Published by M. Rutledge McCall at Smashwords
Copyright by M. Rutledge McCall
ISBN 978-0-9701531-0-4
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without express written permission from the author, except by established book reviewers who may quote brief passages in published reviews, provided they furnish the author with advance copy of such review(s) no less than 10 business days prior to publication of such review(s).
FIRST EDITION PUBLISHED IN APRIL 2000 (ISBN 978-0-9701531-0-4 / electronic book readers formats).
1st PRINT EDITION: NOV. 2000 (ISBN 978-0-9701531-1-1 / Hardcover).
2nd-3rd PRINTINGS: JUN. & AUG. 2002 (Special Hardcover, with CD-ROM ).
4th PRINTING: SEPTEMBER 2002 (ISBN 978-0-9701531-2-8 / Softcover).
5th-7th PRINTINGS: AUG. 2004, APR. 2005, AUG. & Dec. 2006 (Softcover).
Library of Congress Catalog Data:
McCall, M. Rutledge
SLIPPING INTO DARKNESS: A True Story from the American Ghetto
ISBN 978-0-9701531-0-4 (electronic book readers formats edition)
ISBN 978-0-9701531-1-1 (SOFTCOVER edition with CD attached electronic book reader format)
ISBN 978-0-9701531-2-8 (SOFTCOVER edition)
Library of Congress Catalog Number LCCN 00-191437
Published by M c C a l l B o o k s / Contact: McCall@MRutledgeMcCall.com
To purchase an autographed hardcopy of this book, please click on: Online Bookstore
To view a video demo of the movie version of this book on Youtube, click on: Youtube.com
What people are saying about M. Rutledge McCall's
Slipping Into Darkness...A True Story From The American Ghetto
"...as riveting as it is raw..."
- Publishers Weekly
"Like Hunter S. Thompson, McCall immerses himself totally in the milieu...brilliantly portraying a life and place most Americans can only imagine. McCall's on-the-scene perspective of this explosion of urban violence is stunning, filled with brutal details of gang life from the author's first-hand experience. From beginning to end, a riveting account of one of America's worst urban nightmares. Like Dante, McCall visited hell and emerged to tell the tale."
- Brett Peruzzi; Ebooks Reviews
" Powerful...engrossing...meaningful and relevant. McCall's poetic prose has a 'Fight Club' quality...with suspenseful vignettes building toward the anarchy of the L.A. riots. ...Unique and illuminating. Think 'Donny Brasco'-meets-'Fight Club'-meets-'Traffic'."
- Don Morgan; Phoenix Pictures ("SIXTH MAN," "THIN RED LINE")
"Riveting...disturbing...thought provoking...a monumental achievement. A must for anyone seeking to understand the inner city or gangs. A rousing, inspirational, exciting story...you won't be able to put down or forget."
- Charles Holland, Writer-Producer ("J.A.G.," "Murder One," "Soul Food")
"An immense and breathtaking research...McCall is a legend."
- Neheda Barakat, Exec. Producer; ABC Australia
"This book is kick a*s--I loved it!"
- Peter Iliff, writer ("PATRIOT GAMES"; "POINT BREAK")
"McCall's experience, his writing, the whole thing—excellent, amazing."
- Stacy Peralta, director ("RIDING GIANTS"; "DOG TOWN AND Z BOYS")
"Poignant...a powerfully important work with implications for every major city the world over."
- Carol Wightman, Senior Producer; BBC Scotland
"Highly recommended...a masterful piece of work by ANY standard. Anyone seeking to understand the danger and the intoxication of gang life needs to read this book, and mark its lessons well."
- Karen Bernardo; BookReview.com
"Gritty...a true triumph... McCall pries up the corner beneath the polite media hum...gives us a good look at the dark subconscious of our society."
- George Geiger, Writer-Producer ("Profiler," "Miami Vice," "Hunter")
"...reminds us that our capacity to do good as individuals is matched only by our ability to do evil as a group...McCall is masterful!"
- Orlando Jones, (Host, "THE ORLANDO JONES SHOW"; actor, "TIME MACHINE," "DOUBLE TAKE," "MAGNOLIA")
"Wow, what a ride--one we can all learn from...a gruesome reality just twenty nail-biting minutes from Beverly Hills."
- Julia Rogers, Reporter; KABC News
"So intense that there were times I had to walk away from it...the most realistic look ever, about life within gangs..."
- Scribesworld Reviews
"Awesome...simply incredible. McCall is one of the best writers in America today. Definitely Pulitzer material."
- Cindy Bond, President; Providence Entertainment ("OMEGA CODE," "EXTREME DAYS")
"Slipping Into Darkness... is the 'APOCALYPSE NOW' of the American inner city ghetto."
- Jonathan Krauss; Illusion Entertainment ("JFK")
"An incredible account. Well done!"
- Tom Morton; "The Tom Morton Show," BBC U.K.
"...the most intense book for revealing the extreme in gang behavior..."
- Dr. Eric Goldfeder; FamilyConsultants.com
"McCall...truly an amazing writer."
- Susan Solomon; Industry Entertainment ("CSI: Crime Scene Investigators"/CBS)
"An astounding book…I loved it."
- Marla Ginsburg, Producer; Vertikal Entertainment ("La Femme Nikita," "Highlander")
"...a tragic tale, primal and compelling, which McCall brings to us with raw and intoxicating energy. A fearless hegira into a place and consciousness so foreign it's difficult to believe it exists in America. ...A book for the brave."
- Alexander Martin, Ph.D.; Psychotherapist
"This is great stuff...McCall is just [totally] crazy."
- Steve Feke, Writer-Producer ("Beastmaster," "Profiler")
"...a great book...powerful..."
- Frank Yablans, Studio Chief-Writer ("NORTH DALLAS 40," "MOMMY DEAREST")
"It'll make a great movie!"
- David O. Sacks, Producer("THANK YOU FOR SMOKING")
"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
--Proverbs 27:17
What is going on in the most powerful and influential country in the world where as many people are slaughtered in her inner city ghettos as the number of her slain soldiers in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq?
This incredible saga details the time I spent living in one of the largest, most violent ghettos in America: California's South Central, Compton and Watts. During the sixteen months I was there, gang members were sending bullet riddled corpses to county morgues at the rate of one almost every 11 hours and the murder rate in Los Angeles was the highest in the city's history. After spending months in these violent neighborhoods on a regular basis, gang members developed sufficient trust in me that they allowed me to be involved in every aspect of their lives. To go where they went, to see what they saw, to do what they did. To move among them as no white outsider had ever been allowed. In the end, I came to know firsthand what is occurring in America's slums that for decades has been turning so many innocent six year old boys into 16 year old killers or corpses, at a rate that outpaces the carnage of war.
The coincidental timing of my research encompassed some of the most violent episodes ever to grip Los Angeles. The ordeal not only shattered my perceptions of violence and racism in America, it shattered my entire life and became the genesis of permanent change within me. Where I once lived for my own desires and interests, I now live making every effort to consider the conditions and struggles of people I encounter. Where I once lived by my own guidelines and eclectic moral compass, I now make every effort to live by the ways and words of God, with Whom our walk is a lifelong journey—and one far more sure than the natural ways of man.
This book is dedicated to men--of all colors, all nationalities, all religions. We must learn to shoulder our responsibilities as men together, or continue to battle and abandon each other, allowing our roles and effectiveness in this world to further diminish.
The sequence of some of the events that follow has been shuffled, in order to protect the guilty...myself included.
- M. Rutledge McCall
A special "Thank you" to my friends Charles Holland and George Geiger, for their generosity and assistance with this book when I needed it most...
The author would like to thank the following:
The creation of our damnation, the gangsters of South Central for teaching me how to be a real man in a "white man's world": until the books are balanced, forgive us, for we know not what we do; Bookie (I love you, my brother...watch yo back, homie: yours is tha funeral I dread tha most); Downer, my little brother 4evah (how many times you saved my life...); BeFase (in a better world, you'd be The man, G); Goldie, the first OG to see me as just anotha nigga in tha 'hood (thanks for opening tha door without prejudice and fa watchin after me); Casper restinpeace (out of the madness, and Home); Smiley (thanks for not loanin me tha .38 that night and helping me chill, B); Tina & Pearl; Lil'Insane; Monster; Junior; Mr. Termite; Big Fish; Zodiac, for tha gauge shells that afternoon; Stranger; Bird; Joker; Eyeball (rap rap rappin on Heaven's doah), Rokk, Lil'Bear, Scooby; Bam; Lil'Evil & Twin; Li'Skin; the Blood Stone Pirus; the Street Villains; the Outlaw Bloods; Nine Four Hoover Crip Gangsters; 27th St. Ghetto Boy Gangsters; Joseph Cardenas; Charles Washington Jr.; BJ (everyone's mama, now with the Lord); Frankie; Janita Jones; Tommy Carr; Jamila Jones; Eugene Smith; Ramon Portillo; John Jones; Douglas Smith; Timothy Banks; Sebastian Canales; Juventino Campos; Lorenzo Henderson; Oscar Portillo; Randy Strickland; Leon Brown; Lynn & Justin Washington; Bobbie Washington; Carol; Clio; Charlene Andrews; Liliana Barake; Chris Olumese; Rene & Soledad; Maria Rodriguez; Mercedes Cardenas, Richard, Maria & Chicho; the insane cops at Shootin Newton & 77th Street Stations for hardly ever cuffing me and never booking me because they were too suspicious; the brownshirts, LASD (who really put in work for their set) for never booking me because I was too white; Paso Robles for keeping Downer alive; Mayor Tom & Lili; Rollin 60's for their bad aim wid a 9 (you busted first); CHP for their bad aim wid a M16; Charles Holland for his genuine, caring concern; Leslie "They Wanna Know About You" Garson for going above & beyond with a lost maniac; Alice Shepherd, Cheryl Sirotinsky & Cathy Nicastro for their patient transcribing & typing; producer Neheda Barakat for her permanent belief in the story (and for not panicking when tha Bloods busted tha Tech 9); Johnny Levin, William Morris Beverly Hills; Lori Morris (sorry bout tha shootout, kiddo--jus be glad I was strapped); Stuart Miller; esqs. Enedina Garcia, Debra Werbel, Eric Zucker & overworked Public Defenders everywhere; Greg Critzer; Chris Williams; Alistaire Sinclair; London Daily Mail; Sylvester Monroe; Time; Michael Meyer; Newsweek; Lyndon Stanbler; People; Bob Beckel; Duncan Campbell; "LARRY KING LIVE"; CNN; Audrey Colina; "NBC TODAY"; producer Carol Wightman for coming across The Pond and doing 2 award-winning pieces; BBC Scotland; NBC; Paul Lowe; KFWB; KNBC "Nightside Cover Story"; Sunny Bernstein & Marc Powell; Willard Abraham, Ph.D.; Copley News Service; KCET "Life & Times"; Warren Olney; Jim & Phyllis M. for getting me to the hospital so I could wake up and watch my world disintegrate; Dr. David W. for helping me to see it was a world of misery anyway; Chief Gates for a smashing climax; Amy Meo for her patient guidance; Cindy Bond for her endless encouragement; David Sacks for putting his money where his mouth is; Stephan Belafonte for his tenacious belief in the project; and to Jesus Christ for protecting me every step of the way. And to all those lounge chair critics who said I should have done "something positive" while I was in the Full Moon Lunacy of South Central, I say "Walk in my shoes...I walked in theirs." And finally, to everyone who said it couldn't be done...well?
PROLOGUE: "LIGHT EM UP, G" - A TASTE
Chapter 1: "HEAD UP, TOE TA TOE" - THE PUEBLO BISHOPS INCIDENT
Chapter 2: "BIRTH OF THE BEAST" - HOW THA DRAMA CAME DOWN
Chapter 3: "WELCOME TO THA JUNGLE" - HONKIES NEED NOT APPLY
Chapter 4: "OPEN GATES OF SHEOL" - FADE BACK
Chapter 5: "HANGIN 101" - DON'T JUDGE A BOOK
Chapter 6: "SLANGIN 101" - SOUTH CENTRAL FUEL
Chapter 7: "BANGIN 101" - END OF THE HONEYMOON
Chapter 8: "FULL MOON LUNACY IN LOS ANGELES" - MADNESS SETS IN
Chapter 9: "NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE" - INVITATION TO A BLOOD BATH
Chapter 10: "SMOKE THA NIGGAS" - DOCTOR JEKYL
Chapter 11: "GET IN THA RING" - NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY
Chapter 12: "OUT OF ORDER" - CONTEMPT FOR COURT
Chapter 13: "JUS ANOTHA NIGGA IN THA HOOD" - DANCIN WITH THA DEVIL
Chapter 14: "LOCK 'N LOAD" - HARDCORE
Chapter 15: "LEAD POISON" - DEATH OF A HOMEBOY
Chapter 16: "SOUTH CENTRAL MADNESS" - A CONSCIENCE CAN SOMETIMES BE A PEST
Chapter 17: "PAYBACK TIME" - ANOTHA NEIGHBORHOOD STREETSWEEPIN WAR
Chapter 18: THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION" - WAR OF THE WORLDS
- EPILOGUE -
Chapter 19: "WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE" - LOST IN SPACE
Chapter 20: "AFTERMATH" - LIFE GOES ON
Chapter 21: "A SHOT AT THE AMERICAN DREAM" - WHAT FUTURE L.A.?
Chapter 22: "OUT-TAKES" - TRANSCRIPTS OF CONVERSATIONS WITH GANG MEMBERS
Chapter 23: "GLOSSARY" - 225 GANGBANGER TERMS, SLANG & JARGON DEFINED
"Gangbangin'a be aroun forevah...we don' die, we multiply."
--Bookie; ranking member, Blood Stone Pirus, east side South Central Los Angeles
A TASTE
Dusk. South Los Angeles. Shimmering heat wafting from scorched pavement. Rap music booming from slow cars. Hardcore black and brown hoodlums in oversized khakis, baggy shirts, baseball caps, red scarves, blue rags, green bandannas, All Stars, Buffalinos. Rolling off of dirty mattresses and threadbare couches across South Central, Compton and Watts.
Shake sleep from nervous eyes, and PCP from foggy brains. Take drags from cigarette butts, and pulls on last night's Olde English 800. Pick through cold fries and hard Twinkies. Score some primos, smoke 'em up. Check the ammo. Tuck 9-millimeter semiautomatics, Uzi's and AK47's under shirts, on floorboards, close at hand. Blue down, flame up, roll out.
Homemade tatts, seared into flesh with indelible ink and red hot needles during stints in places like Chino, San Quentin, Tehachipi, Tracy, Paso Robles, L.A. County Jail. If you ain't lived behind steel bars, taken a slug or seen a homie laid to rest, then you sure as hell ain't no gangsta.
Bloods. Crips. Latino G's. The city's discarded trash, shunted out of view. Ticks, dug under the skin of life. The Chosen Few. Ghetto sharks with empty lives, lying in wait. Dead eyes firing lead from days filled with hate. Black leather knuckles from calloused points of view. Fades, short afros, defiant corn-row doo's. Scarred brown faces fresh from barred places. Treading forth to take charge of their domain. Assured saunter, kiss-my-dick smirk, cool, calm, in command. Thousands of straight gauge-toting, ice blooded regulators, carrying tags like Downer, Bookie, BeFase, Casper, Smiley, Lil'Insane, Monster, Goldie, Eyeball, Mister Termite, Psycho, Demon. Strange, compelling, repulsive human beings you shiver at the thought of. Caught in the crosshairs of society's Appointed Watchdogs, but holding their own. And growing in numbers. Pirus, Street Villains, Rolling 60's, Bishops, Swans, Grape Streets, Outlaws, 8-Trays, Clantons, Mara Salvatruchas, Hoovers, East Coasts, F18's, Bounty Hunters. Hundreds more. They'll shove a blazing Mac-10 right down the throat of any cop caught slippin, 'cause when you got nothin...
Ah, and the beloved murkiness of night, to break the routine of day--the waiting and waiting, for action, for opportunity, for victims, for healing, for enemies, for sentencing, for release. For death. But till then, it's flat-out, like a runaway freight train gathering speed on the outskirts of a hapless burg.
At dusk, don't be on the streets unless you're strapped down or wearing a badge. Dracula is rising with the moon and he's evil, heartless and raging for warm blood. Women and whites will be the evening's appetizers, so lock your doors, keep your head low, your eyes averted, and mash the gas pedal until you're safely home, because you don't belong in this 'hood. Everyone's a victim, no one is innocent.
By midnight, the G's will be feeding off of each other in a frenzy of hollow-tip slugs, baseball bats, knives, sawed off shotguns. Like the mirror image of a junkie, grinning anxious for the first spike of the day sunk into a bruised vein, delivering that wondrous, godly thrill of china white in a bullet rush confusion of drifting, screaming, drifting, sweet revelation to round off the jagged edges of life, gangbangers are restless until the first fiery BOOM!-BOOM! cracks the murky cloak of night. Then it's ON...and all the better if an enemy corpse is left for the meat wagon and a message for the world: We're Here to Stay.
SLIPPING INTO DARKNESS
...A True Story from the American Ghetto
Chapter 1: "HEAD UP, TOE TA TOE"
There's gonna be a killin afta midnight
All tha niggas gettin ready fo tha big fight...
Loadin up our weapons for
Anotha street-sweepin neighbahood war...
So if you gonna come, come hard
O' you'a jus be anotha nigga in tha morgue
--"Another Nigger in the Morgue"; the Geto Boys, Rap-A-Lot Records
THE PUEBLO BISHOPS INCIDENT
The night was Friday. October 18, 1991. Bookie and BeFase, two young warriors from the Blood Stone Pirus, had invited me to a midnight gathering of scores of Blood gangsters from several different sets. There, I would be introduced to the gang leaders. I'd put several painstaking months into my field research and had yet to get near the real meat of the story: the elusive OG's, the feared "original gangstas" of "AMERICA'S MOST WANTED," "COPS" and Nightly News notoriety. It was a huge break. My patience in building a rapport with the G's had paid off. It would be downhill from there.
The party was in the heart of South Central Los Angeles, across the tracks from the Pueblo Del Rio housing project, two minutes north of Compton. It was a monthly get-together of the Pirus, the Outlaw Bloods, one or two smaller Blood outfits and the Pueblo Bishop Bloods--sets that occasionally got together for some drug-fueled, drunken fun. Most gangs, whether Crips with Crips, or Bloods with Bloods, don't usually click up. They're too busy battling each other over turf control or drug deals gone sour or violent incidents that went down so long ago the current members know only from lore and instinct who they're supposed to hate.
A chill was biting the wind as I left my westside bungalow and stabbed east in my beat up little bucket, a dented gray Datsun. Manchester onto Florence, past Normandie, cut over to Slauson. I didn't dare dress in blatant red, I was no Blood. I sure as hell wasn't black. My one wardrobe acquiescence to being among Blood gangsters was to bundle my chest-length hair behind my head with a strip of red cloth. I wore a leather jacket, black jeans on my drainpipe legs, and black high-tops. G'd down white man.
The sparse Slauson Avenue traffic was mostly non-descript sedans packed with young Blacks or Latinos. There was less light and more blight as I burrowed toward South Central. Fewer and fewer street lamps, less and less traffic, dwindling signs of humanity. Patrol cars were scarce; pedestrians nonexistent. Through Rollin 60's territory. Under the Harbor freeway. Through an East Coast Crip 'hood. To the destination, a desolate strip of land north of Watts. A steel forest of salvage operations, manufacturing and construction firms, and packing warehouses. Jagged, leviathan machinery resting in dark junkyards cast eerie shadows of frozen gargoyles. Bristle-eared pit bulls and Dobermans forced bared fangs through openings in flimsy sheet-metal gates, hungrily sniffing for trespassers.
The Five Deuce Pueblo Bishop Bloods held sway over the surrounding turf. I knew nothing about them except that they were descended from The Slausons gang of the 1950's and 60's, and that most Bloods, and all Crips, harbored a deep mistrust and hatred of them.
At Pacific Avenue I realized I was lost. The razor-fenced railroad tracks on Long Beach Avenue zippered the industrial section to the rundown Pueblos housing project and prevented most streets from going through, creating a trap for the unwary. Suddenly, the cacophony of nerve jangling South Central night sounds stopped. The hairs on my neck tingled. An uneasy hush blanketed the moon drenched realm. No helicopters overhead. No dogs barking. No screeching tires. No breaking glass. No sirens, no screaming, no gun shots. Nothing. I doubled back around. My imagination riveted itself to the probable fate of a white man with the bad luck to run out of gas at this time of night in the very heart of Gang Motherland, where every human being alive had better be in a police car or carrying a loaded weapon or be safely tucked into bed in a house with iron bars on all the windows. I felt an irrational measure of security in locking the car door.
I cut down Santa Fe, over to Alameda and up 55th. Ahead in the dark I could make out the familiar, flimsy, mustard colored boxes that represent housing for the county's lesser privileged. The projects appeared deserted. I slowed down and peered into the veils of darkness between the barrack-like buildings, and detected hazy forms. Small pockets of men, standing, talking, drinking, waiting. I was too late. The party had broken up. Dejected, I crossed the Metro Rail tracks to head back home. Then I spotted them: a crimson sea of gangsters--more than a hundred--clad in hellfire red, flowing out onto the street in front of a drab, cinderblock bar. Bloods. Men so hard they didn't have to act it. Bottles were clutched in fists. Olde English 800, Cisco, Colt 45 Malt, Jack Daniels, wine coolers. Liquid keys to unlock the Beast. To whet the anger and slake mean thirsts. To rinse smoky mouths blowing primo, sherm, bud, bo, chronic--anything to neutralize the conscience and put more bricks in the wall between Us and Them.
Mean glares speared me as I rolled slowly by ("Tha fuck you lookin at?") trying to pinpoint Bookie and BeFase. That was the first time I had seen so many gang members together in one place. I'd never even seen that many black men all at once. At long last I was about to meet the dreaded leaders, the Original Gangstas. With my contacts there, I would feel at ease being the stranger in this vicious looking horde of street thugs--and I had no doubt that every one of them was strapped to the teeth with firearms ranging from .25 automatics to Tech-9 machine pistols. A subdued exhilaration came over me ("...To boldly go where no whitey has gone before..."). I was thrilled to have made connections that finally allowed me to get this close to an element of society that is shunned, hated, and rarely seen up-close by Caucasian civilians.
Attitude and body language, in the world of men, are as important as makeup and shaved legs to women. After months of being with guys who survived daily in a virtual war zone, I had the attitude down. Assured saunter, don't grin, don't look confused or eager or lost or amazed or dumb. Look cool and calm and in command and together and semi-detached. And not too white.
I parked and trudged toward the swarm. A tall, heavyset man in his early 20's was pulling his muscle-bound bulk out of a Pontiac Catalina across the street. His maroon sweatshirt had the sleeves ripped off, revealing arms the color and thickness of telephone poles. He casually turned and faced me...and froze in place. His nose pumped steaming rods of hot breath into the cold air.
"Whas up," I nodded.
He straightened stiffly. His eyes nailed into me as I glided past in a measured, assured stride.
As I neared the party, conversations ceased. Jaws dropped. Eyes locked onto me. Bottles held ready to sip were lowered.
"Damn...thas a white boy!"
"Tha fuck's he doin down here?"
The mass of gangsters was so thick I had to slice through shoulder first. "Scuse me. Pardon. How'ya doin, man. Pard'n me." I felt little concern as I stepped onto the sidewalk. After all, my friends and their big brothers, Blood OG's, were there.
The air was heavy with marijuana smoke and the pungent, clinical odor of sherms. Drinking, smoking gang members deep in the crowd who hadn't seen me arrive, suddenly stopped talking as I shoved past with my bold scuse me's, audacious blue eyes and impudent blond ponytail...the only white skin for forty square miles. Alone in the dead of night when G's gear up for a weekend of mayhem and cold murder.
As I plowed ahead I began to feel resistance. Then more. The deeper I hewed into the throng, the harder I had to lean. It became shoving and pushing against me but I took the blame. "Oop, sorry man."
"Well watch yo ass then, muthafucka."
Soon I was cutting a wake of stony silence. My eyes swept back and forth, desperately searching, searching. It took every ounce of self control to stifle the numb panic rising beneath my calm exterior. Adrenaline gushed through my body. I felt short of breath but forced myself to breathe like I was strolling through a park in the sunshine. These were no young warriors climbing the ranks of gang hierarchy. These were the ones who'd cursed me in the 'hood and warned their younger homies away from me. These were the Founders, the Leaders. Street hardened men who had spent more time in hospital emergency rooms, jail cells and funeral parlors in their teens alone than most white men do their entire lives. The guys I was looking for were a bit younger, a little further down the totem pole--almost children by comparison...and teetering on the edge of the yawing chasm of aimless, drifting humanity before my eyes.
My friends weren't there.
Utterances grew louder and took on menacing tones.
"Hello, uh, officer."
"Whachu doin down here, boy?"
"Who you lookin fo, man?" a brawny guy on the corner asked me. He had a 40-ounce in one hand and a reefer in the other.
I didn't dare let my anxiety show. Seeing my fear would be the spark to bring on sudden mob attack. I tried to act like I belonged there. "Coupla friends," I answered. "They told me to meet 'em here."
"Whata they names?"
"Bookie and BeFase."
That drew a blank from the big guy. Tension mounted.
"Boy, you in tha wrong neighbahood."
"White ass mufuckah."
As I talked with the guy, G's pressed close and sized me up like some strange creature at the zoo.
"Where dey from?" he demanded.
"Blood Stone Pirus," I answered coolly, ignoring the increasing jostling against me. I felt a fleeting sense of relief that I chose not to slip the microcassette recorder into my pocket when I got out of the car moments earlier.
"Who are you? How you know dem?" he persisted.
I wasn't sure how Bookie would have explained my presence there and I sure as hell wasn't about to go into a long-winded discourse on how I'd tricked my way close enough to gang members to learn about this get-together. RUN! my mind shrieked.
I stood fast and lied lamely, "I'm just a friend."
Somebody laughed.
By that point, it really didn't matter who I claimed to be. To them I was the Blue Eyed White Devil himself. With no badge, no gun, and no one to vouch for me. To them it was laughable that I would know any gangbanger for any reason. Worst of all, I was in an area controlled, dominated, and practically owned by these hated Pueblo Bishop Bloods. I was in their den without an invitation.
"Owww, man...somebody fuckin witchu," the big fellow smirked.
Subtly, the gangsters began to shift away from us. An unnerving quiet settled over the crowd.
The Blood turned his red-clad back to me. "Man, you betta take yo ass outta here. Real fass."
My mind streaked for words, answers, explanations. Why hadn't they shown? Was it all a setup? Over the months, I had developed a budding friendship with Bookie, BeFase and several other gang members. I'd gone to bat for them when the only white men they knew were trying to keep them behind bars. I had learned a lot about the world they traversed and the crimes they'd committed, and never judged them. What went wrong?
I had to decide quick. Should I hope to connect with a couple of solid punches before the stomping turned to a blood frenzy? Run? ...Or let it happen.
A man behind me asked, "Dey Piru?"
I never had a chance to answer. The fist that CRUNCHED into my jaw made a sound in my head like chewing gravel. I didn't see who landed that first blow. Nor the last. I stood my ground as long as I could.
Welcome to the world of gangbanging, white boy. You've thrust yourself into a world you don't belong. Your punishment is only beginning.
Chapter 2: "BIRTH OF THE BEAST"
"It is my belief we don't know a helluva lot about gangs. I don't know what the hell to do about it, as a matter of fact."
--L.A.P.D. Chief Daryl F. Gates; quoted in California Criminal Justice Legal Journal, 1991
HOW THE DRAMA CAME DOWN
During 1991, L.A. street gangsters were laying a fresh corpse on a coroner's slab every eleven hours and twenty minutes, on average. By Christmas, 771 citizens had been slid into chilled boxes at county morgues, outpacing the gang murder rate set by the Mafia in their homeland of Palermo, Sicily. From 1982 through 1991, a steady fifteen percent annual increase in killings racked up more than four thousand bodies on L.A. streets. And the numbers kept rising--bloody evidence that polite society's portrait of the gangbanger outlaws was true.
Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates wasn't the only crime expert baffled about gangs. In the 1980's, the Los Angeles Police Department had described gangs as highly organized groups that dominated the nation's cocaine traffic. And they had research to prove it: an annual report on organized crime done at the University of Southern California. The L.A. County Sheriff's Department claimed just the opposite, that gangs were poorly organized, lacked leadership, and only dabbled in the drug trade. They also had research to prove it...conducted at the same university.
Nobody could be trusted to say how many gang members there really were. Official estimates ran the gamut. Publications and organizations ranging from the Los Angeles Times and BUZZ magazine, to the FBI, the National School Safety Center, and even California state Attorney General Dan Lundgren, had the total rocket from 25,000 in 1981 to 200,000 in 1991--an eight hundred percent explosion in the number of gangsters roaming armed and loose in the streets--while the growth rate of the population of L.A. poked along at less than eighteen percent.
Police records couldn't be trusted to tell the truth about gangs. Many departments manipulated gang data for political gain. In January of 1989 the L.A. Times reported that the police chief of one California city was fired for allegedly presenting falsified statistics on a gang prevention program that won his department state and national honors.
Elected officials couldn't be trusted to figure out who joins gangs. In the Summer of 1992, Ira Reiner (then District Attorney of L.A. County) released a report titled "Gangs, Crime and Violence in Los Angeles." The report unleashed a firestorm of protests by stating that nearly half of all black men from the age of 21 to 24 were involved in gang activity and were practically the sole reason for the rise in the murder rate. Reiner's report was riddled with inaccuracies and chuckling lapses of logic. It included names of dead gang members, duplicate listings of thousands of members, people who had never been arrested at all, inactive gang members, and people who dress like gangsters. Eventually the D.A.'s office, the LAPD and the Sheriff's Department admitted they had goofed up.
Some organizations couldn't even be trusted to say anything accurate about gangs and didn't even make a decent stab at providing the truth. Life Skills Education (a firm based in Massachusetts that distributes learning materials to schools throughout the U.S.) stated in a pamphlet they published in 1990: "One gang in Los Angeles has declared the entire subway system as their turf." ...There wasn't one single subway in L.A. when the pamphlet was first released, and the new subway system being planned was years away from construction.
Truth is, gang "facts" were mumbo jumbo, and gangsterism was shrouded in mystery and hysteria. Tens of thousands of the venomous snakes were slithering all over L.A. County with arrest records longer than a PR24 police baton. Auto theft, burglary, drug dealing, possession of concealed firearms, aggravated assault, forcible rape, premeditated murder, you name it. Everything but treason.
Most information about gangbanging had come from police blotters or from writers talking with gang members behind bars or in daylight, curbside interviews, during which a gangster's statement about his world would vary according to his motive for granting the interview. I wanted the real picture, the gritty details, the facts. And those could only be found behind the veil, within the secretive confines of the G's closeknit world. A world where funerals are commonplace and life is cheap, dirty, and quick as a puff of smoke from the barrel of a sawed off twelve gauge shotgun bloody with felonies.
"We ain no gang...we a social club."
--Junior; ranking member, 27th Street Ghetto Boy Gangsters, east side South Central
Black gangbanging existed as far back as the late 1940s. Gangs were formed both as social cliques and as a defense against white racial violence. Black gangsterism slowed down significantly for a few years after the 1965 Watts riot due to intense police and community pressure. Gangs such as the Slausons, the Neighborhoods, the Home Streets, and the Businessmen were driven underground or broken up altogether. Like a Phoenix from the ashes of Watts '65, modern gangsterism gradually reemerged, buoyed by remnants or followers or children of former members of a diversity of groups ranging from the Black Panthers to the US Organization to militant black Muslim factions.
The Bloods and the Crips are internationally renowned, the creme de la creme of contemporary street thugs. The Crips trace their roots to August of 1972, when a Freemont High School student named Raymond Washington founded a group that became known as the "107th St. Hoover Crip Gangsters." A nasty scuffle had broken out between Ray's group and some local ballers near 109th and Figueroa, in South Central. When the fracas ended and the smoke cleared, Ray's boys went back to their turf at 107th & Hoover. The Los Angeles Sentinel dubbed Ray and his group "The gang from 107th & Hoover --the Crips." When asked about his "cripple-style walk," Washington said it was cooler than cripple, it was the "California Rip Walk." Eventually, a G clever with acronyms started the idea that Crip stands for "Community Revolution In Progress." The Crip color is Blue, Ray's favorite. Identification of Crip association is by wearing blue clothes, or a blue bandanna on the head, or (back in the early days) a blue flag or rag hanging from a back pocket. Ray Washington was killed by a rival gangster in the summer of 1979, at 64th and San Pedro St. in South L.A. He was 26.
Bloods were formed as a response to violent disputes and territory rivalries that flared up between the Crips and locals they were shoving around. Young Blacks banded together in groups to protect themselves and their neighborhoods from the violence perpetrated by Crips, and the vicious spiral began. The term Blood is a continuation of the familiar acknowledgement of the common bond of brotherhood between Blacks, "Blood brothers." Bloods took the color of blood as their public ID.
No one owns the name Blood or Crip. These aren't franchises like the Hell's Angels or Jack in the Box, and they have little or no respect for other gangs using the same moniker. Any neighborhood gang who wants to tag either term onto their set name can do so, which is usually decided by what gang they hate the most ("Hell wit dem Crips!--we'a be Bloods!"). Now and then, different gangs with the same surname might share a park for a little bar-b-que and brew. But watch your footing and keep your gun fully loaded and fingertip close because those little get-togethers usually end in bloodshed, if not shots fired and cheekbones slammed against drunk fists.
Latino gangsters not only outnumber Bloods and Crips, they predate them by a few decades. Responding to the demands of an increasingly violent environment, Latino gangs evolved into grotesque offspring of their less complex descendants of the early 20th century, when groups of Mexican men from the same varrios socialized together in the evenings or after work or on weekends. Back then, their macho put-on was mostly the preening of cocks for hens.
The largest population of Latino gang members in America is in Southern California, where La Vida Loca is spiraling out of control. During the 1980's, Central American refugees fleeing war torn countries were welcomed into the U.S. They were no frail beggars. Many had military training, were born and raised in wartime, and were trained in power, terror and the fine art of calculated death. The criminal element among them armed themselves heavily--more than willing to fill coffins in order to exert control over turfs that had been traditionally held by Latino gangs for decades in southern California.
Black and Latino gang territories often overlap, and the bloody escalation in the struggle for dominance between Latinos caused Blood and Crip sets to be dragged into frays they had no part in. That and racial beefs fired up in State prisons greatly heightened the friction between black and Latino gangs on the streets.
The harmony one might observe between the two dominant cultures in south L.A. is mostly a tenuous tolerance. Bubbling underneath is a serious mutual frustration. Blacks are tired of being shoved aside by the startling growth of the Latino population, and feel they are losing ground in job opportunities. Latinos grumble that the brunt of the civil rights activity of the latter half of this century benefited Blacks and practically ignored Latinos. Heaped onto the conflict is the fact that the L.A. area was established by the Spanish around 1770. A dozen or so years later it was colonized by men of African descent, along with some Mexican Indians. Then, around 1820, Mexico claimed it. In 1846 it was taken back by the Yanquis. Thus, indigenous Mexicans once controlled L.A. ("El Pueblo," as they named it) but Africans comprised the majority of the founders--and once owned the land on which Beverly Hills now lounges.
Several other sore spots added to the stretch and strain: Nearly three times as many Blacks die from homicides, suicides and strokes than Latinos. More than twice as many Blacks die from cancer and heart disease than Latinos. The black infant death rate is higher than that of Latinos (and twice as high as whites).Nearly half of black children lived below the poverty line in 1989, compared to just over a third of Latino children. The average black family earns less than their Latino counterparts (and only two thirds of what a white family makes). Blacks have the highest rates of mortgage rejections (Latinos have the second highest). The suicide rate among Blacks between the ages of 10 and 19 nearly doubled between 1980 and 1995 (66% by guns).
"A gang is a group of people who interact at a high rate among themselves to the exclusion of other groups, have a group name, claim a neighborhood or other territory and engage in criminal and other antisocial behavior on a regular basis."
--California Council on Criminal Justice; defining gangs for those who don't know
According to individual protections guaranteed by the First and Fourth Amendments, as well as the California Constitution, gang membership is not illegal and no one can be arrested because of how they look or what they wear. But it's becoming less easy to visually identify gang members these days. Kids enjoy the fashion thrill of dressing like a gangster...and you don't want the Real McCoy to flash his ID. [A story in the L.A. Herald Examiner on October 18, 1984 reported, "Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates urged that civil sanctions be imposed against suspected offenders who wore gang attire. His proposal was quietly dropped after civil libertarians pointed out the impropriety of imposing legal sanctions based on the way people look."]
It is illegal to belong to a "criminal street gang," which is defined in the California Penal Code as "...an ongoing organization, association or group of three or more persons, whether formal or informal, having as one of its primary activities the commission of one or more of [the following] criminal acts...: assault with a deadly weapon or assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury; robbery; unlawful homicide or manslaughter; sale, possession for sale, transportation, manufacture, offer for sale or offer to manufacture controlled substances; shooting at an inhabited dwelling or vehicle; arson; intimidation of witnesses." If the activities include the commission, attempted commission, or solicitation of two or more of those offenses within a specified time period and within a certain time period in relation to each other, then they form "a distinct pattern of criminal gang activity."
To put it neatly, three or more members of a group must commit one or more certain crimes in a specified pattern and period of time in order to be considered a gang. Each perpetrator would then be liable for prosecution as a gang member, which qualifies him for special penalties at sentencing. The kink in the plan is that The System is sluggishly overloaded with cases. It takes a prosecutor extra time and effort to compile the additional evidence to show that a defendant is a member of a criminal street gang. Hampering that effort is that computer data bases that purport to track gang connections and activities have proven to be as reliable as wet gunpowder.
"Cops got tatts, we got tatts. They spray they tags on buildings when'ey bust us. They got nicknames, jus like us. They got guns, we got guns. Lotta them do drugs; lotta us do. They got colors, blue er brown; we got colors, red er blue. Only diffrence is they get protected an paid fa breakin da law."
--Big Fish; triple OG, Outlaws Bloods, east side South Central
The Los Angeles Police Department has a sad reputation as the most overworked, understaffed force in the nation. In 1991, the LAPD's 8,200 officers were stretched tighter than a drumskin over the jumbled sprawl of L.A. and her three and a half million inhabitants. That's one lonely cop riding herd over an average of 427 citizens, ranging from movie moguls and burger flippers to housewives and hoodlums.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department had it no easier. Although they had roughly the same number of lawmen as LAPD and only two-thirds the residents to serve and protect, they covered twice the territory. With imbalances like that, nerves can fray, tensions can flare, and self protectiveness can unbalance a man's Code of Conduct.
I couldn't receive enough monthly compensation to take on the job of an LAPD or LASD lawman assigned to the War Zone of South Central Los Angeles. I'd go stark raving loony in a month and start shooting anything that moved. All senses must be tuned to Full Alert the entire shift, not a second to let down your guard. And how easy would it be to relax after work when you've been wound tighter than a bomb clock while protecting citizens against gangsters, hustlers, dealers and busters for ten or twelve solid hours every day?
During the months I spent experiencing south L.A. life in the exclusive company of outlaw gangsters, I developed a grudging admiration for some cops from LAPD's 77th Street and "Shootin" Newton St. Stations. What precise balance of calm self restraint and macho cockiness those guys had to constantly maintain due to the element they dealt with night and day. On one hand, too much grinning friendliness is seen as weakness by most gangbangers. On the other, being all swinging batons, flying elbows and spitting foam can get you marked for revenge by a drugged-out, gun-toting reprobate one dark night while cruising your beat. While an officer generally wouldn't be reprimanded for delivering a side street pounding to a gangbanger, he'd surely be put on the list for the same brand of street justice from the Other Side, who see lawmen as members of the biggest enemy gang in south L.A.
In the summer of 1988, seven dozen police officers raided an apartment building at 39th and Dalton in south L.A. Intelligence gleaned by CRASH (an acronym for Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, the LAPD gang detail; the Sheriff Department's gang unit is the O.S.S., Operation Safe Streets) indicated that the place was a rock cocaine house controlled by gangs. Cops blew in like Vikings on a slash and burn rampage. With axes and battering rams they rendered the building into kindling. Walls were broken, stairways and toilets smashed, bleach poured on clothes, and furniture tossed out of windows. A 60 year old man was beaten and his home ransacked. Officers arrested 80 people, scrawled "GANG TASK FORCE RULES" on a wall, and left.
After the dust cleared and inquiries began, the cops claimed that gang members had done all the damage. But there were problems with the bust: less than an ounce of coke and six ounces of marijuana were found, none of the criminal charges against the defendants were sustained at trial, police brass determined that 38 cops had committed acts of misconduct during the raid, and an independent commission discovered that lawmen had perpetrated 127 acts of vandalism. A judge ruled that Chief Gates and the City Attorney's Office improperly withheld materials pertaining to the case, and Deputy District Attorney Chris Darden claimed that several LAPD officers he called as witnesses had committed perjury. In a subsequent civil lawsuit against the cops, the plaintiffs won a 3.4 million dollar settlement. Yet, not one of the officers involved in the incident were found guilty. Many were later promoted.
The targeting of the building by CRASH was part of what LAPD called "Operation Hammer"--swift, highly coordinated sweeps of suspected gang infested locations. Problem was, the sweeps netted hundreds of arrests but only small handfuls of felony charges. The NAACP complained that police were harassing black neighborhoods and stopping youths simply because of the style and color of their clothing. City bureaucrats waved it all off, saying, "Policing's a tough job, and everyone makes mistakes." ...But the mistakes would go on and on.
"...we're not trained to win fair and square. We're trained to win. Period."
--LAPD Capt. James Tatreau; L.A. Times, 12/16/91
"Yeh, Ta Serve an Protec. And break a brotha's neck!"
--A Compton Avenue Crip, paraphrasing LAPD's motto
On Monday, March 4, 1991, television station KTLA aired a videotape showing a black man being clubbed relentlessly by four white police officers while two dozen cops stood around and watched. Over the next several weeks, the grisly clip aired incessantly. In subsequent court papers, the officers maintained that they were simply doing their job when they fractured Rodney King's eye socket, broke his cheekbone and leg, and smashed bones at the base of his neck in eleven places. They justified their actions by stating that King had initially refused to yield to their efforts at pulling over his speeding car and that when he finally stopped he was "combative and noncompliant...acted as if he was under the influence of PCP...appeared to be reaching for a weapon," and they added that Mr. King was a "fleeing felon on parole."
It turned out that King had no weapon. Nor were the officers aware of his police record until after they finished beating on him. Toxicological tests revealed no PCP in his system. And in the video tape that showed him being pummeled, King appeared unreasonably passive. Although he remembered being called "nigger" during the incident, King told the press that he believed the attack had nothing to do with skin color. Opinions differed. The resulting furor pitted the involved officers against each other the way they play Good Cop/Bad Cop on criminals. Melanie Singer, a California Highway Patrol officer who first attempted to pull King's speeding car over, told Internal Affairs detectives that she, "did not feel that any of the strikes [from the batons wielded by the four L.A. cops] against King were necessary." Rolando Solano, an LAPD cop who had witnessed the scene, told investigators he was "shocked...by some of the chops which hit King's face," and that he was "surprised King could be hit so hard and still be standing." He wasn't standing for long. Eyewitness Eloise Camp stated to Internal Affairs that she thought they had killed King since he had stopped moving.
On a Saturday afternoon in the middle of March, almost before the public had time to react to the King beating, another grisly scene was captured by a video camera: a young black girl in a small grocery store takes a small bottle from a cooler, places it in her backpack and walks toward the counter. The grocer, a Korean woman, yells at the girl and yanks her by the sweater. The girl hits the woman. The woman falls down, comes back up with a stool and throws it at the girl. The girl takes the bottle in her hand. The woman reaches beneath the counter and pulls out a handgun. The girl puts the bottle on the counter. The woman fumbles with the gun. The girl turns and walks toward the exit. The woman shouts at her. The gun fires. The bullet strikes the girl in the back of the head... Fifteen year old Latasha Harlins died almost instantly. The taped incident joined the Rodney King video on the nightly news circuit. Former Federal prosecutor, Judge Joyce A. Karlin, a petite blond, was assigned the case in her Compton court.
In the ensuing months, a hurricane of racial turbulence descended on southern California. The news media shoveled feverishly into past incidents involving police abuse of black citizens. From 1986 through 1989, the City of Los Angeles had been shelling out an average of nearly $80,000 every week to settle citizen complaints that alleged excessive use of force by city cops. Discipline against the officers involved was minor or nonexistent. By 1990 the median weekly payouts had doubled, and by 1992 they doubled again. Quorums and forums were convened to talk the mess out. At meetings, marches and rallies, outraged citizens clashed with law enforcement, sometimes violently.
In an effort to calm the storm, police chief Daryl Gates (whose canon of ethics had previously blasted various ethnic groups from south of the border as "lazy" and "drunks," and had railed that Blacks weren't like "normal people") held a public meeting at his downtown headquarters. In a composed and reassuring manner, the chief blamed the outrage on the media and on the timing of the Persian Gulf War. Gates stated, "...the war's over...If the war had just lasted a few more days..." His would. Gates' walk as head honcho of the LAPD was on the gangplank.
"They give me a stick, they give me a gun, they give me 50 g's to have some fun."
--Typed on a squad car computer by an LAPD cop; reported in the Christopher Commission Report
On April Fool's Day of 1991, attorney Warren Christopher (who served as vice-chairman of the commission that investigated the 1965 Watts riots, and became Secretary of State in the Clinton administration) was appointed to head the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department. Dubbed "The Christopher Commission," the ten member panel set out to look into practices and attitudes on the mostly white police force.
By early summer, the Christopher Commission had managed to pull together an 11-chapter, 228-page report on the LAPD. The conclusions did not shock the populace: Chief Gates should be jettisoned and the police department radically overhauled. The missive revealed that hundreds of L.A. policemen freely admitted they were prejudiced against minority citizens, use of force was openly boasted of, and computer messages and radio calls between squad cars and dispatchers were joyfully sadistic and brimmed with naked racism:
"We're huntin...Muslim wabbits" / "...right out of Gorillas in the Mist" / "My shooting policy is based on nationality and looks." / "I knew Joe would beat somebody up by the end of the night..." / "I don't hit people, I shoot them." / "...made use of force list for the year proud of it..." / "Did you arrest the 85 yr old lady or just beat her up." "...just slapped her around... she's getting [medical treatment] right now." / "A full moon and a full gun make for a night of fun." / "Everybody you kill in the line of duty becomes a slave in the afterlife." "Then you will have a lot of slaves." / "Capture him, beat him and treat him like dirt..." / "...I thought the woman was going to cry...so I hit her with my baton." / "...God I wanna kill something oh so bad..." / "Sounds like monkey slapping time" / "I would love to drive down Slauson with a flame thrower..." / "If you encounter these negroes shoot first, ask questions later" / "U can c the color of the [car's] interior... Ya stop cars with blk interior ...Bees they naugahyde...Negrohide ..." / "Batten down the hatches, several thousand Zulus approaching..." / "I feel like I'm in Africa" / "I almost got me a Mexican last nite" / "Nothing but wetbacks no speaky English and ugly" / "OK, I heard he was looking for a few good men, no Puerto Ricans...No Nicaraguans, Cubans, El Salvadoreans" / "...we did an outstanding job...with those Jamacian junebugs" / "by the way do you still have that KKK meeting on Friday..." / "Monkeys in the trees, monkeys in the trees, hi ho dario monkeys in the trees" / "Why didja do it...you don't have to beat all of your arrestees up..." / "He didn't like that a ni--er was driving a brand new vette..."
"I read every single one of those messages and couldn't find anything that might be interpreted as racism."
--Gene Fretheim, LAPD sergeant from the same division as the officers involved in the Rodney King beating; L.A. Times, 1991
The Christopher Commission Report revealed that it was common for Gates to overrule or dismiss sustained complaints of misconduct against his officers. The report was a candid affirmation of the shabby treatment Blacks and Latinos suffered at the hands of the predominately white police force.
Cops were never disciplined after beating up Jose Sanchez and his family members when he had the gall to ask why patrolmen had come onto his property uninvited and without a warrant. And those were the law abiding Mexicans. Mean spics who really had it coming were treated to swift, pre-trial retribution. Like 24 year old Luis M. Morrales, who was beat so badly by L.A. cops that he lost his eyesight. In that case, an LAPD commander admitted that police had behaved with a "lynch mob mentality" when they worked Morrales over, yet no charges were sustained against the officers involved.
At burgeoning public hearings, Latinos, who comprise the largest and fastest growing ethnic group in the county, spoke out with increasing fury. Residents grumbled that there were often no Spanish speaking officers available to take citizen complaints. The police department discouraged complaints against their own, and had a nasty aversion to being finked on ("Why would anyone want to complain about a cop??"). A Latino caught at the front desk grousing about a flatfoot could usually be silenced in a variety of ways: forced to wait for hours or days before being permitted to file a statement; threats of expensive and lengthy defamation lawsuits; calling the Immigration and Naturalization Service; arrest on charges of interfering with police business.
While complaints against LAPD officers soared to record highs, cops from nearby cities were going after Ethnics with a vengeance, seemingly eager to top L.A.'s reputation. A Compton patrolman was charged with involuntary manslaughter after he pumped three slugs into a Samoan's rump and three into the back of the guy's brother while they were in the process of complying with the cop's orders to kneel. Witnesses say the officer blasted off nineteen shots from his weapon, ran out of ammo, reloaded, then resumed banging away. He claimed self defense. The prosecutor contended that there was no evidence to support the claim, yet the policeman beat the rap.
Flabbergasted minorities wondered what the city was coming to when kneeling, unarmed Samoans needed shooting.
Not even the K-9 dog units were spared from the citizens' outrage. Evidence showed that police dogs were being allowed to viciously attack more Blacks and Latinos than any other ethnic group. Police dogs were most often deployed in LAPD's south L.A. and South Central divisions, where the majority of bites were reported. A story in the Los Angeles Times on July 8, 1991, stated, "...in those cases where race was known, Blacks and Latinos made up more than 97% of the dog bite victims. Few of the incidents where the canine corps was summoned involved violent crimes...in 85% of the cases...there was no record that the [bitten suspect] was armed." [In all fairness to the dogs, they'd apparently chew on pretty much anyone. California Highway Patrol officer William Pinzon was helping LAPD search for a suspect in early '89 when he had his cheek gashed and his ear lobe shredded by a police dog named Dolf. Thirty minutes later, Dolf bolted from his handler and attacked tow truck driver Greg Landis, whom police had summoned to remove a vehicle involved in the earlier incident. By 1995, the LAPD would be paying millions to settle K-9 Unit abuse cases.]
The L.A. office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service jumped in on the frenzy of race stompings too. Early in 1991, an off-duty INS agent shot and killed an unarmed Latino youth he suspected of breaking into his car. The agent called it an accident. John Public was fed up with that line, fed up with the "furtive movement" canard, fed up with the "unfortunate accident" excuse whenever a peace officer shot an unarmed citizen. Why were L.A.-area lawmen so accident prone? And who wouldn't be furtive, surrounded by a free-for-all of club-swinging, gun-slinging, trigger-itching cops who had been shooting an average of one citizen every five or six days for over a decade--with no prosecutions?
Fresh police abuse reports flooded in at dizzying rates. Black celebrities lined up to tell their horror stories. TV sportscaster Joe Morgan, a National Baseball League Hall of Famer, won over a half a million dollars from the LAPD after being kicked around at the airport by a narc who mistook him for a drug courier. Former Lakers basketball player Jamaal Wilkes was roughed up and handcuffed by blue-suits who explained that his auto registration was "about to expire." Blair Underwood, of NBC/Fox's "L.A. LAW," and film actor Wesley Snipes, said they too had been manhandled by L.A.'s Finest.