HIGH SANCTUARY AND SELECTED STORIES

About the Book

Four diverse and riveting stories each rising from the author’s world experiences, compelling, real, and yet surreal.

About the Author

Dan Gavin, aka Dan Sanchez, knows intimately of what he writes. A veteran of almost three decades on the Los Angeles Police Department he walked foot-beats in Watts, Skid Row, East Los Angeles, and Becon Street in San Pedro (once described as the toughest street in the world by Robert L. Ripley). Born in New York, he successively live in Harlem and South Bronx before moving to East Los Angeles in California. He was an outstanding amateur boxer. He joined the LAPD in 1952 graduating first in his class. He worked almost every facet of police work including but not limited to narcotics, vice, juvenile, homicide, burglary and robbery. He worked in Watts as a homicide detective taking a very active police roll in the 1965 Watts riot that raged for six days. Advancing through the ranks he came out number one on the Captain's list. In 1968, he created the Neighborhood Watch which Los Angeles Times reporter Jerry Ruhlow chronicled in the July 2, 1969 issue of The Los Angeles Times. This was not the only first for Sanchez. He became the first Hispanic officer to reach the rank of Commander. Always an athlete he garnered four gold medals in the Police Olympics while in his fifties. He was an underwater instructor for Los Angeles county. Passing the California Bar, he took an early retirement and became an international attorney. He taught law and police administration I many states and several countries including Spain, Russia and Mexico and had travelled widely throughout the world. He was the first American, not in the Peace Corp, to enter Vladivostok, Russia to teach at a university (Far Eastern Technological Institute).