Joseph and Guns

  Joseph and Guns

“Growing Up In The Jackson Family,” LaToya autobio, February 7th 1991
An avid gun collector, Joseph kept a cache of loaded weapons under his bed and in his closets. Mother objected strongly, especially since he’d once accidentally shot out his brother in law’s eye during a hunting trip. “Joseph,” she used to say, “aren’t you tired of those guns? Haven’t you had enough?” He ignored her, taking perverse pleasure in aiming at one of us and squeezing the trigger. Click. What if he’d forgotten to empty the chamber?
“Joseph,” Mother would scold, “suppose something’s in it?”
“Katie, I checked; nothing’s in it,” he’d reply, then laugh out loud.
“Magic and Madness,” Taraborrelli, May 1991
“Joe has a whole stash of guns in his house,” said his former business manager Jerome Howard. “Under his bed, he’s got machine guns.”
Steve Howell, “I tried to explain that Michael had cleared it for me to be there but [Joe] got upset and told me to stay away or, he said, “I’ll make sure you stay away.” So I left. On my way out I talked it over with one of the guards. “You’d better do what he says,” the guard told me. “You know he has an Uzi he keeps.”
“Jackson Family Values” biography by Margaret Maldonado (Jermaine’s ex-girlfriend and mother to two of his children), November 1995
Away from work, life at Hayvenhurst had turned into a nasty TV soap opera, with much of the hostility directed at Joseph during his then infrequent visits to California. Despite his age and deteriorating physical condition, his children still lived in fear of their father because of his explosive temper and the collection of guns he kept upstairs underneath his bed and in his closet.
When Joseph got angry, his eyes would start to glaze over and his forehead would wrinkle. The transition was immediate and so identifiable that everyone who was able would run for cover. He would charge up the stairs, and we never knew when he might be bringing down a loaded gun and start firing. It never seemed to matter how the argument started. It only mattered to Joseph that he won.
One afternoon Jackie and Joseph got into a shoving match. They fought quite a bit over women since Jackie, as the handsomest brother, always had his pick of the lot and Joseph found that hard to deal with. Joseph wanted to have sex with everyone else’s girlfriend or wife. This was hardly something new. Katherine told me she thought Joseph had slept with the wife of one of his brothers. Katherine’s personal assistant, Amelia Paterson, physically stepped in between father and son to keep them from hurting each other. She knew better than anyone that a fight between Joseph and Jackie could easily turn deadly, just as it had for Marvin Gaye and his father. Amelia was a long time friend of Katherine’s and they loved each other like sisters. Because of that, she tolerated more from Joseph than any woman should ever have.
Amelia’s office was in the back of the house, and frequently Jermaine, Jackie an Randy would also use it to conduct business. One day it became the site of yet another family melodrama. Jackie and Randy were in a heated discussion with Jermaine over the way he was conducting family business. In the Jackson household, nothing stays quiet for long and, true to form, this discussion escalated into a fight at warp speed.
Hearing the argument, Joseph joined in, shouting his own insults. Then he got that familiar glazed look on his face and turned to leave. Amelia jumped up to her feet to try and stop him, asking him where he was doing. “I’m gonna get my tear gas gun and gas those boys outta here,” the old man yelled. It was only because of Amelia’s patience and abilities as a negotiator that Joseph didn’t carry out his plan.
[...]
When Randy discovered that Eliza was at the front gate with their daughter Stevanna, he confronted Joseph and the two of them got into a scuffle. Then Joseph headed toward his bedroom. Fearing Joseph was going for his guns, Randy grabbed onto his father’s shirt, ripping the material and pulling the elder Jackson down a flight of stairs.
By the time I arrived on the scene, a security guard was pointing a gun at Randy, attempting to follow Joseph’s instructions to throw him off the property. What I hadn’t realized was that Joseph had told the security guard that Randy was drunk as an excuse to give him the boot.