. Lennon was coming in and the guy said: John Lennon. He was a burly guy. I see him through the front window of my taxi. I’m looking at him and he shoots himhe confessed, dismayed, with a hollow voice and lack of air: this guy just shot John Lennon. I thought they were making a movie, but I didn’t see lights or cameras or anything, so I realized: hey, this isn’t a movie.. And it wasn’t. Just a sordid New York night interrupted by five gunshots that ended, in a matter of seconds, a life. And then the breath held in the city of skyscrapers.
