McCartney Times

On December 8th, 1980, Keith Richards was in downtown New York, walking along Fifth Avenue. Just a few miles north, John Lennon was walking too; strolling beneath the archway of The Dakota apartment complex when five hollow-point bullets hit him in the back. The Dakota’s doorman, Jose Perdomo, in a stunning act of bravery, accosted the gunman (Mark Chapman) and shook the pistol from his hand.

While Perdomo restrained Chapman, a concierge ripped off a square of Lennon’s shirt to fashion a tourniquet, but on seeing the blood pouring from his chest, covered the musician’s wounds with a leather jacket and called the police. In the dark cloister of The Dakota, the metallic ring of those five bullets still hung in the air.

For those who were closest to him, the news of Lennon’s death was inconceivable, as Kieth Richards recalled in 2000: “I was downtown on Fifth Avenue in New York. The first bit of news I got, I thought: ‘He’ll make it. It’s just a flesh wound.’ And then, later on, the news really came. He wasn’t just a mate of mine, he was a mate of everybody’s, really. He was a funny guy. And you realise that you’re stunned. You really don’t believe it. And you think, ‘God, why can’t I do anything about it?’ I got well drunk on it. And I had another one for John. Then there was the confusion, the phone calls, trying to find out if Yoko was OK.”

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Source: The moment Keith Richards found out John Lennon was killed