Trophies
Paul Parker Chairperson, Free the LA Four Plus Defense Committee
(Afternoon, October 1993. His girlfriend’s house in Westwood. He is dressed in Ivy League clothing. I had seen him in court several times, where he wore African clothing. He told me he wore Ivy League clothing in Westwood, so as to be able to move with the “program” and not to attract too much attention.)
So it’s just a PR type of program.
Gates knew that the police were catching a lot of flak
and he
also caught a lot of flak from being at a benefit
banquet,
um, the time when the rebellion
was comin’ down,
jumpin’ off.
It just goes to show more or less the extremes that he went to just to
get these brothers.
And when they came for my brother Lance more or less,
they sent out two SWAT teams simultaneously,
one to my brother’s and my fiancée’s residence and one to my mom’s.
They basically had Americas Most Wanted TV cameras there.
Saying he was a known gang member,
a big head honcho drug dealer in the underground world for the last
two years,
he owns two houses,
things of this nature,
and here my brother went to college for four years,
he’s been working in a law firm as a process server.
They basically paraded him around in the media,
saying we got the gunman, we got this guy.
They accused him of attempted murder, of shootin’ at Reginald Denny,
um, with a shotgun. They said he
attempted to blow up some gas pumps
and my father got shot in the streets eleven years ago
over a petty robbery,
and Van de Kamp,
their attitude was “We don’t want to bring your family through the
trauma and drama,
just stir up some more trouble.”
They basically feel that if it’s a black-on-black crime,
if it’s a nigger killin’ a nigger,
they don’t have no problem with that.
But let it be a white victim,
oh,
they gonna … they gonna go
to any extremes necessary
to basically convict some black people.
So that’s more or less how …
really what made me bitter
and I said well, I ain’t gonna stand for this,
I’m not gonna let you
just put my brother’s face around world TV headline news,
CNN world span,
and just basically portray him as a negative person.
I’m not gonna let you do that.
So that’s more or less when I just resigned from my job,
more or less quit my job, and I just took it on.
And like I said, I been in law enforcement for a while, I been in the
army for six years,
I been doin’ a lot of things.
So I just decided I’m not gonna let my brother, my one and only
brother, go down like that, my one and only brother,
my younger brother, so I decided to take this on full-time
and I was voted in as being chairperson of the Free the LA Four
Plus Defense Committee
and I been workin’ for all the brothers ever since.
Because Denny is white,
that’s the bottom line.
If Denny was Latino,
Indian, or black,
they wouldn’t give a damn,
they would not give a damn.
Because
many people got beat,
but you didn’t hear about the Lopezes or the Vaccas
or the, uh, Quintanas
or the, uh,
Tarvins.
You didn’t hear about them,
but you heard about the Reginald Denny beating,
the Reginald Denny beating,
the Reginald Denny beating.
This one white boy
paraded all around
this nation
to go do every talk show there is,
get paid left and right.
Oh, Reginald Denny,
this innocent white man.
But you didn’t hear nothin’ about all these other victims
until the day of the trial came.
(mimicking dorky voice)
“Well, this is more than about Reginald Denny. This is about several
people. Many people got beat up on the corner.”
So the bottom line is it, it, it’s
a white victim, you know, beaten down by some blacks.
“Innocent.”
I don’t see it on the innocent tip,
because if that’s the case,
then we supposed to have some empathy
or some sympathy toward this one white man?
It’s like well, how ’bout the empathy and the sympathy
toward blacks?
You know, like I said before, we innocent. Like I said,
you kidnapped us,
you raped our women,
you pull us over daily,
have us get out of our cars, sit down on the curb,
you go through our cars,
take all our papers out, go through our trunk,
all right,
and drive off,
don’t even give us a ticket.
You know we innocent,
you know where’s our justice,
where’s our self-respect,
but, hey, you want us to feel something toward
this white man, this white boy.
I’m like please,
it ain’t happenin’ here,
not from the real brothers and sisters.
That white man,
some feel that white boy just better be glad he’s alive,
’cause a lot of us didn’t make it.
They caught it on video.
Some brothers beatin’ the shit out of a white man.
And they were going to do everything in their power to convict these
brothers.
We spoke out on April 29.
Hoo (real pleasure),
it was flavorful,
it was juicy.
It was, uh,
it was good for the soul,
it was rejuven …
it was …
(count four, he sighs)
it, it, it was beautiful.
I was a cornerback
and I ran some track
and played football,
everything.
I been all off into sports since I was five.
It was …
it was bigger than any … any type of win I’ve been involved in.
I mean, we been National Champions,
Golden State League.
I been …
I have so many awards and trophies,
but, um, it’s … it’s nothing compared to this.
They lost seven hundred million dollars.
I mean, basically you puttin’ a race of people on notice.
We didn’t get to Beverly Hills but
that doesn’t mean we won’t get there,
you keep it up.
Um,
they’re talkin’ about “You burned down your own neighborhoods.”
And I say, “First of all,
we burned down these Koreans in this neighborhood.”
About ninety-eight percent of the stores that got burned down were
Korean.
The Koreans was like the Jews in the day
and we put them in check.
You know, we got rid of all these Korean stores over here.
All these little liquor stores.
You know, we got rid of all that.
We
did more in three days than all these
politicians been doin’ for years.
We just spoke out.
We didn’t have a plan.
We just acted and we acted in a way that was just.
Now we got some weapons, we got our pride.
We holdin’ our heads up and our chest out.
We like yeah, brother, we did this!
We got the gang truce jumpin’ off.
Basically it’s
that you as black people ain’t takin’ this shit no more.
Even back in slavery.
’Cause I saw Roots when I was young.
My dad made sure. He sat us down
in front of that TV
when Roots came on,
so it’s embedded in me
since then.
And just to see that aye aye.
This is for Kunta.
This is for Kizzy.
This is for Chicken George.
I mean,
it was that type of thing,
it was some victory.
I mean, it was burnin’ everywhere.
It was takin’ things and nobody was tellin’ nobody.
It wasn’t callin’ 911.
“Aww they are takin’.”
Unh-unh, it was like “Baby, go get me some too.”
“I’m a little bit too old to move but get me somethin’.”
You know, I mean, it was the spirit. I mean, actually today
they don’t know who … who … who …
You know, they only got these …
What?
Eight people.
Eight people
out of several thousand?
Um (real mock disappointment).
Um, um,
they lost.
Oh.
Big time.
No Justice No Peace.
That’s just more or less, I guess you could say, motto.
When I finally get my house I’m gonna have just one room set aside.
Gonna have up on the wall No Justice,
over here No Peace,
and have all my articles
and clippings and, um,
everything else.
I guess so my son can see,
my children can grow up with it.
Know what Daddy did.
You know, if I still happen to be here,
God willin’,
they can just see what it takes
to be a strong black man,
what you gotta do for your people,
you know.
When God calls you, this is what you gotta do.
You either stand
or you fall.
You either be black
or you die
and (exhale),
you know, with No Justice No Peace
it … it’s,
you know, um,
I guess you might say it’s fairly simple,
but to me it’s pretty, um,
not complex,
but then again it’s deep,
it’s nothin’ shallow.
It basically just means if there’s no justice here
then we not gonna give them any peace.
You know, we don’t have any peace.
They not gonna have no peace,
a peace of mind,
you know,
a physical peace,
you know, body.
You might have a dent … a dent in your head from now on in life.
It might not be you
but it may be your daughter.
You know, somewhere
in your family
you won’t have no peace.
You know, it … it’s that type of thing.
Without doing, say, justice,
if I don’t do what I’m doing,
when I do
happen to die,
pass away,
I won’t be able to really rest,
I won’t have no peace,
’cause I didn’t do something in terms of justice.
I’m one brother
doing the work of
one brother
and
I just do that,
the best that I can do.
It’s educational.
It’s a blessing.
It’s a gift from God.
It’s Awful Hard to Break Away
Daryl Gates Former chief of Los Angeles Police Department and current talk show host
(In a lounge at the radio station where he does a talk show. He is in great physical shape and is wearing a tight-fitting golf shirt and jeans. There is the sound of a Xerox machine. This is my second interview with him.)
First of all, I … I don’t think it was a fund-raiser.
I don’t think it was a fund-raiser at all.
It was a group of
people
who were in opposition
to Proposition F.
We’re talking about long-term support.
We’re talking about people who
came out and supported me right from the beginning
of this controversy,
when people were trying to get me to retire and everything.
Real strong supporters
of mine
and they were supporting
a no against Prop …
Proposition F.
And they begged me to be there
and I said I would and this is before we knew the … the,
uh, verdicts were coming in
and I didn’t wanna go.
I didn’t like those things, I don’t like them at all,
but
strong supporters and I said I’ll drop by for a little while,
I’ll drop by,
and, um, so I had a commitment
and I’m a person who tries very hard to keep commitments
and somewhere along the way
better sense
should have
prevailed.
Not because it would have changed
the course of … of events in any way, shape, or form, it wouldn’t have.
I was in constant contact with my office.
I have radio beepers, telephones,
uh,
a portable telephone …
telephone in my car,
just about everything you’d need
to communicate anywhere within our power.
But somewhere along the line
I should have said
my commitment to them is
not as important as my overall commitment to the … to the city.
When I … when I thought things were getting
to the point that I had … we were having some serious problems,
I was almost there.
My intent was to drop in say, “Hey,
I think we got a … a, uh,
riot blossoming.
I can’t stay. I gotta get out of here.”
And that’s basically what I did.
The problem was
I was further away.
I thought it was in Bel Air. It turned out to be Pacific Palisades.
And my driver kept saying,
“We’re almost there, we’re almost there.”
You know, he was kinda …
he wasn’t sure of the distance either.
“We’re almost there, Chief, we’re almost there.”
My intent was
to say, “Hey, I … I gotta get outta here,” say hi,
and that’s what I intended to do,
and it’s awful hard to
break away.
I kept walking toward the door, walking toward the door.
People want a picture.
Shake your hand.
And it took longer than I thought it was
and I’ve criticized myself
from the very beginning. I’ve never, uh,
I’ve never, uh,
justified that in any way, shape, or form.
I said it was wrong. I shouldn’t have … I should have turned around.
I know better.
Would it have made any difference
if I had closeted myself in … in my office and did nothing?
I never would have been criticized.
But the very fact
that it gave that … that
perception of a fund-raiser,
and I know
in the minds of some
that’s a big
cocktail party
and
it wasn’t that at all, eh,
but, eh, in somebody’s home
and there weren’t that many people there at all
and anyway …
But I shouldn’t have gone!
If for no other reason
than it’s given
so many people
who wanted it
an opportunity to carp
and to criticize,
for … for
I should have been smarter.
I’m usually smart enough to realize hey,
I know I’ll be criticized for that,
and I’m not going to give them the opportunity.
But for some
reason I didn’t and, uh …
I think a lot of people who have … have
looked at me as being, uh,
stubborn and
obstinate
because I wouldn’t compromise
and I was not going to be forced out of the department
and I believed it would be overall harmful to the department to be
forced out
and I think
the department was demoralized anyway
and I think it would just have absolutely
totally demoralized ’em.
And when I stood up,
they said, “Hey,
by golly, uh,
uh,
he’s saying a lot of things that
I’d like to say.”
And some of them were just shaking with anger because they were
being accused of things
that
they wouldn’t think of doing and
didn’t do
and they know the people around them,
their partners, wouldn’t have done those types of things.
I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t feel and isn’t sensitive to
what is being said about them
day in and day out.
All you gotta do is pick up a newspaper and see what’s being said
about you in the Los Angeles Times
and the … and, and the … and in the electronic media.
I mean, it was day in and day out.
Editorials
and all kinds of things.
I mean, the community activists
and most of them were really nasty
politicians,
nasty. I mean, they weren’t so …
Nobody likes to read those types of things and more importantly
no one wants their friends and family